Review and Critical Analysis of International UHI Studies

6 RECOMMENDED PRIORITY AREAS
6.1 Introduction
The evidence thus far assessed regarding the potential for energy savings and mitigation efforts
from countermeasures to urban heat islands presents a mixed picture. On the one hand there are
clearly cost effective energy and CO2 savings to be delivered in many circumstances, on the other
hand there is still much uncertainty about the overall magnitude of those savings and about how
feasible it is to access them through public policy initiatives. Our recommendations reflect this
pattern. We divide them into research based recommendations and policy/programmatic ones.
Despite existing uncertainties about the overall magnitude of savings that can be accessed
through public policy driven UHI counter measures the latter are still justified in many cases
because the uncertainties are not so great as to require the delay in measures within urban areas
that clearly stand to derive significant benefits from commencing ameliorative actions.
Furthermore, the apparent potential scale of mitigation impacts from countermeasures targeting
negative radiative forcing are so large that they justify a significant policy and research effort to
clarify the phenomena and respond with policy efforts if the mitigation scales are validated.
6.2 Policy priorities
This section puts forward proposals for the key priorities for policymakers who have the
potential to put in place policy portfolios influencing UHI countermeasures at the national, local
and international level.
6.2.1 Policy needs at the national level
At the national level there are the following policy needs:
� to establish policy dialogues that help raise awareness of the UHI phenomenon, the
significance of its impacts and mitigation potentials and of the range of policy options that
can be deployed
� to establish high‐level policy fora that consider the best way to roll‐out UHI
countermeasures while supporting efforts to minimize uncertainties
� to establish policy fora and mechanisms to inform and brief key state and city level officials
such as state and municipal energy and planning advisors of the significance of the UHI
phenomenon and the opportunities and mechanisms to abate it
� to develop a UHI clearinghouse where all relevant information is stored and maintained
and through which decision makers can have access to tools and expertise
It is important that these efforts should consider the two key UHI mitigation opportunities of
reduced energy use and negative radiative forcing within a common framework while
appreciating the issues which are distinct to each. In particular, it is significant that that the
negative radiative forcing effect has no direct monetary value aside from the value of equivalent‐
carbon mitigated yet is apparently of much greater mitigation magnitude than the direct/indirect
energy‐related savings effect. This means policy dialogues would need to consider whether or
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