Climate planning in Colorado: Community behavior change interventions to mitigate household carbon emissions

This study explores over a decade of local climate mitigation activity in Colorado. Based on the main premises that climate change impacts are due to human activities and that the local scale is the recommended scale for effective climate mitigation action, this study explores the intersection of local climate mitigation planning practice and applied behavior change strategies employed by municipalities and community non-profit agencies in Colorado to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.;Through primarily qualitative methods (interviews of planners, plan content analysis, case typology, case studies) as well as a simple descriptive quantitative analysis to triangulate findings, this study shows that Colorado municipalities involved in climate planning implement mitigation programs, such as home energy programs, outside the formal structure of municipal planning offices and rely upon collaboration with community, regional, utility and federal government partners. Results suggest that climate mitigation action occurs at different levels of involvement depending on four factors that influence municipal levels of involvement: political will, federal funding support, local government capacity, and diffusion of innovations. A case typology emerged, which is based on each municipality's settlement patterns of urban, suburban, and rural types, which categorizes the models of residential energy efficiency programs that are offered to residents in each community: an urban 'Energy Advisor' model, suburban 'Resource Smart' model, and rural mountain town 'Regional Non-Profit' model. Case studies exploring the implementation pathways of home energy programs are presented to understand behavior change program design and institutional arrangements of each type.;Communities are hubs of innovation diffusing climate action best practices throughout Colorado and the United States. The results confirm that municipalities are driving climate mitigation efforts, but engage in collaborations across sectors (government, non-governmental organizations, utilities, businesses) and scales to deliver programs, such as home energy efficiency programs. With voluntary home energy services available to homeowners across Colorado, the most difficult behavior to change is getting homeowners to make that first call to inquire about available services and incentives. Results show that once contact is made, approximately 30% of homeowners upgrade the energy efficiency of their home in some way. For deeper carbon reductions, policy instruments should consider including mandates for efficiency upgrades targeted at specific household behaviors.