Submitted:
20 June 2020
Posted:
21 June 2020
Read the latest preprint version here
Abstract
This paper reviews research on community efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We conducted a systematic search of relevant literature and supplemented our findings with an analysis of review papers previously published on the topic. The results indicate that little experimental evaluation exists on community interventions to reduce greenhouse gases, limiting the conclusions which can be made about the efficacy of these efforts. As a result, we are not accumulating effective interventions and some communities may be implementing strategies that are not effective. We advocate the development of interdisciplinary programs of research that experimentally evaluate comprehensive community interventions. Such interventions would attempt to engage every sector of the community in identifying and implementing policies and practices to reduce emissions. Such interventions are likely to have synergistic effects, such that the total impact is greater than the sum of impact of individual components. We describe the value of interrupted time-series designs as an alternative to randomized trials because these designs are more feasible for evaluating strategies in entire communities.
Keywords:
systematic review
; community intervention
; greenhouse gas emissions
; climate change
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
