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Covenant of Mayors: Reasons for Being an Environmentally and Energy Friendly Municipality
Author(s) -
PabloRomero María del P.,
SánchezBraza Antonio,
Manuel GonzálezLimón José
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/ropr.12135
Subject(s) - covenant , commit , politics , mainstream , renewable energy , population , european union , public economics , economics , business , political science , economic policy , sociology , law , demography , electrical engineering , database , computer science , engineering
The Covenant of Mayors (CM) is the mainstream European movement involving local authorities who voluntarily commit to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources within their territories with the aim of reducing CO 2 emissions and meet the European Union objectives by 2020. One country that has a greater number of signatories of this agreement is Spain. This article analyzes which factors influence the decision of Spanish local authorities to join the ever‐growing movement. An empirical model is formulated to describe the behavior of Spanish local governments, this being a binary choice model which is a function of various political, economic, and technical factors. Among the prominent factors that influence this decision are population, availability of renewable energy, fiscal and environmental stress, citizens’ political preference, the contagion effect of neighboring municipalities, the existence of covenant coordinators, and finally, economic motivations.