Many local governments around the world are enacting their own renewable energy policies. Cities are setting future renewable energy targets and CO2 emissions-reductions goals, enacting policies to support solar hot water and/or rooftop solar PV, modifying their urban planning methods or processes to incorporate future energy consumption, constructing demonstrations or pilot installations, and enacting a variety of other policies and programs. (See Table 7) [N35]

A number of cities have decided to purchase green power for municipal government buildings and operations. Examples are Portland, Oregon, and Santa Monica, California, in the United States, which purchase 100 percent of their power needs as green power. Other U.S. cities purchasing 10–20 percent of municipal government power are Chicago, Los Angeles,Minneapolis, and San Diego.

Many cities are adopting future targets of 10–20 percent of electricity from renewables for all consumers in the city, not just the municipal government. Examples are Adelaide, Australia; Cape Town, South Africa; Freiberg, Germany; and Sacramento (California), United States. Targets typically aim for some year in the 2010–2020 timeframe. Some targets are for share of total energy consumption, such as Daegu, Korea, with a target of 5 percent by 2012. Other city targets address installed capacity. Both Oxford, United Kingdom, and Cape Town, South Africa, are targeting 10 percent of homes with solar hot water by 2010 (and solar PV as well in Oxford). Barcelona, Spain, is targeting 100,000 square meters of solar hot water by 2010. Some local governments in the UK are requiring on-site renewables for all new buildings over specific size thresholds.

Some cities have also proposed or adopted CO2 emissions- reduction goals, typically a 10–20 percent reduction over a baseline level (usually 1990 levels), consistent with the form of Kyoto Protocol targets. (However, at the city level, such target setting is complicated by industrial production, as emissions associated with industry are not necessary attributable to residents of the city.) Examples are Freiburg, Germany (25 percent); Gwangju, Korea (20 percent); Sapporo, Japan (10 percent); Toronto, Canada (20 percent for municipal government energy); and Vancouver BC, Canada (6 percent). The Hague, Netherlands, plans for municipal government consumption to be "CO2 neutral" by 2006 and for the whole city to be "CO2 neutral" in the long term. Adelaide, Australia, plans "zero net emissions" by 2012 in buildings and by 2020 in transport.

Urban planning that incorporates future clean-energy visions is gaining hold in many cities, often with participation from a variety of stakeholders. Göteborg, Sweden, is an example of a city creating a long-term vision, through a project called Göteborg 2050. That project is a collaborative effort between universities, the city government, and the city’s energy utility. It includes research, scenario development, strategic planning, dialogue with the public, and demonstration projects. In Japan, where renewable energy policy has been quite active at the local level, 800 local governments have laid out future urban visions over the past 10 years, with support from a national government program. These Japanese cities are creating advanced and unique visions taking into consideration their local characteristics, and incorporating renewable energy into their visions. Cities worldwide are collectively organizing and participating in a variety of global initiatives that support renewable energy development at the local level, such as the Cities for Climate Protection campaign of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), the International Solar Cities Initiative, the European Solar Cities Initiative, the European Green Cities Network, and the European Climate Alliance.