隨著低碳時代的到來，建構低碳社會及踐行低碳生活已成為世界共同的呼聲，城市居民為一個龐大的社會群體，應加強城市居民對低碳生活的認知，讓低碳生活的價值深入公眾思想及強化公眾參與。民主治理的基本核心，在於人民主權(popular sovereignty)的原則，故人民政策偏好應與國家政策偏好呈現出一致性，也就是國家政策面對民眾政策偏好應該具有回應性(陳敦源，2004:105)，近年來「傾聽民意、回應民意」已成為我國各級政府部門朗朗上口的政治用詞，綜觀國際上地方政府決策過程中的公民參與機制正在改善，特別是在環境問題議題上，透過文獻檢閱研析三個國外地方政府環境參與情形得知，存有一個顯著程度顯示地方政府與非營利組織及民間的合作是存在的，公眾在地方層級積極參與環境議題被認為是有效的，尤其是在制度上的承諾。低碳議題屬環境議題之一環，爰此，本文試以文獻分析方式並以公民參與形式為比較標準進行比較國際上成功案例之紐瓦克，新澤西州(Newark, New Jersey)、托納旺達，紐約(Tonawanda, NewYork)及比什凱克，吉爾吉斯斯坦(Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)等三個地方自治團體於環境治理議題上，在決策過程中如何有效的透過公民參與機制來解決環境問題並分析其成功因素，經過比較分析後，本文重要研究結果為面對環境治理議題其發動及運作單位均是以地方政府或社區為基層單位，由此可得知環境治理議題解決之政府層級以最貼近在地民眾生活之地方政府最為有效，又地方政府起源於城市，正可呼應低碳城市為具體實現低碳目標之最佳基層單位，另一研究結果則是地方自治團體可與社區建立夥伴關係、透過合作及參與式預算方式或公開的聽證會等公民參與形式機制之建立讓民眾得以參與環境治理，雖然運作模式互異，然對環境議題之解決其結果呈現是有效的，故藉以推知國內實現低碳城市建構於地方政府之內化歷程中在決策過程中鼓勵建立公民參與機制是可行的，希冀本文成為國內低碳城市建構歷程之借鏡。

With the development of LC era, to construct LC society and to live a LC life has been the cry of people around the world. Citizens is a large social group and their consciousness about LC needs to be aroused to root the public mind with the value of LC life and increase their participation in creating LC life. The basic core of Democratic Governance lies in the principle of popular sovereignty, so people’s policy preference should in line with the national policy preference, which means when national policy faces the people’s policy preference, it should has responsiveness. (Don-Yun Chen, 2004:105). Recent years, “Listen to people’s opinions and response to them” has been the catchy political words of government departments at all levels. Making a comprehensive survey of international local government, it is noticed that people taking part in the decision-making process is improving, especially when it concerns with environment, by reviewing documents and analyzing people’s participation concerning environment problem in three foreign local governments, it is obvious that cooperation between local government and NPO or folks exists, and people’s active participation in environment topic is considered as an effective especially a commitment to the system. LC topic is a part of environment problem, hence, this paper tries to apply literature analysis method and the public participation form as standard to compare how to solve environmental problem effectively by public participation system during decision-making process in three international successful cases: Newark, New Jersey, Tonawanda, New York, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and to analyze its success factors. After comparison and analysis, the important conclusion drew is when facing environment problem. The basic launching and operating unit is local government or community, so it is concluded that the most effective government level to solve environment problem is local government who is closest to people’s life. Local governments generate from the city, which is the best basic unit in response to create LC City as the concrete way to realize LC goal. The other conclusion is that local organizations can form partnership with community to involve people in environment management, although the operation patterns are different, they are effective to solve environment problem. So it is feasible to encourage common people to involve in decision-making process of building a LC city by local government. I hope that this paper will be a reference to domestic LC city building process.