Background The EU’s 6th Environmental Action Programme identifies climate change as one of four key priority areas.The consensus is that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are a significant contributory factor in global warming. Therefore, Member States across the EU need to develop and implement CO2 reduction strategies in order to meet their targets and contribute to the EU target. The European Climate Change Programme sets out policies and measures to reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions to a level of 8 percent below the 1990 level by 2008-2012, in line with the Kyoto Protocol. Objectives CARRA addressed climate change at the local level via an area-based approach. CARRA sought to develop a carbon budget of CO2 emissions in the EC1 New Deal Area, which has high multiple deprivation indices. A further aim was to find ways of engaging citizens in climate change issues in this regeneration area, where it is likely that citizens may not traditionally have been aware of or involved with such issues. This assumption was tested via academic monitoring. Results CARRA determined whether the development and use of carbon dioxide budgeting and action projects were relevant to, and able to engage, citizens, stakeholders and institutions in an urban regeneration area and whether they would lead to increased levels of involvement and participation to reduce carbon emissions. Five action projects (Roscoe Street Towers; Schools Energy Action Project; Energy Ambassadors; SMEs’ Green Initiative and Safe & Sustainable Schools Travel Action Project) were developed and implemented. These projects linked climate change to energy use and regeneration issues (identified in the delivery strategies for the EC1 New Deal area) and aimed to target and engage different sectors of the community. An Evaluation Matrix was applied to each action project to determine how it performed according to a range of policy goals. Initially CARRA constructed the carbon budget baseline by identifying and collecting appropriate energy data from which to extrapolate carbon dioxide emissions. In practice, some data was hard to access and therefore alternative methods were devised and applied. Baseline results showed that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from the project area was 112,356 tonnes p.a. Following implementation of the five action projects, together with the impact of CARRA generally, the reviewed baseline figure at the end of the project was 110,095 tonnes p.a. - a 2.1 percent reduction in overall carbon dioxide emissions from the initial baseline. This figure includes realistic assumptions, the actual figure without assumptions is 1.47 percent. Monitoring by London Metropolitan University assessed the extent to which CARRA’s aims were achieved in terms of raising awareness and engaging citizens and stakeholders and, ultimately, integrating climate change objectives into action, strategies, policies and programmes. It found that carbon budgeting was not a resonant and engaging tool for securing local action on climate change, although after the project citizens showed more awareness of climate change issues and demonstrated more energy conservation behaviour. However, the CARRA Action Projects and project outputs, such as awareness raising materials, were successful in engaging different sectors of the community in local action to address climate change.