As local officials and stake- holders move forward with urgent efforts to respond to climate chan... more As local officials and stake- holders move forward with urgent efforts to respond to climate change, these Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning provide an international benchmark for city-level climate action planning. Based on international best practices, these Guiding Principles offer principles applied to the typical steps in this planning process.
Afin d’encadrer les discussions que nous aurons aujourd’hui, j’aimerais effectuer un rapide survo... more Afin d’encadrer les discussions que nous aurons aujourd’hui, j’aimerais effectuer un rapide survol de l’évolution du rôle des villes dans la lutte aux changements climatiques à l’échelle mondiale. Ensuite, je parlerai de ce que nous savons sur l’état actuel de l’action urbaine face aux changements climatiques. Pour finir, je ferai quelques commentaires sur le nouveau contexte dans lequel se trouvent les villes en vue de la COP qui se tiendra à Paris à la fin du mois.
Pour tous ceux parmi nous qui travaillent sur les villes durables et les interventions relatives aux changements climatiques à l’échelle urbaine, les vingt dernières années ont été à la fois une période de succès impressionnants et de défis persistants. Au début des années 1990, quelques villes commençaient à promouvoir l’idée — contre-intuitive à l’époque — que les gouvernements locaux pouvaient jouer un rôle clé dans la lutte aux changements climatiques. Depuis ce temps, le mouvement des villes vertes a remporté plusieurs combats discursifs, politiques et techniques.
The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate chang... more The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate change. Yet while interest has broadened, actions remain shallow. This is in part because climate policies fit uneasily into existing bureaucratic structures and practices. Effective climate programmes require adaptive and innovative responses that span departmental divisions. This challenges siloised municipal offices that are embedded in their own organisational cultures and technical practices. Understanding those challenges is crucial to understanding urban responses to cli- mate change, but they remain critically understudied. This paper helps to fill that gap by looking at the experiences of two cities, Durban (KZN, South Africa) and Portland (OR, USA) as they attempt to put in place integrated responses to climate change. To do so, it brings together complementary critical perspectives drawn from the study of bureaucracies and complex institutions in sociology and geography. This hybrid critical framework is used to elaborate on both the organisational bar- riers that inhibit effective responses to climate change, and approaches that can be used to enable change and innovation.
Successful responses to climate change will involve broad networks of governance that link multip... more Successful responses to climate change will involve broad networks of governance that link multiple actors. But for this, its is important to understand the dynamics of certain key players. This paper focuses on one such player – the municipal bureaucracy – to ask two questions: First, what institutional barriers block the integrated municipal responses to climate change needed for a low carbon transition. Second, what reforms are necessary to create departments that are able maintain sustained innovation in the context of changing circumstances ? It is based on a case study of how one South African city, Durban, responded to an ongoing national electricity crisis that began in February 2008. This material is drawn from 70 interviews and participant observation conducted between October 2007 and April 2009. Durban2 is one of South Africa's leading cities on the issue of climate change. It has integrated climate considerations into official development planning processes, linking them to other development goals, and including them in the performance contracts for high level management. The city's Environmental Management Department, in partnership with the Tyndall Centre and the Golder Consultants, is also conducting advanced downscaling of global climate models, and carrying out projects related to food security, carbon mitigation, and renewable energy.
Urban responses to climate change are entering their third decade. The potential for cities to le... more Urban responses to climate change are entering their third decade. The potential for cities to lead in the field is now widely recognized. Efforts that began with a narrow focus on energy efficiency and mitigation are becoming increasingly ambitious, and have also expanded to include adaptation. Simultaneously, cities are moving climate change out of a narrowly environmental silo and attempting to mainstream it across the municipal bureaucracy. Some are also involving civil-society and private actors in climate planning and implementation. But important barriers remain. Current understandings of these issues are based on a variety of case study and best-practice literatures that provide detailed insights into specific localities, but are unable to identify regional and global trends. To gain access to this broader perspective, a survey was conducted among over 700 communities that are members of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. This survey explored the state of adaptation and mitigation planning globally, the challenges cities are facing, and the way that networks connecting multiple different players (municipal, community-based, and business) influence how climate policies are designed and implemented. A total of 350 cities (48%) responded to the 69 question survey. The majority of respondents were from the United States where ICLEI has its largest membership.
Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate C... more Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate Change Governance Survey (UCGS). Conducted at MIT in partnership with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the UCGS provides a first of its kind look at the governance networks that municipalities are creating to address climate change. Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an inte- gration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government’s are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts. Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.
Since the first urban climate initiatives began in the early 1990s, urban responses to the climat... more Since the first urban climate initiatives began in the early 1990s, urban responses to the climate challenge have progressively shed their narrow environmental framings. A technocratic focus on measuring and reducing emissions is being challenged by a more holistic conception of climate plan- ning and action that embraces increasingly complex engagements with other issues like economic development, equity, spatial development, health, and quality of life.1 As a result, this chapter argues, a new form of agency is emerging to drive urban responses to climate change forward. A top-down vision of cli- mate action focused on the regulatory powers of isolated local government agencies is being replaced by one that is horizontal, relational, and collab- orative. This is in response to the fact that no one agency or organization can take the cross-cutting action that holistic responses to climate change require. Rather, climate-relevant policies and programs are driven forward by coalitions of multiple different actors. This collaborative and networked approach to urban climate governance capitalizes on the synergies between objectives across different subject areas (emissions reductions and health, for example) and also between different groups of actors that cut across scales and bridge the governmental, civil-society, and private sectors. This approach transforms relationships both inside and outside of local govern- ments, by linking together traditionally siloized municipal agencies and also forging partnerships with civil-society and business actors.
As local officials and stake- holders move forward with urgent efforts to respond to climate chan... more As local officials and stake- holders move forward with urgent efforts to respond to climate change, these Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning provide an international benchmark for city-level climate action planning. Based on international best practices, these Guiding Principles offer principles applied to the typical steps in this planning process.
Afin d’encadrer les discussions que nous aurons aujourd’hui, j’aimerais effectuer un rapide survo... more Afin d’encadrer les discussions que nous aurons aujourd’hui, j’aimerais effectuer un rapide survol de l’évolution du rôle des villes dans la lutte aux changements climatiques à l’échelle mondiale. Ensuite, je parlerai de ce que nous savons sur l’état actuel de l’action urbaine face aux changements climatiques. Pour finir, je ferai quelques commentaires sur le nouveau contexte dans lequel se trouvent les villes en vue de la COP qui se tiendra à Paris à la fin du mois.
Pour tous ceux parmi nous qui travaillent sur les villes durables et les interventions relatives aux changements climatiques à l’échelle urbaine, les vingt dernières années ont été à la fois une période de succès impressionnants et de défis persistants. Au début des années 1990, quelques villes commençaient à promouvoir l’idée — contre-intuitive à l’époque — que les gouvernements locaux pouvaient jouer un rôle clé dans la lutte aux changements climatiques. Depuis ce temps, le mouvement des villes vertes a remporté plusieurs combats discursifs, politiques et techniques.
The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate chang... more The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate change. Yet while interest has broadened, actions remain shallow. This is in part because climate policies fit uneasily into existing bureaucratic structures and practices. Effective climate programmes require adaptive and innovative responses that span departmental divisions. This challenges siloised municipal offices that are embedded in their own organisational cultures and technical practices. Understanding those challenges is crucial to understanding urban responses to cli- mate change, but they remain critically understudied. This paper helps to fill that gap by looking at the experiences of two cities, Durban (KZN, South Africa) and Portland (OR, USA) as they attempt to put in place integrated responses to climate change. To do so, it brings together complementary critical perspectives drawn from the study of bureaucracies and complex institutions in sociology and geography. This hybrid critical framework is used to elaborate on both the organisational bar- riers that inhibit effective responses to climate change, and approaches that can be used to enable change and innovation.
Successful responses to climate change will involve broad networks of governance that link multip... more Successful responses to climate change will involve broad networks of governance that link multiple actors. But for this, its is important to understand the dynamics of certain key players. This paper focuses on one such player – the municipal bureaucracy – to ask two questions: First, what institutional barriers block the integrated municipal responses to climate change needed for a low carbon transition. Second, what reforms are necessary to create departments that are able maintain sustained innovation in the context of changing circumstances ? It is based on a case study of how one South African city, Durban, responded to an ongoing national electricity crisis that began in February 2008. This material is drawn from 70 interviews and participant observation conducted between October 2007 and April 2009. Durban2 is one of South Africa's leading cities on the issue of climate change. It has integrated climate considerations into official development planning processes, linking them to other development goals, and including them in the performance contracts for high level management. The city's Environmental Management Department, in partnership with the Tyndall Centre and the Golder Consultants, is also conducting advanced downscaling of global climate models, and carrying out projects related to food security, carbon mitigation, and renewable energy.
Urban responses to climate change are entering their third decade. The potential for cities to le... more Urban responses to climate change are entering their third decade. The potential for cities to lead in the field is now widely recognized. Efforts that began with a narrow focus on energy efficiency and mitigation are becoming increasingly ambitious, and have also expanded to include adaptation. Simultaneously, cities are moving climate change out of a narrowly environmental silo and attempting to mainstream it across the municipal bureaucracy. Some are also involving civil-society and private actors in climate planning and implementation. But important barriers remain. Current understandings of these issues are based on a variety of case study and best-practice literatures that provide detailed insights into specific localities, but are unable to identify regional and global trends. To gain access to this broader perspective, a survey was conducted among over 700 communities that are members of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. This survey explored the state of adaptation and mitigation planning globally, the challenges cities are facing, and the way that networks connecting multiple different players (municipal, community-based, and business) influence how climate policies are designed and implemented. A total of 350 cities (48%) responded to the 69 question survey. The majority of respondents were from the United States where ICLEI has its largest membership.
Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate C... more Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate Change Governance Survey (UCGS). Conducted at MIT in partnership with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the UCGS provides a first of its kind look at the governance networks that municipalities are creating to address climate change. Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an inte- gration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government’s are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts. Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.
Since the first urban climate initiatives began in the early 1990s, urban responses to the climat... more Since the first urban climate initiatives began in the early 1990s, urban responses to the climate challenge have progressively shed their narrow environmental framings. A technocratic focus on measuring and reducing emissions is being challenged by a more holistic conception of climate plan- ning and action that embraces increasingly complex engagements with other issues like economic development, equity, spatial development, health, and quality of life.1 As a result, this chapter argues, a new form of agency is emerging to drive urban responses to climate change forward. A top-down vision of cli- mate action focused on the regulatory powers of isolated local government agencies is being replaced by one that is horizontal, relational, and collab- orative. This is in response to the fact that no one agency or organization can take the cross-cutting action that holistic responses to climate change require. Rather, climate-relevant policies and programs are driven forward by coalitions of multiple different actors. This collaborative and networked approach to urban climate governance capitalizes on the synergies between objectives across different subject areas (emissions reductions and health, for example) and also between different groups of actors that cut across scales and bridge the governmental, civil-society, and private sectors. This approach transforms relationships both inside and outside of local govern- ments, by linking together traditionally siloized municipal agencies and also forging partnerships with civil-society and business actors.
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Papers by Alexander Aylett
Pour tous ceux parmi nous qui travaillent sur les villes durables et les interventions relatives aux changements climatiques à l’échelle urbaine, les vingt dernières années ont été à la fois une période de succès impressionnants et de défis persistants. Au début des années 1990, quelques villes commençaient à promouvoir l’idée — contre-intuitive à l’époque — que les gouvernements locaux pouvaient jouer un rôle clé dans la lutte aux changements climatiques. Depuis ce temps, le mouvement des villes vertes a remporté plusieurs combats discursifs, politiques et techniques.
Durban2 is one of South Africa's leading cities on the issue of climate change. It has integrated climate considerations into official development planning processes, linking them to other development goals, and including them in the performance contracts for high level management. The city's Environmental Management Department, in partnership with the Tyndall Centre and the Golder Consultants, is also conducting advanced downscaling of global climate models, and carrying out projects related to food security, carbon mitigation, and renewable energy.
Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an inte- gration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government’s are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts.
Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.
As a result, this chapter argues, a new form of agency is emerging to drive urban responses to climate change forward. A top-down vision of cli- mate action focused on the regulatory powers of isolated local government agencies is being replaced by one that is horizontal, relational, and collab- orative. This is in response to the fact that no one agency or organization can take the cross-cutting action that holistic responses to climate change require. Rather, climate-relevant policies and programs are driven forward by coalitions of multiple different actors. This collaborative and networked approach to urban climate governance capitalizes on the synergies between objectives across different subject areas (emissions reductions and health, for example) and also between different groups of actors that cut across scales and bridge the governmental, civil-society, and private sectors. This approach transforms relationships both inside and outside of local govern- ments, by linking together traditionally siloized municipal agencies and also forging partnerships with civil-society and business actors.
Pour tous ceux parmi nous qui travaillent sur les villes durables et les interventions relatives aux changements climatiques à l’échelle urbaine, les vingt dernières années ont été à la fois une période de succès impressionnants et de défis persistants. Au début des années 1990, quelques villes commençaient à promouvoir l’idée — contre-intuitive à l’époque — que les gouvernements locaux pouvaient jouer un rôle clé dans la lutte aux changements climatiques. Depuis ce temps, le mouvement des villes vertes a remporté plusieurs combats discursifs, politiques et techniques.
Durban2 is one of South Africa's leading cities on the issue of climate change. It has integrated climate considerations into official development planning processes, linking them to other development goals, and including them in the performance contracts for high level management. The city's Environmental Management Department, in partnership with the Tyndall Centre and the Golder Consultants, is also conducting advanced downscaling of global climate models, and carrying out projects related to food security, carbon mitigation, and renewable energy.
Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an inte- gration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government’s are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts.
Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.
As a result, this chapter argues, a new form of agency is emerging to drive urban responses to climate change forward. A top-down vision of cli- mate action focused on the regulatory powers of isolated local government agencies is being replaced by one that is horizontal, relational, and collab- orative. This is in response to the fact that no one agency or organization can take the cross-cutting action that holistic responses to climate change require. Rather, climate-relevant policies and programs are driven forward by coalitions of multiple different actors. This collaborative and networked approach to urban climate governance capitalizes on the synergies between objectives across different subject areas (emissions reductions and health, for example) and also between different groups of actors that cut across scales and bridge the governmental, civil-society, and private sectors. This approach transforms relationships both inside and outside of local govern- ments, by linking together traditionally siloized municipal agencies and also forging partnerships with civil-society and business actors.