It is no secret that addressing climate change nationwide has been almost impossible. Political partisanship, differing state priorities, corporate interests, and bureaucratic red tape have largely stagnated federal-level policy measures in the United States. The question begs, how will our communities be ready to respond when disasters and extreme weather events strike?
In recent years, local governments across the United States have taken the lead to adapt to climate change within their jurisdictions. Several cities and towns across the country have enacted innovative strategies known as “climate action plans” to address local climate change impacts and threats. These plans devise detailed and strategic policy frameworks to meet emissions reductions goals, clean energy targets, and address related climate impacts. While these are a step in the right direction, many cities continue to experience low rates of policy implementation; the goals are abandoned and targets are seldom met. A study conducted by Brookings Institute finds that, despite many U.S. cities making pledges to act on climate, roughly two-thirds of cities that either enacted a climate action plan or conducted a greenhouse gas inventory failed to follow-up on their enacted plans and are lagging to meet emission reductions goals.
Given the urgency of climate change and the vulnerability of community residents worldwide, we must better understand what prevents this climate action failure from occurring, and what gives local governments the drive to follow through on their climate promises. Some studies suggest that internal governmental procedures and management are key determinants for a city’s sustainability. While these factors do matter, we seem to be overlooking the most important players in the game: people.
Because local governments operate at a scale that is typically quicker in responding to citizen needs, individuals have more opportunity to determine what climate measures are taken in their communities to lessen local impacts of climate change. Environmental activism through public participation in the policy-making process allows individuals and local organizations to inform local decision-making, and to make the tangible differences that may seem too daunting at the federal and global scales (where citizens often have less access).
While individual behavior or consumer decisions alone are not enough to deal with the scope of climate change, my research examined what influence citizens have on local policy making and climate action in their communities through city climate action plans.
To study this topic, I conducted a cross-comparative case study of four cities across the United States that have each adopted a climate action plan, analyzing their levels of public participation throughout the plan’s planning and implementation process. These cities were Chula Vista, CA; Kansas City, MO; Ashland, OR; and Carlisle, PA.
Based off of interviews conducted for each case study, I found two types of relationship pathways between environmental activism and policy implementation: proactive and reactive. The former relationship pathway indicates that activism serves as a catalyst and driver for policymaking, which is what I had hypothesized. What my findings show, however, is that activism and participation may also be a result to prior local government decision-making by providing a framework for new advocacy groups to develop and provide the city with feedback on its climate action efforts. In this way, previous implementation efforts established a platform for the public to become more involved in climate action within their community, and made them better equipped to understand and experience the direct effects of climate policy within their jurisdictions.
Additionally, engaging community throughout the entire policymaking process (enactment, development, implementation), as well as providing multiple avenues for participation (top-down and bottom-up mechanisms) are important to increase government accountability, understand community needs, provide technical assistance, and build relationships and social capital among community members.
My interviews also provided interesting insight into what effective public participation should look like for local governments. First, it should encourage grassroots mobilization and activism efforts at the beginning stages of policy enactment, and should balance a bottom-up and top-down approaches for strong climate action planning throughout development and implementation phases. Public participation mechanisms can be most useful to government when they are integrated at all points of the policymaking process, and with the presence of a appointed climate commissions and working groups to serve as liaisons in connecting community with government. Lastly, local governments are better able to create engaged communities by fostering inclusive participation processes and centering their climate efforts around equity and justice principles.
While government has a part to play in engaging community members, the public is equally as responsible in ensuring that their voices are heard. Through environmental activism and participating in local government decision-making, individuals have the power to impact their communities and ensure that their government is enacting, developing, and implementing climate strategies that align with their community needs and values.
As an environmentalist, I often hear the argument that one person or one initiative won’t change the climate crisis. What this research hoped to show is simple: only when all citizens are actively engaged and participatory can this country can begin building a more climate resilient future.
Amanda Christophe is a senior at the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
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