Environmental scenarios and local-global level of community engagement: Environmental justice, jams, institutions and innovation

Abstract

National climate change policy currently operates on a continuum from the local community to the supra-national level. These initiatives include local deliberative processes of low-carbon futures as well as local-global interactions in ‘eco-innovation jam’ dialogues carried out in a virtual space, but founded on communicating with local stakeholder groups. Experiences from national processes and international examples of these structured dialogues of community engagement raise important questions of environmental justice and deliberative processes that facilitate participation by some groups, but perhaps also neglect others. This is particularly relevant since the environmental justice discourse traditionally frames environmental concerns in a place-bound manner that includes local responses to environmental questions. In this paper we argue the importance of local and global forums and deliberative processes for community engagement in order to incorporate stakeholders’ perceptions of future options for low-carbon living, travelling and consuming services and products. Important policy transformations in planning for low-carbon societies are outlined and results from cases are discussed. We conclude with three remarks about the importance of citizen participation for understanding local conditions for change, processes of localized internationalization, and new roles for nation states facing the climate change challenge. We also recognise the importance of the local and global level of deliberative processes targeting sustainable urban futures

Published in

Futures
2011, volume: 43, number: 4, pages: 413-423
Publisher: Elsevier

SLU Authors

• Westholm, Erik

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities
SDG13 Climate action

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.01.007

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/34073