Local Thinking, Global Impact: How Councils Are Leading the Transition to a Better World
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Article summary
- Local government are increasingly effective players in climate action
- Local leaders are making significant strides while global leaders largely fail to drive real change
- The City Councils of Amsterdam, Melbourne and Oxford (UK) are just three examples of implementing effective local solutions that many national governments seem unable to achieve
- This shift in focus from global to local action offers a glimmer of hope for tackling this critical issue
by Daniel Simons
When it comes to climate action, our world leaders have essentially failed us. After decades of international meetings and negotiations, the best they have come up with is The Paris Agreement and a collection of underwhelming pledges that the UN has warned us won’t be enough to curb global warming.
The ineffectual attempts from our heads of state to stave off global boiling are causing many people to collapse into nihilism, but for concerned citizens around the world who want to see climate ambitions and action in line with the science, local councils have become bastions of hope.
Mayors and local representatives across the planet are defying the inadequate targets of global leaders, setting their own more radical goals, and accelerating the transition to a sustainable world from the bottom up.
Typically associated with the three ‘Rs’ of ‘roads, rates, and rubbish,’ councils are also perfectly placed to deliver on a fourth ‘R’ – the climate revolution.
They operate on the frontlines, managing the services that shape our daily lives, like waste, transportation, building codes, and urban planning, which empowers them to create climate-friendly infrastructure.
They also work at the human scale and understand local needs and priorities, which means they can craft solutions that people actually want while building community buy-in and fostering grassroots participation in the climate fight.
When functioning at their best, they can play a pivotal role in capturing the collective wisdom of their members and amplifying it on the world stage.
In 2016, Victoria’s Darebin Council became the first government body of any level anywhere in the world to declare a climate emergency.
The declaration signified a crucial shift – acknowledging the urgency of the crisis and the need for immediate, transformative action.
Since then, hundreds of councils around Australia and thousands around the world have made the declaration. Over 15 countries have also joined in the chorus. The emergency declarations helped local leaders set ambitious targets, outline adaptation and resilience strategies, and mobilise and empower their communities to become agents of change.
With the gear-shift induced by the declarations, the idea of ‘think globally, act locally’ collided with the idea of ‘think locally act globally’, and empowering networks for action have sprouted up, fostering collective wisdom and inspiring change at the speed of thought.
Groups like the International Council for Local Government Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) connect leaders with cutting-edge resources and case studies. C40 Cities, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, The Resilient Cities Network and The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy are all helping to drive change at the city level.
Projects like The Cities Power Partnership foster collaborations for change, and initiatives like the European Commission for Intelligent Cities are empowering local councils to establish ‘Green New Deals’ at the local level.
Friends of the Earth in the UK has created a portal that shares a collection of inspirational case studies and 50 action points for change.
England has also created an open database where you can track and compare every council’s climate action plan.
Councils are decarbonising their own emissions, upgrading infrastructure to lower their residents’ emissions, and educating and empowering local businesses and individuals to become more climate-friendly.
But one of the greatest roles councils can play is to serve as a sandbox, foster creativity, and support innovations that have the potential to scale, or be replicated, globally.
By supporting innovation, experimenting, and prototyping, local councils can breathe life into new ideas and nurture and support them from abstract concepts to concrete examples of theory in action.
Success stories serve as case studies and blueprints for the new world.
It’s the ‘tales wagging the dog’. Here’s a small sample of some local initiatives that have the power to inspire global change:
Amsterdam becomes the world’s first doughnut city
In April 2020, the City of Amsterdam became the first municipality in the world to publish a ‘Thriving City Portrait.’
Inspired by Kate Raworth’s concept of Doughnut Economics, Amsterdam set out to create a city that ensures a good life for everyone, while still functioning within the Earth’s planetary boundaries.
Looking at the economy through the lenses of local, global, social, and ecological impacts, Amsterdam set the ambitious goal of becoming a fully circular and completely carbon-neutral city by 2050.
They developed a roadway to keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract maximum value from all materials, and recover and regenerate products at the end of their life.
The project was developed by the Amsterdam Doughnut Coalition, a grassroots network of 40 organisations. It has been replicated worldwide using the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) ‘Creating City Portraits’ framework.
Melbourne is powering its city with community batteries
Known as one of the most livable cities in the world, and a supporter of one of the largest sustainable living festivals on the planet, the City of Melbourne has been at the forefront of climate action for decades.
After kickstarting the transition to renewables by becoming the first city council in Australia to be powered by 100% renewable energy, (thanks to the Melbourne Renewable Energy Project), they’re now rolling out an innovative, new community battery initiative.
The Power Melbourne Project will see the establishment of a network of coordinated, neighbourhood-scale batteries that will help deliver up to 5MW of power by 2024.
The community batteries will play a vital role in making renewable energy more attractive and accessible to the council’s residents.
Oxford hosted the UK’s first citizen assembly
Creating good climate policy requires an inclusive, effective, and participatory decision-making process. In 2019, the Oxford City Council became the UK’s first local authority to establish a citizens’ assembly to address climate change.
A randomly selected group of citizens met regularly over two weeks, consulting experts and discussing new carbon targets and action plans.
The assembly’s findings led the council to commit over £1 million in operational funding and £18 million in capital investment to address the climate emergency through a Climate Emergency Budget, showcasing how citizen engagement can inform impactful climate governance at the local level.
The Santa Clara Council grows an Agrihood
The Santa Clara City Council in California gave the green light to a senior housing development with a difference.
The project contains 361 apartments (181 of them for seniors or lower income earners) , 35 townhomes, a 1.5-acre farm, and 20,000 square feet of open space to be used for farmer’s markets, book readings, and live music.
Supported by over $60 million in subsidies from the local council, the Agrihood will provide 3 crop rotations each year using pesticide-free regenerative practices.
Agrihoods are sprouting up all across the world. Plans are already underway to build Australia’s first Master Planned Agrihood in Queensland.
The Hawkesbury Resilience Project uses storytelling to build community and inspire change
It’s easy for councils to create climate policy and dictate the rules from the top down, but to deliver truly transformational change requires inspired community engagement.
The Hawkesbury Resilience Project, led by The Hawkesbury City Council in NSW, was a collaborative attempt to move hearts and minds and inspire climate action.
The project was based around an interactive ‘resilience map’ that empowered community groups to share personal stories, create connections, share knowledge, and build the social infrastructure needed to survive and thrive in the era of the climate emergency.
The collaboration also included a series of forums, a solar workshop, climate cafes inspired by ‘First Nations yarning circles’ and the ‘UK Death Cafe’ model, and provided seed funding for a number of youth-led initiatives.
The York Council is building a village of zero-carbon homes
Using Council-owned sites, the York Council in the UK is building 400 pollution-free homes. By incorporating a Passivhaus design, the 400 homes are able to be warmed and cooled and supplied with electricity and hot water without generating any carbon emissions.
The development will provide affordable housing for low-income earners and will help to tackle fuel poverty and increase the residents’ disposable incomes.
As well as being carbon-free and having low bills, the houses also have shared e-cargo bikes and include specially designed planting schemes to increase local biodiversity.
