Phil AllsopP
Seth Schultz
You made the point that you can’t manage what you don’t know. This implies that cities need to take on explicit action, an explicit act of the institutional bureaucracy, to measure their GHG emissions and log them. Yet cities might also see that as an extra budget burden. How does your organisation convince them that this is actually beneficial?
Part of it is education and understanding. Cities are constantly pummelled with information and data requests and it becomes very resource intensive. It is critically important that we streamline the process and make sure cities understand the value of what they are reporting, how they are reporting it, and how it is going to help them in their day-to-day administrative routines. If we can do that, massive efficiencies can be gained. Sustainable urban development requires the integration of all the practices that can contribute to it: transport, waste, energy, you name it. By mapping their greenhouse gas emissions, cities can also get a clearer understanding of how they operate, of their own priorities and establish a better cooperation among all these different departments. There is now an appetite for cities to join this process because in the past, the mapping of greenhouse gas emissions was mainly done by consultants from the private sector. Now cities have started to realise that they need to have some level of ownership of that information themselves.
My experience has been that most policymakers are looking for that one small thing, that policy which, if they implemented it, would have a systemic, positive, cascading effect across the system. From what you just told me, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions might indeed bring these kinds of positive systemic benefits, economically, socially, culturally and in terms of health.
Absolutely. You can map a lot of things through the lines of greenhouse gas emissions. They are not the only thing you should be tracking, but definitely one of the key metrics for urban sustainability.
You mentioned that education and underpinning of data is important for moving people beyond their established routines. But how do you overcome the entrenched viewpoints that have very little to do with data and knowledge, but more to do with firmly held beliefs? For example, there are quite a few people in the United States who assert that the Agenda 21 is a UN initiative to take over the United States Constitution, and similar things that are really laughable. When you ask them, which part of the Agenda 21 is specifically designed to subvert property rights, ownership and independence, they will only respond, “You can read between the lines”. But when I look between the lines I see nothing but white paper. That must be a tremendous issue for your initiative particularly in some parts of the United States.
C40’s direct constituents are cities around the world that are strongly committed to leadership on climate action; for the most part we find that this is driven by strong support from citizens in the local community. But as you suggest, this is not always the case. A lot comes down to how the issues are communicated. Part of effective communication is knowing your audience and if you know that their back gets up when they hear the words ‘climate change’ or ‘sustainability’, don’t use those words. Talk about economic efficiencies instead, talk about job creation, talk about a more engaging environment for people to live in, talk about health quality. It is very off-putting to talk about doom and gloom. It makes people not want to hear and know about the issues. If the issue is too large and too out of control anyway, they will ask then why even bother? Instead, we ought to show people that something is actually happening in their neighbourhood that they can get involved with and show them how. Then the conversation will be a totally different one...
In a nutshell, how would you encapsulate the role that C40 plays as an organisation, collaborating with your member cities?
C40 was created by cities for cities. As an organisation, we help cities identify, develop, and implement local policies and programmes that have collective global impact. Working across multiple sectors and initiative areas, C40 convenes networks of cities with common goals and challenges. But our role doesn’t end there. We provide a suite of services in support of their efforts: direct technical assistance; facilitation of peer-to-peer 83