SDG, and Paris Agreement, have mark a path for next years. Governments, corporations, academia, international organizations and even cities are desperately looking for alternatives to appropriate the discourse into practices... [ view full abstract ]
SDG, and Paris Agreement, have mark a path for next years. Governments, corporations, academia, international organizations and even cities are desperately looking for alternatives to appropriate the discourse into practices that allow to transform the era of Anthropocene. However, beside the existent institutional framework to address sustainable development there are some questions that still remains unanswered and constitutes a challenge for the current trends of state decentralization. How does global governance affect local behaviors and the way in which citizens mobilize towards sustainability? How to involve citizens in global governance for sustainable development? The lack of answers from institutional side, and the traditional means of operation from NGO, or traditional activist groups, had led to an interesting phenomenon of world wide mobilizations, showing the power of citizens in five areas i)public agenda setting, ii) raising awareness, ii) changing behaviors and contributing to change, iv) connecting globally and triggering changes locally, and v) being at the center of multi-stakeholder work. The case of Low Carbon City, LCC, is the epitome of this Phenomenon. Citizens have come together in a platform that looks to tackle climate change by building collective solutions in cities at global level. Since its creation in 2015, LCC has over 80 ambassador cities, has mobilized roughly 13.000 citizens around the world, has organized more than 150 activities in its network, and has raise the voice of citizens in international venues to discuss sustainable development and climate change. Nevertheless, its impacts have gone beyond global participation. From local focus, the work with academia has been outstanding in agenda setting. I.e. Through the partnership with EAFIT University, LCC have been able to i) promote participation of more citizens in academic conferences, ii) foster the creation of projects and creative ways to communicate the importance of low carbon and sustainable lifestyles and iii) build connections between members of EAFIT community and other national and international players. Some examples are the discussions with decision makers, solutions and prototypes created by undergraduate students to reduce emissions, communication strategies oriented at shifting behaviours to a climate friendly life, and finally, as an example on how far this bottom up approach of governance could go, the work with children, in which they not only receive training and adopt a low carbon life, but also become in message carriers in their communities, and active in politics. In this specific case, after participating in the program, children talked to the City Council for giving advice in the public policy, the World LCC Forum to more than 3000 participants, and they even created their own Manifesto, which is a reference for policymakers. There are abundant examples as LCC which demonstrate that citizens are influenced by global governance and this is a process that occurs in both ways, because from the local experiences global governances is nurturing as well. what is doing LCC is a citizen-led complementary approach on what networks like C40 or Compact of Mayors are doing at local level.
Citizens, global governance, climate change, SDG, Cities
