For climate action to succeed, cities will have to be at the forefront, according to the latest scientific assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And while many are on the right path, local leaders need citizen support to ensure their ambitious climate plans actually get implemented and remain in place.
But public buy-in and long-term support can be tricky to attain and even trickier to keep. Limited resources and delayed payoffs are two of the many obstacles cities face.
At last year’s COP 27 climate summit in Egypt, WWF brought together a panel of leaders to discuss how best to build and sustain active public support for ambitious climate action.
Here’s what we heard.
Engagement Begins with Trust, Transparency
Public disengagement and distrust in government is a major obstacle everywhere. An essential step in building trust and establishing accountability is to be open and transparent—not only when climate plans are finalized, but while they’re under development.
“We need to share what we do, how we’re doing it, who participates in decision-making processes, and the costs of doing it,” explained Gonzalo Durán, mayor of Independencia, Chile. “This is so important. Because even if it were to fail, as long as we are transparent, we will be able to share with communities the reasons for those failures—which will probably allow us to face future opportunities.”
A city can be transparent through its public disclosure and discussion of a community’s climate plans, actions, and targets, followed by regular progress reports—for example on the CDP-ICLEI Track platform. While disclosure and reporting take time and effort, they have important transformative potential as a shared starting point for dialogue with the community. Like any good relationship, trust between government and public is built on this foundation of open, honest dialogue.
Inclusivity Requires Diversity
No two members of the public are exactly the same, so communication and diverse groups require diverse communication and engagement methods. “Different types of engagement, different tools are needed,” Durán said. “We need to respect and recognize that.”
Public engagement always has to navigate multiple levels of interest and capacities for engagement, and that means using different modes and methods of communication to engage with a wider range of community members. One-off community dialogues, permanent climate councils, private consultations, and work with existing community groups are all essential tools in the toolbox to ensure maximum outreach.
It is especially important to work hard to reach the marginalized groups that tend to be the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, and are often most affected by the climate action response. These groups can also be major beneficiaries of climate action as long as they’re a part of the planning and decision-making from the beginning. Climate action done right can engage these groups and earn their solid, long-term support, showing that citizens can be partners, not just recipients, in climate action efforts. Which brings us to the next point…
Co-Creation Means Longevity
Too often, public engagement is treated as a box to check off, when it actually demands real efforts on the ground. The sustainability plans that tend to endure are designed and implemented with the involvement of all community members at every stage.
The approach also delivers multiple side benefits, according to a recent CDP report, including better public health and more successful economic development.
Cross-sectoral and bipartisan collaborations such as Sunderland’s 2030 Shadow Board “can ensure that frameworks are developed and agreed that engage all community sectors and political parties and remain in place beyond each electoral cycle,” Councillor Graeme Miller, leader of the Sunderland, UK City Council, told our COP 27 workshop, citing his community as an example. “We can expect higher adoption rates of sustainable practices when people have been part of the decision-making processes.”
In particular, providing young people with a platform and actively engaging with them through dedicated staff allows cities to build trust and benefit from their insights. Being a part of the process can also inspire engaged youth to act as ambassadors for local climate action over the longer term.
“Sometimes agitating youth is important to push any climate agenda, especially ambitious ones put forward by cities,” said urban planner Chin Chin Lam, who represented the International Youth Climate Movement (YOUNGO) and Hong Kong’s CarbonCare InnoLab on the panel.
Trust also grows when people see the results of their work. That’s why local engagement works best when cities follow up with consultation participants and let them know what happened next. Consultative talkfests must deliver evidence of real action and impact—which also means projects must be given resources that allow them to be implemented.
Educate for the Long Term
Education pays off over the long haul. When community members learn about the science and impacts of climate change and other environmental dangers, as well as the policy choices available to them, that common understanding builds trust and closes the gap between the powerful and the powerless to ensure truly democratic processes.
A shared knowledge base leads to more productive discussion and better decisions. And education empowers people to take action and develop projects in their own right, delivering a strong return on a city’s investment in bringing people along.
After Hong Kong invited a cross-section of stakeholders to a set of community dialogues, “youth come together to understand the climate impacts and topics,” Lam said. “From those dialogues we really understand each other, building a lot of connections there that are really important.”
Experiential education, through engagement with ongoing projects and place-based learning, can play a particularly strong role in building an understanding between all actors.
Third Parties Are Essential
Third parties like NGOs, expert organizations, and other non-government bodies play an important role in connecting government agendas and local implementation. They can help bridge the terminology gap between differing institutions and professions such as planners, architects, engineers, politicians, educators, and the public.
These organizations are often trusted entities that have their own established relationships with the public. They can be a crucial link between the local and the national, often providing a platform for under-represented groups while connecting them to larger movements beyond the local arena.
International and grassroots NGOs have a decisive role to play. They can speak on the front-line issues that local governments deal with every day and promote policies and resources for solutions.
A Necessity, Not a Nice-to-Have
Cities around the world have recognized the importance of citizen consultation. In 2017, the Seoul Institute, a government think tank, connected social issues and rising tensions and polarization with the lack of citizen input in city planning.
At COP 27, Sunderland’s Graeme Miller traced the improvements in his community’s low-carbon action plan through a climate pact with key partners. Independencia’s Gonzalo Durán talked about a complex and contested bike path project that was only achievable after extensive citizen and partner consultation.
In London, UK, citizens who were brought in to measure air quality through backpacks containing air monitoring equipment also helped brainstorm solutions to the issues their research uncovered. Malmö, Sweden, solved issues around flooding through extensive citizen consultations in the creation of an eco-city in the neighbourhood of Augustenborg.
There are countless other examples of cities strengthening their climate change plans by tapping into citizens’ day-to-day experience. The complexity of the climate change crisis makes it important to remember that citizen support and buy-in is a necessity—not a luxury.
Transformative Change Can’t Be Forced
Human systems need to be completely redesigned to achieve a stable climate. Cities and urban areas have a central role to play in making those changes happen. “Transitions in how urban residents consume and move; how cities are built, powered, and maintained; and interactions of urban areas with ecosystems and rural areas can power transformative change that elevates new and different voices while bringing about a more equitable and sustainable political settlement,” concludes the recent Summary for Urban Policymakers of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.
But transformative change, necessary as it is, can’t be forced on people from above. It needs to be developed and implemented locally at every step. Each local implementation will be different, but with thousands of cities in the world working toward the same goals, the opportunities from sharing experiences and lessons are huge.
WWF is committed to working with people and cities around the world on our shared, ongoing mission: the creation of cities that enable people to thrive in balance with nature, now and in the future.
Cities can join the One Planet City Challenge for support on science-based climate targets and engaging citizens in the climate transition. You can also read more in our Public Engagement Guide for Cities. It combines public engagement theory and interviews with city professionals and provides city planners with success factors, examples, and guiding questions to help reap the benefits of an active, engaged public.
You can find a recording of WWF Cities’ COP 27 event, People Power for Cities: How can cities use public engagement to achieve ambitious climate action, here.
Yoshi Funaki is Communications Manager and Anthony Pearce is Policy Lead at WWF Cities.
