Climate City Contracting for Humane Thriving
By: Dark Matter
Tags: Climate Action, Governance, Agenda 2030, Climate City Contract, Democracy

Initiating a discussion towards pathways to unlocking a democratically-desired climate transition. (För svenska följ denna länk)

In the report “100 climate-neutral cities by 2030 — by and for the citizens” [1], the EU Mission Board for Climate Neutral Cities proposes the development of “a multi-level and co-creative process formalised in a Climate City Contract, adjusted to the realities of each city, […] aiming at the shared goal of the mission”. Meanwhile in Sweden the first nine cities signed a national Climate Contract (Klimatkontrakt 2030) on the 11th of December 2020, together with four government agencies and Viable Cities. The concept of the Climate City Contract will be further developed during the coming years. The big question is, how can democracies [2] contract such a momentous societal transition in an age of uncertainty and complexity, while conserving or even constructing legitimacy?

Cities, towns and municipalities are aware of the large-scale transformations necessary to address the climate emergency. But we need to recognise that the climate crisis is not a nascent property of the environment. Alongside biodiversity loss [3], global inequality [4], financial injustices [5] and other wicked problems [6] — climate change is but one symptom of a deeper structural failure; our inability to construct meaningful relations through social and democratic processes enabling humane thriving. Our relationship-ability towards other humans, ourselves, things, nature and the future should be a fundamental concern when designing methods for the climate transition. Unless we are able to make this deep shift in our societies, we will neither be able to develop the social legitimacy for large scale change, nor address the multitude of risks we face that undermine the capacity of human civilisations. We are at a position, in which we have to choose whether we want to direct our efforts towards a thriving planet or keep a steady course at the edge of surviving.

The transition towards entanglement

We can imagine many versions of the future. We briefly want to discuss two of those. One, is based on the legacies passed down by dominant western histories, that lead us to incline towards risk management to ensure survival. The other, moves beyond risk management, towards constituting the conditions for the regeneration and renewal of societies and the planet.

Throughout the past centuries we have insisted on a thesis for human development that is based on command and control [7]. As a result, our democratic processes tend to create passive centralisation, simplifying the complexity and interconnectedness of reality, resulting in a singularity of publics [8], where the public is seen as a rather homogeneous expression.

At the same time, it is increasingly clear that we live in an age of entanglement. This calls for acknowledging diversity and interconnectedness. Quantum physics has proved there is a relationship between the fundamental properties of particles [9] that can’t have happened by chance. The Wood Wide Web [10] describes the millions of species of fungi and bacteria that swap nutrients between soil and the roots of trees, forming a vast, interconnected web of organisms. The field of biology is reconsidering the boundaries of individual organisms [11], understanding that where biological bodies end and where their environments begin is truly contentious. And indigenous language and philosophies have always recognised a kinship with nature [12].

It can be difficult for current government and institutional structures to recognise this transition towards entanglement. One reason for this could be that it would fundamentally challenge our perception of sovereignties. What if sovereignties were not defined by political boundaries (e.g. national borders, political jurisdictions, private properties), but rather through the knots of their systems (e.g. human relationships, nutrient exchange between trees)? How then could we imagine creating the conditions for viability and thriving of all ecosystems (e.g. environmental, human, material) that transverse territories? Could this shift the contractual relationships between different sovereignties to acknowledge interconnectedness?

Investing in relationship abilities

Investments in transitions that redistribute relation-capabilities [13] with others, ourselves, and our future is familiar for countries with deep democracies [14], like Scandinavian countries. During the 19th century, the Scandinavian context included some of the poorest nations in the world [15]. However, beginning in the mid-1800s, a series of investments in human development infrastructures, created some of the most equitable transitions and societies today.

The Folk high school movement [16] offered a unique educational setting, supporting self-fulfilment, fellowship with others, practical knowledge and active democratic participation, to a large part of the population for free. Students would develop the technical and philosophical agency, as well as the self-authorship capacity for constructing their future. Across Scandinavia, the cooperative movement [17] has been particularly strong and influential, forming an extraordinary process of self-organization, institutionalized in the form of commonly agreed upon written rules, and establishing democratic processes that ultimately led to trust and the development of valuable social capital. Similarly, the Swedish government introduced a loan (Egnahemslån [18]) to support workers in building a house on the outskirts of cities, with the aim of creating better living standards and establishing a connection with nature. As mentioned in the book The Nordic Secret [13], these and other measures allowed Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland to undergo major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully, developing everybody’s potential and changing their fate.