Urban climate governance

universality and visibility of environmental problems, as well as, the far from near solutions being proposed.
I also noted increased political will, in the north-south divide, yet vast methodological variance as relates proposed solutions. Central to that and with view to localise the debate, was the theme that the business sector in Zimbabwe should go green.
I challenged the business sector to come to the fore and account for their greening initiatives and prove populist and economic thinking wrong for assuming that the business sector is an inefficient environmental player.
This week I see going green as an “unco-ordinated Well”. Inevitably, it is bound to disorder and abuse. In this series I note the lack of co-ordination of efforts or initiatives between the business (industry), local and central governments and the civic society.
I, therefore, put to task the green themes being adopted in Zimbabwe, through a multi-stakeholder approach – urban climate governance. Within this frame I will serialise each of these stakeholders sector by sector accounting on their efforts.
I explore the concept of urban climate governance vis-à-vis testing the possibilities of addressing urban environmental issues through collaborative efforts. The focus on urban climate governance is based on the assumption that it offers a model that allows for engagement of all critical stakeholders.
Unique to this series is that, the greening concept is seen as a governance issue. It is a search for governance in unfamiliar places.
Furthermore, I link going green to climate change, drawing interest on urban climate governance, within which I see possibilities for creating spaces for local authorities, the business sector and residents whether assumed, created or invited.
Going green means to realise man’s innate connection to nature, which causes us to live and interact with nature in a way that does not harm the natural integrity of the biosphere.
In other words, it is the consciousness of the mother fetus relationship between man and Mother Nature – who appear at the moment as punishing mercilessly the fruit of her womb (through the current environmentally related hazards).
Solving urban environmental problems is not a one man’s job. Rather it takes collective efforts of both the local and central government and various stakeholders in the civic and corporate sectors.
Last week I focused on environmental issues in general. In this series I acknowledge feedback that has come my way as a critique to my contribution entitled, “Business sector should go green”. Now I draw emphasis on urban environmental ills. In terms of agenda setting we need to be going in this direction, but through governance lenses.
It has widespread environmental benefits which has the potential of redressing climate change.
Let us govern climate change, thus the need for urban climate governance. Briefly digressing to responses from my readers on my last week series, I note that, some responses had no kind words for our business sector as regards the impact and relevance of what they are doing.
Of course, there may be short comings, but either way we must acknowledge what has been done as well as the prospects of current efforts by our business sector. We must not discourage the hen from laying eggs, because only then can it hatch. One day, foot step, 0,05 percent cut on carbon emissions, one milestone at a time will get us there.
Going green in governance means the residents, business sector, local and central governments, research institutions and the civic society are actively involved. Not just actively involved really, but well co-ordinated.
That’s why in Shona we say, “chara chimwe hachitsvanye inda”. We need to co-ordinate these efforts. Let us truncate procedures that militate towards partnerships and positive efforts. As things stands at the moment, urban environmental management in Zimbabwe is an “unco-ordinated Well”.
Going green needs to be, in terms of spatial design of urban and regional landscapes, product development, use of renewable and environmentally friendly energy options and environmentally efficient waste management.
It means going paperless, cutting on carbon emissions, planting more and more trees and cutting on “ex-jap” vehicle imports (these are inefficient cars in terms of emissions and in my forthcoming series I will account and quantify their footprint). It means environmental stewardship – a focus on fingerprint (amount of care) than footprint (amount of damage).
Going green should be tied to spatial governance. It means to see the politician creating a favourable playing field, guaranteeing political will and creating spaces for participation, within which she/he participate too.
I mean our political actors should not be a referee, but a player as well. Our local authorities should incentives initiatives of this nature, maybe by way of tax exemptions on business and residents.
While our business sector should channel the much needed capital to initiatives of this nature and spear heading invention of technological applications. It is not only an issue of green product development, marketing and branding and cheap publicity to business.
Residents, on the other hand, must take it hands on, it starts from their backyards. Taking care of the nature therein, cutting on power usage, saying no to waste dumping and deforestation means going green. Developers and urban planners, architects, engineers should take it from the way they design and manage our landscapes.
In Zimbabwe issues of urban governance have over the years been conceptualised in areas of participatory budgeting and in active demand of accountability by residents (the governed) from the city fathers (governors) (Chirisa and Munzwa, 2007).
Urban governance has not been addressed in the context of climate change. Going green through urban climate governance maybe searching for governance in unfamiliar places to some, but that’s the way to go. Our cities should open their governance spaces with a view to tape the citizens’ and key actors’ contribution. At least the “climate talk” in the country is slowly beginning to take shape as the business goes green.
However, local authorities should engage key players (households, industrial investors and operators of small and medium enterprises – SMEs) in the climate talk and action planning, maximizing on existing or creatable spaces: closed, invited or claimed.
I base this on my firm belief that a healthy council has no prerogative to make arbitrary decisions on issues that affect the citizens.
Engaging stakeholders is important because of their travel patterns, energy consumption habits, depletion of urban forests and this is not an innocent way of consuming resources sustainably.
Even local authorities their practices of continuing with parceling out of more and more land for development has footprints associated with them.
However, even in this limited space much can be done to green Zimbabwe’s towns and cities.
Hence, the need to take the going green discourse to governance and possibly explore avenues that engage residents, small and medium enterprises and the civic society at large. Now is the time for Zimbabwe’s cities and towns to start the greening journey.
I view urban areas as key players in responding to climate change and spearheading the greening ideology, as they have both direct control of critical sources of emissions and are the scale at which the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change will play out.
Cities in Zimbabwe as well as in many parts of the developing world require large industrial emitters to report on their greenhouse gas emissions.
The majority of the invisible commercial emitters are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for which legislated greenhouse gas reductions are unlikely.
Novel partnerships and networks are therefore necessary in Zimbabwe. This appear possible through aligning the goals of SMEs, municipal governments and regional authorities in support of greenhouse gas management in cities, emphasising on environmental finger print than footprint.
I hope to provoke further research in this direction, which aims to expand the urban climate change research agenda to include an examination of the drivers of emerging partnerships and for theorising the potential and emerging role of capital business and SMEs in the wider context of non-state actors.
The objective is to theorise small businesses as agents of change in the multi-level governance of climate change, and cities as niche green spaces in which sustainable development paths might be explored.
Those looking for success and signs of hope can find many. Going green through urban climate governance is but one. Some times language lags history. Let us encourage the green talk, that’s where we can start from.
Zimbabwe, I am calling for a generation of elders who are keen to plant trees whose shed they know they will never enjoy. Zimbabwe, we can!