towards a progressive urban politics of climate change and peak oil.

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towards a progressive urban politics of climate
change and peak oil.

• Peter North
• Department of Geography
• University of Liverpool

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Aims and objectives.

• What are the major threats to prosperity and
  social justice to local economies from climate
  change and resource depletion?
• What threats/opportunities for developing local
  economies and livelihoods?
• What steps should UK local economies take?
• What contribution can local authorities, NGOs,
  citizens and academics make, which require more
  structural change?

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What have we done?

• Local Economic Development, dangerous climate
  change and resource depletion November 2006 in
  Liverpool
• Strategies for surviving dangerous climate
  change Localisation. March 2007 in Sheffield
• The radical region         July 2007 in
  Manchester
• Learning from the South.   November 2007 in
  Newcastle
• Entrepreneurialism and business
  creation      May 2008 in Liverpool.
• Community-based solutions to climate change
  July 2008 in Newtown.
• Towards post carbon local economies December
  2008 in Liverpool

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Entrepreneurial cities

• Since the 70s oil crisis, cities cannot take
  their wellbeing for granted.
• They have to compete in a market economy.
• The focus of urban management has moved to an
  entrepreneurial agenda.
• Urbanisation thus follows the logic of
  competition and accumulation, not social need and
  welfare.
• This skews urban agendas towards the needs of
  business and the economy.

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• If, for example, urban entrepreneurialism is
  embedded in a framework of zero-sum inter-urban
  competition for jobs, resources and capital, then
  even the most resolute and avant-garde municipal
  socialist will find themselves, in the end,
  playing the capitalist game and performing as
  agents of discipline for the very processes that
  they are trying to resist.
• (Harvey 2001349)

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Local Economic Development, dangerous climate
change and resource depletion

• What are the major issues around a radical
  conception of LED as restructuring is now
  complete??
• New consensus on LED
• Knowledge economy
• Infrastructure development
• Specialisation, Insertion into global economy
• Place marketing, festivals
• Is this good enough?

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11th October 2008 police restrict freedom of
speech on Church Street
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the irresponsible face of capitalism?
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Peak Oil
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Peak Oil

• Peak Oil is NOT We have run out of oil
• Peak Oil means we are burning (much) more oil
  than we are discovering.
• Peak Oil means the end of cheap, plentiful oil.
• The oil price is also affected by
• Extraction and prospecting technologies.
• Demand from the BRICs and the global middle
  class.
• Refining capacity.
• Geopolitical events.
• Stock market expectations and speculation.
• This means we can expect considerable short term
  price volatility, but the trend is clear.

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Bridging Peak Oil and Climate Change

• taken together, climate change and peak oil
  make a nearly airtight argument. We should
  reduce our dependency on fossil fuels for the
  sake of future generations and the rest of the
  biosphere but even if we choose not to because
  of the costs involved, the most important of
  those fossil fuels will soon become more scarce
  and expensive anyway, so complacency is simply
  not an option Heinberg (2007)
• http//www.energybulletin.net/node/24529

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Understanding the problem

• Understanding the extent that we may have come up
  against ecological limits.
• Factoring in technology what is realistic, what
  fanciful? Need more than phile/phobe.
• What can you do locally? How much is enough?
• What is just a gesture, what is dealing with the
  problem at source?
• How to measure your contribution/sacrifice
  against defection elsewhere.
• Progressive conception of solidarity.

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Time, effect, responsibility

• I refuse to believe that my picking up my
  daughter from school will provide the tipping
  point to climate catastrophe, and in 20 years I
  lose interest.
• The free rider problem.
• The tragedy of the commons.
• Affecting the future how will we know?
• Affecting far away places? Do we know, do we
  care?
• Mitigate or adapt?

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Breakdown - Run for the hills?
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Adaptation eco-security

• Future proofing the city, wind, flood, heat,
  drought.
• New Orleans the touchstone.
• Ecological restructuring?
• Collectivist/statist or individual adaptation?
• Cities as closed lifeboats?
• Ecological competition ecologically rich and
  poor cities?
• Global responsibilities.

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Mitigation Decarbonising LED.

• Stern no trade off between growth and climate.
• Ecocities, planning and urban design.
• Technologically optimistic view progressive
  ecological modernisation. State or private
  sector?
• The ecological war economy will the private
  sector act in a competitive environment?.
• Green New Deal new greencollar jobs.
• Restructuring for climate local economic
  democracy and the third sector.
• Ensuring equitable access to new technologies?

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Rethinking local economic development

• Rethinking macho conceptions of growth in
  favour of security, resilience and wellbeing.
• Rethinking economy away from a dichotomised
  public, private (perhaps third) sectors toward
  diverse conceptions of economy.
• The role of community-based economic development
  and the social economy.
• Transitioning to a low carbon economy?
• Local production, food, power generation, energy
  efficiency, public transport and mobility.

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Decarbonising supply chains

• Localisation and autarky.
• Localisation compared with globalisation.
• Scales relative business or communities.
• Need to account for carbon and fuel in analysis
  of whole production systems.
• Balancing unnecessary duplication with customer
  preference and efficiency.
• The wicked question flights and connection for
  the sake of it?
• Multiple currencies at different scales.

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A question of leadership

• Can local action be generalised?
• Can policy be black boxed and cascaded down?
• Cities as sources of innovation and emissions.
• Local economic development coded hard, male,
  sustainability soft, female.
• The degradation of local leadership and local
  democracy no space for innovation?
• Re-skilling LED
• Local wonky leavers. Who controls what?
• Leading, influencing, doing.

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Community leadership

• Working with the public and private sectors.
• Community planning and community involvement.
• Designing indicators and measuring progress.
• Providing leadership while avoiding preaching.
• Can everyone do it and do they want to?
• Making it easy to be green, hard to be
  profligate.
• A riot for austerity or a new hedonism?
• New authoritarianism handling hard decisions.

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Towards a progressive strategy

• Links climate change, credit crunch and equity.
• Segments.
• Local responsibility for global and temporal
  processes and effects.
• Preparedness and adaptation is social not
  private.
• Mitigation the high technology approach and
  cutting avoidable emissions through energy
  efficiency and promoting local production.
• The green new deal and restructuring for climate.
• Making it easy for all to be green, hard to
  waste.
• Community ownership and involvement.

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Thank you to our sponsors

•  The Economic and Social Research Council.
• Department of Geography, University of Liverpool