Territorializing the climate policy agenda in intermediate cities of the Andean Region

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the climate policy agenda gets territorialized in four intermediate cities of the Andean Region: Pasto (Colombia), Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas (Ecuador), Iquitos (Peru), and Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia). We investigate processes of coercion, competition, emulation and learning to argue that fast-paced diffusion of the climate agenda produces a bricolage of instruments as an attempt to comply, repair, adjust, or experiment with the multi-scale policy framework. The study emphasizes the importance of institutional frameworks, planning instruments, climate regulations and contextualized practices that condition climate action locally.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy diffusion
• territorialization
• climate change
• intermediate cities
• Andean Region

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Walter Ubal-Giordano, Paul Cisneros, Santiago Lopez, Francesca Blanc and Roberto Rocco for their contributions and to the peer reviewers whose comments helped clarify the text.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. By 2019, 183 Parties had submitted the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), with information on targets, policies, and measures for reducing emissions and adapting to climate-related impacts. NDCs also contain information on finance, technologies and capacity building required, including implementation roadmaps and action plans. Despite those efforts, the latest report highlights the urgent need for a significant increase in the level of ambition and overachievement of NDCs in order to meet the global target of keeping the global mean temperature rise below 1.5°C (UNFCCC, 2021).

2. For more information about the FLACSO-IDRC Project Nº 108443-001, see: https://www.flacso.edu.ec/cambioclimatico/

3. Some networks involved in local and urban climate change initiatives include the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Global Convenant for Climate and Energy, the Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), the C40 Climate Action Planning Programme or the Resilient Cities Network.

4. The Regional Observatory for Development Planning identifies and promotes seven modalities for territorializing the SDGs: (i) general methodological guidelines for subnational governments, (ii) institutional arrangements for monitoring, (iii) multi-stakeholder platforms, (iv) spatially disaggregated statistics and indicators, (v) instruments for local planning, (vi) diffusion and mainstreaming in regional and municipal policies, (vii) best practice documentation, replication and upscaling (CEPAL 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada. This work was supported by the International Development Research Center of Canada, under GrantProject Nº 108443-001, as part of the project “Building leadership in LAC cities in a changing climate,” implemented by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO Ecuador). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors.