Creating an interaction space between citizens and decision makers is key to reach climate neutrality in our cities

Sustainable transitions are hampered by lack of citizen involvement, increased polarization and low trust in government. Citizen disappointment is voiced more often, regarding the current types of public partication in governance. Change is needed to go from informing/ consulting to a relationship of partnership.

Climate policy expects a lot from citizens and communities

Where citizens and communities do make the effort to actively join in on the process, but don’t see any of this mirrored in final plans and projects. If you have a close look into policy documents, there is at the same time a high expectation of the role that citizens and communities will play in taking action on the transitions we face. For instance, a large share of existing homes needs to be renovated and adapted, the Dutch Climate Agreement states 50% local ownership (of the production in the local area, f.i. regarding solar and wind parks), and hence the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate aims at initiating energy cooperatives.

Society, with its citizens, communities and private initiatives, is expected to be a strong changing force in itself, next to markets and government.

How do the ambitions align with the needs of citizens?

Together with practitioners at Democratic Society we have been reflecting on how to frame the missing link, between the ambitions and goals regarding transitions that we want to achieve, and at the same time connecting to what the needs of citizens and communities are on the local level.

We need to be honest, there is a ‘Grand Canyon’ to cross between the civic space and the decision maker space. How can we develop an interaction space where citizens and communities and other partners in the ecosystem meet? To work on just transitions, co-creation of solutions and initiatives and co-decision making.

NetZeroCities: climate-neutral and smart cities

Currently in Europe, cities are actively working on their plans towards climate neutrality. The European Commission launched the EU Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities in 2021. In 2022, 112 selected cities were invited to develop Climate City Contracts, which include an overall plan for climate neutrality across all sectors such as energy, buildings, waste management and transport, together with related investment plans. Climate City Contracts are to be co-created with local stakeholders (public, private, knowledge, civil society organizations) including citizens, with the help of a Mission Platform & learning environment (which is currently managed by the project NetZeroCities).

TNO (and TNO Vector) is part of the NetZeroCities consortium, together with 32 other partners supporting both mission and non-mission cities. The consortium helps these cities by identifying and overcoming the root causes that hinder climate action at scale, creating better lives for citizens, their children and the planet.

From top-down naar bottom-up with Better Together

While the awareness that collaboration with and active involvement of society is needed is apperent at different policy levels, from EU to national to local, in practice, we see that there are quite some challenges and barriers.

There is a big difference of what we say we would do, or what we’re aware is needed and that it’s written in paper, with what actually can be done and the capacity to act, in practice. When we try to solve complex interconnected problems, we face a challenge of organisations that are set up to solve their own problems in top-down sorts of ways. Then often, engagement approaches are also channelled into those top-down single-issue patterns, as where a more networked approach is needed to overcome the power imbalance. We are not yet fully embracing the capacity of the changing force. This is the scope of the interaction space we are refering to, to really have the capacity and also the mandate to act.

Therefore, there is a need to do more action research to learn together with citizens and communities! In 2024, TNO started a research program that focuses on empowering citizen collectives, Early Research Program Better Together. Starting from the perspective of communities and their needs, but connecting to the larger ecosystem and partners that are involved on a local scale and beyond. Here – in direct collaboration with the citizens, collectives and communities – we work on empowerment and learning, in order to develop strategies to support collective decision-making.

Examples of successful interaction spaces in Europe

From our cooperation with cities that aim for Climate Neutrality, we do see good examples on how this interaction space is developed.

• For instance in the NetZeroCities pilot CoLAB of the German cities of Aachen, Mannheim and Münster – Committed to Local Climate Action Building, where the cities aim to build a strong coalition of change for a shared vision of a sustainable, climate-neutral city by 2030 by creating a wave of commitment to local action through direct ownership of action in the city community. The Local Green Deal in Mannheim that initiates, activates and bundles concrete agreements on sustainability action is a vehicle that is further built on.
• Another example is of the City of Guimarães in Portugal, where the city council together with two universities in the region set up Laboratório da Paisagem. This is an entity that promotes the sustainable development of the territory, focused on innovation, research and scientific dissemination, raising awareness of the population. It promotes various activities in the field of environmental education aimed at different audiences – from drawing and understanding the landscape with children in the age of 7-14, to contributing to active and healthy ageing through an approach to nature with the 65+ Environment initiative.

Future research on interaction spaces between citizens and governance

The examples show that there are different strategies to develop the interaction space. It is key to connect to the local context, characteristics and motivations. Work on trust, the capability to include and learn and take contributions from society on board seriously.

We will continue our action research to further connect the decision maker space with the civic space, developing strategies and support. To systematically learn together what it would take to activate and bridge our enormous diverse contexts to work together to enable just transitions, co-creation of solutions and initiatives, and even start practicing (new) ways of co-decision making. To accelerate based on learnings to achieve our societal goals.

Feel free to actively reflect along with us, what needs do you have as a city, as a community, as private initiative, as an intermediairy partner in the community ecosystem. Let’s go on this challenging adventure to ‘cross the Grand Canyon’!