A Call to Action for Edinburgh
By Dr Matt Lane
An airport on life-support. Gas-guzzling 4x4’s marooned on suburban driveways. Building sites soon to be populated by inefficient, unsustainable, cookie-cutter houses devoid of any sense of place or community, lie empty.
Edinburgh has changed. We have changed. We have witnessed an unprecedented reduction in carbon emissions and embraced a capacity to adapt in the face of an equally unprecedented environmental threat. Now, as we emerge from the turbulent wake of COVID-19 and set our sights on recovery, we should do so through reflection on our relationship to both mitigation and adaptation, against the continuing backdrop of a no less pressing climate emergency.
There has been no shortage of commentary in recent weeks and months as to the parallels between COVID-19 and climate change. Both in how our behaviours have adapted as a result of the threat posed, and how these behaviour changes in turn mitigate the threat we ourselves pose to the environment. Less attention, however, has been paid to the questions of who and where. Who has the power to induce such shifts, and where, at which scales, are the cumulative effects of these shifts most evident?
Unsustainable emission levels are engrained within our societal status quo. Despite cities regularly being framed as needing to take leadership on climate change, the emissions that they end up ‘owning’ are rooted in a political economy which far transcends the control of local government. Meanwhile, years of austerity have meant that local resource bases are ill-equipped to deal with the unsustainable agglomerations on their doorstep. Indeed, it was only through top-down intervention by the UK and Scottish government’s in response to the COVID-19 threat, that our most carbon-intensive activities have been curtailed. In the intervening period, however, the importance of a different scale has risen to the fore. Place.
Footloose and free in times of prosperity the global marketplace and the states upon which it is built has been brought to its knees by the circulation, not of goods and capital, but of a deadly virus. Through its fractured voids, however, green shoots have appeared. The agility and dynamism of the local scale is more evident than ever before. A shared sense of place has facilitated the necessary but mutual appreciation of what is on all of our doorsteps; each other. We must recognise that places are different. They are material. They are intimate. They invoke a shared meaning which collapses the divide between public and private, left and right, mitigation and adaptation.
Emerging from the era of COVID, our focus must be on how we can maintain the most adaptive, resilient and innovative ways in which people have managed to continue doing the things that matter the most in new ways, shapes, and forms. We have a chance to move the dial on climate action; away from the things we need to stop doing, and towards the things we should be doing more of. Previous climate action models, focused unapologetically upon emission reduction alone, have led to simplistic efforts to encourage the replacement of ‘climate-negative’ behaviours with ‘climate-positive’ ones. COVID, however, has reinforced the fact that unsustainable emissions levels are merely the output of how we organise ourselves as a society. Reducing them doesn’t require behaviour change; it requires behaviour reconstitution.
To facilitate this we need to devolve decision making powers and mobilise resources so that mapping the route to recovery is in the hands of those on the ground. Those for whom the impact of COVID has been most severe but, equally, where the spirit of resilience is at its most concentrated. Rather than a national government led ‘bounce back’ to business as usual, we must allow cities, places, and communities to build back by assembling resilient bricks, forged in the fires of COVID-19.
We already have tools in place to facilitate this. For example, in adopting its ‘mission-orientated’ approach, the soon to be operational Scottish National Investment Bank should take stock of who is best placed to carry out these missions so that seeds of investment planted now reap green futures for all. Meanwhile, the already established City-Region Deals provide a framework for transcending administrative jurisdictions and delivering a robust and cohesive response to a climate challenge that has no respect for lines on the map. A robust scalar scaffolding is already in place in Scotland; fitting together community, city, region, and country. We must make use of this, rebuilding from the ground up, brick by brick, place by place; not only to ensure that no one is left behind in the recovery, but that Scotland’s resilient future is constructed upon solid foundations.
As Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh has both the ability and responsibility to lead the way in this. But no one group can do it alone. Edinburgh is much more than a seat of government, local and national. It is a place. A place woven into the hearts, minds, and lives of millions, not just within the city boundaries, but beyond to the hinterland, to the nation, and to the planet. We are all part of the communities into which we are placed, communities which one way or another have become stronger as a result of COVID.
COVID-19 is not an opportunity. Too many lives have been lost, too many families separated for it to be framed this way. But COVID can be a platform. A platform for the construction of a more resilient and sustainable future. A future that begins not just now, but HERE...
Matt is a researcher in Urban Climate Governance in the School of Geosciences, at the University of Edinburgh.
