Local Governance and Climate Change

The policy document  tries to identify and articulate in practical terms what has (or has not) been done by local governements (LG)  in addressing climate change (CC) and what can be done to improve outcomes from this interface. The overall conclusion is that while there is much talk about the role of LGs in addressing CC, there is little hard evidence that CC figures prominently on the routine agenda of most LGs in the developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region. There are specific projects and programmes, funded by donors and governments, which try to address CC at the local level, and which sometimes (but not always) work through LGs. If it is assumed that LGs do indeed have a potentially important role to play in addressing CC, then a good deal more needs to be done to realise this potential. The document tries to understand why LGs appear to be relatively inactive on CC, and provides some entry points and approaches that might contribute towards greater local government involvement.