Paikallisen ilmastotoiminnan muodot ja mittakaavat

Tapaustutkimus hiilineutraaliksi pyrkivästä kunnasta

Abstrakti

Local communities have recently been recognized as a central locus for grassroots climate action. Most of the research on local climate action investigates communities that are particularly innovative and actively engaged in combating climate change. Yet climate change, while raising concern among a wide spectrum of European citizens, is clearly not an ever-present issue for most people in their everyday lives. Hence, it is interesting to explore how ‘ordinary’ people get engaged with climate action in their community and how it starts to make sense to them in their daily lives. As empirical data, we examine the emerging notions and practices of local climate action in one rural Finnish municipality, Mynämäki, which became involved in a climate action programme. We build on interviews with individuals identified as being active in local affairs or in climate-related activities and with ‘ordinary’ residents. Our analysis explores how climate action is linked to various solutions (such as new heating systems), what kinds of practices emerge under the umbrella of local climate action and on what kinds of scales does ‘local climate action’ occur. We conclude that a broad scope of solutions is important for the credibility of the climate action programme but it does not necessarily empower ordinary citizens for climate action.