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<\/a>Durban Harbour, Durban, South Africa<\/p><\/div>\n
However, downfalls of depending on local policy include unequal commitments, an unengaged national government, and inadequate commitments.\u00a0 If implemented on a country scale, different cities would be able to shape policy how it best fit their needs, but at the same time they might not take on as much as other cities of comparable capabilities.\u00a0 Also, to some extent local action gives national governments an excuse not to take sufficient steps which is necessary in addition to local action.\u00a0 Further, cities might not commit to enough.\u00a0 For example, Durban is an industrial and economic center with a huge port which means that they release noticeable emissions.\u00a0 Although adaptation is important, they should also be taking on mitigation, not ignoring it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Overall, local action is important because it informs average people and local policy makers about climate change. \u00a0It also allows for flexibility, so cities take on what directly affects them.\u00a0 Although local action is imperative, it is not enough.\u00a0 The South African government needs to take on adaption to exceed that of Durban\u2019s commitment as well as initiating mitigation requirements.<\/p>\n
Work Cited:<\/p>\n
Roberts, D., 2008. \u201cThinking globally and acting locally \u2013 institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa,\u201d Environment & Urbanization<\/em> 20(2):521-537.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Anna McGinn ’14
\nIn her article, \u201cThinking globally, acting locally\u2014institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa,\u201d Debra Roberts discusses Durban\u2019s recent initiative to develop as well as address climate change.\u00a0 This reading reminded me of our discussion in Washington DC with Dallas Burtraw from Resources for the Future.\u00a0 Both Roberts and Burtraw emphasize that action at a local level is required to adequately mitigate and adapt to climate change.\u00a0 However, as Roberts states, it is imperative that both policy makers and the average person understands why action is being taken at a local level otherwise city level action is not effective.\u00a0 It seems that if policy and actions are well communicated to the public and tangible action occurs, local climate policy could contribute significantly to dealing with climate change.
\nLocal climate change policies allow cities to better tailor the policies to their specific situations.\u00a0 For example, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":853,"featured_media":1410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448,40558,34197],"tags":[42587,34239,42588,42557,42577,40552,2874],"class_list":["post-1409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2","category-climate-change-politics","category-key-cop17-issues","tag-thinking-globally-and-acting-locally","tag-anna-mcginn","tag-climate-change-policy","tag-dallas-burtraw","tag-debra-roberts","tag-durban","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/files\/2011\/11\/world_puzzle_copy.jpg\")
<\/a>In her article, \u201cThinking globally, acting locally\u2014institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa,\u201d <\/a>Debra Roberts discusses Durban\u2019s recent initiative to develop as well as address climate change.\u00a0 This reading reminded me of our discussion in Washington DC with Dallas Burtraw<\/a> from Resources for the Future<\/a>.\u00a0 Both Roberts and Burtraw emphasize that action at a local level is required to adequately mitigate and adapt to climate change.\u00a0 However, as Roberts states, it is imperative that both policy makers and the average person understands why action is being taken at a local level otherwise city level action is not effective.\u00a0 It seems that if policy and actions are well communicated to the public and tangible action occurs, local climate policy could contribute significantly to dealing with climate change.<\/p>\n