![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/files\/2011\/11\/dl_Durban-City-Hall.jpg\")
<\/a>The debate between the role local versus federal governments can and should play in climate change legislation is a factor once again in Debra Roberts\u2019 article, \u201cThinking Globally, Acting locally-institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 In this article Roberts discusses the importance of the local municipal government of Durban in initiating climate change mitigation and adaptation policies.\u00a0 Generally speaking, Durban is more focused on local development needs than environmental planning.\u00a0 This is for good reason; Durban has a 43 percent unemployment rate, a housing backlog of 190,000 units, and high levels of HIV\/AIDs, yet environmental issues are becoming a more prominent problem for Durban as well.\u00a0 Durban is a global biodiversity hotspot that is suffering due to urbanization, the manufacturing industry is causing environmental health problems to the local communities, and the riverine and coastal ecosystems are being negatively affected by rapid development.\u00a0 For these reasons, Durban has been forced to consider integrating climate change policy in to the local government.<\/p>\nOut of the four institutional makers, I felt that the first was the most important one, having a champion for climate change.\u00a0 Without having someone who understands the relevance of climate change to the success of the city, climate change would not have been considered in long-term city planning and it would have been very difficult to get resources allocated towards climate change initiatives.\u00a0 Durban has started on the path of dealing with climate change, although they are currently more focused on adaptation than mitigation, they are at least starting to make changes.\u00a0 I am curious to see how they will continue to make changes in light of hosting COP 17.\u00a0 During our Washington D.C.<\/a> meeting with Ko Barrett, she expressed concern that they had not done all that was necessary. I guess we shall see in a few weeks.<\/p>\n Works 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Christine Burns ’14![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/files\/2011\/11\/usaid_logoc.gif\")
<\/a>With the assistance of the USAID\u2019s Cities for Climate Protection Campaign, Durban took their first greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which resulted in the realization that they could be saving money with a few low cost energy saving changes.\u00a0 There were four institutional markers that marked the path to environmental consideration in Durban\u2019s local municipal government.\u00a0 The four institutional markers are the emergence of an identifiable political champion for climate change, the appearance of climate change as a significant issue in mainstream municipal plans, the allocation of resources to climate change issues, and the incorporation of climate change into political decision making.<\/p>\n
\nThe debate between the role local versus federal governments can and should play in climate change legislation is a factor once again in Debra Roberts\u2019 article, \u201cThinking Globally, Acting locally-institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa.\u201d\u00a0 In this article Roberts discusses the importance of the local municipal government of Durban in initiating climate change mitigation and adaptation policies.\u00a0 Generally speaking, Durban is more focused on local development needs than environmental planning.\u00a0 This is for good reason; Durban has a 43 percent unemployment rate, a housing backlog of 190,000 units, and high levels of HIV\/AIDs, yet environmental issues are becoming a more prominent problem for Durban as well.\u00a0 Durban is a global biodiversity hotspot that is suffering due to urbanization, the manufacturing industry is causing environmental health problems to the local communities, and the riverine and coastal ecosystems are being negatively affected by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":1423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448,40558],"tags":[34237,42591,40551,42577,40552,42590,42589],"class_list":["post-1419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2","category-climate-change-politics","tag-christine-burns","tag-climate-policy","tag-cop-17","tag-debra-roberts","tag-durban","tag-federal-vs-local-government","tag-institutional-markers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419","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\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}