Towards transformative action: learning from local experiences and contexts

Introduction In this book, we have brought together a range of experiences and examples of local climate change responses and actions from diverse contexts around the world, including Australia, Vanuatu, South Africa, Japan, India, Sweden and the USA. This collection of case studies on local climate change action offer insights into the range of complex social, institutional and political challenges and issues mediating the work of local actors as they grapple with climate change. The examples also highlight the many ways in which local and regional context matters and how particular individuals and social groups emerge as key actors progressing climate change action - often through collaboration among different social groups from across local government, private sector and civil society. While in many cases the actions being adopted have similarities - including risk assessments, goal setting, strategic planning, project implementation, emergency management, etc. - the experience of 'doing' climate change mitigation and adaptation is very much shaped and infl uenced by the different historical, geographical, socio-political and cultural contexts in which they take place. In examining different local and regional contexts, we were interested in understanding how local contingencies and specifi cities create conditions that can both enable and constraint innovative and transformative actions - those actions that have the capacity or potential to challenge or change business-as-usual planning and decision-making processes and their outcomes and more broadly in terms of governance, policy and practice change. In focusing on local government actors and those they collaborate with, these specifi c contextual conditions manifest in how climate change is interpreted, how problems are framed and prioritised, how policy responses emerge, and in relation to the capacity to innovate and experiment new ways of doing - organisationally, institutionally and socially.