Los Angeles & The United Arab Emirates: City Diplomacy and Climate Sustainability
Photo credit: Fahad Mosalam; The Dubai Mall
BY Kelsey Suemnicht
As climate leaders race to keep global temperatures from rising, what kinds of drastic measures should cities undertake to ensure we are able to avert the cataclysmic effects of climate change?
To address the question above, the Pacific Council hosted a September 2021 round table in partnership with the United Arab Emirates consulate in Los Angeles and the following five key themes emerged.
Our current climate situation requires a shift in narrative from individual responsibility to shared responsibility.
The climate sustainability challenges we face are within the power of the world and cities to overcome. Expanding the narrative around the topic of sustainability to include culture, health, happiness can bring a much broader and more diverse audience to the table. Often public awareness campaigns focus on one way to create change (recycling, for example), when there are actually many diverse ways to contribute to solutions and a larger effort can be mobilized if we expand this narrative. Youth will be crucial to include as we seek to foster systemic long term change.
More collaboration between major leaders in the new energy economy and fewer siloed groups could reframe problem-solving for the climate future.
Most emissions are coming from developed nations and from cities within those nations, for which we need to take responsibility. The current mentality has been top-down decision-making, but bottom-up actions are proving to be impactful and transformational. Research has provided solutions that will pay back over the long term but bureaucracy has erected barriers to make it more difficult to implement, and so our systems remain on the same path. Cities are currently laboratories for climate change and how to address it, especially because new technologies will likely be deployed in cities first.
It’s important to have a new wave of leadership in companies and government to implement access to climate sustainability education and training.
A new focus on transforming the workforce would greatly contribute to having an impact toward climate change preparedness and resiliency. Currently, the workers and training needed to implement our leading climate sustainability solutions are small groups compared to other realms of technology. It is important to invest more in educating workers, with a focus on communities that haven’t had access to education on climate change yet.
Virtual Round Table Discussion, September 2021 with Kelsey Suemnicht, Ambassador Nina Hachigian, Daniel Weiss, Dr. Benjamin Preston, Genevieve Liang, Consul General Hazza Alkaabi, Matt Petersen, Carmille Lim, Eng. Alya Abdulla Alharmoudi, Razan Al Mubarak, Dr. Benjamin Preston, and Dr. Jerrold D. Green
New technologies and sustainability practices are being implemented, but we need to fully embrace them.
Implementation of new technology requires further international cooperation, science funding, and diplomacy on all levels of government. Incentives are key to changing behavior, for example inspiring procurement and supply chain changes by providing consumers a product that can produce less greenhouse gas emission.
Transformational changes in climate change cannot take place without transformational changes in societal equity.
Many of our current solutions come with externalities that reinforce existing inequities in society or will create new inequities. Traditional sustainability topics such as conserving water, energy, and waste are important but discussing inclusion, environmental justice, and culture, and health are also important. This cannot be a movement that is only reserved for the elite to participate, it needs to be a conversation centered around equity. Decision making needs to happen on all levels, down-up grassroot methods and top-down methods, in order to create the quick change we need. A major asset in creating change will be to recognize the differential power dynamics that exist and put measures in place that bring all everyone to the table, including marginalized, low income communities, giving all a say in this dynamic conversation about our collective future.
Thank you to the following industry leaders who contributed their expertise to this discussion:
Ambassador Nina Hachigian, Deputy Mayor for International Affairs, City of Los Angeles
Genevieve Liang, Security Fellow, Truman National Security Project
H.E. Razan Al Mubarak, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
Dr. Benjamin Preston, Director, Community Health and Environmental Policy Program, RAND Corporation
Matt Petersen, President & CEO, Los Angeles CleanTech Incubator (LACI)
Daniel Weiss, Managing Partner & Founder, Angeleno Group
Eng. Alya Abdulla Alharmoudi, Director of the Environment Department at Dubai Municipality
The Global City Fellowship Program, under the leadership of the Pacific Council on International Policy, advocates for city diplomacy in the public sphere, develops Los Angeles’ role as a leader on international issues, and forges strong ties between Angelenos and their counterparts in international cities. The Pacific Council seeks to inspire a culture of global engagement from our home city in Los Angeles, and applies a local-to-global lens on everything we do. We strive to help people who live and work in their local communities understand how their movements, choices, and local policies have global impact.
Recommended Reading from the Pacific Council:
Regional Sustainability Efforts to Set a Global Stage by Maria Salinas
Survival in the Era of Climate Change Pandemics by Les Lo Baugh, Jr.
Why the United States Needs a National Climate Investment Fund by Brewer Stone
Additional Resources:
Los Angeles Is the Face of Climate Change by Scott Lucas
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Kelsey Suemnicht is is the inaugural Global City Fellow. Suemnicht is a public affairs professional who has worked as a contracted Digital Engagement Manager at the U.S. Department of State, Media Analyst at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and Editorial Researcher at Foreign Policy Magazine. She holds a Masters in Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California.
Find out more about our Global City Fellowship Program here.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.
