Soon after Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, leaders of many states and cities in US said that they would continue to be committed to battling climate change.
Their commitment is interesting as it opens up the possibility of a green strategy that begins from the bottom rather than the top.
What is bottom-up approach?
The bottom-up approach means that local actors participate in decision-making about the strategy and in the selection of the priorities to be pursued in their local area.
The bottom-up approach should not be considered as alternative or opposed to top-down approaches from national authorities.
Rather, it should be considered as combining and interacting with them, in order to achieve better results.
How effective will such a bottom-up strategy be?
Almost all climate change mitigation strategies have focused on an international deal where governments commit their countries to specific targets.
But, it is unwise torely on singular global policies to solve the problem of managing our common resources i.e., the atmosphere, forests, rich diversity of life etc.,
So, it is important to build a system that can evolve and adapt rapidly.
Research demonstrate that a variety of overlapping policies at the city and subnational levels is more likely to succeed than are single, overarching binding agreements.
Such an evolutionary approach to policy provides essential safety nets should one or more policies fail.
Here, the risks from climate change are serious enough to require grass-roots action, rather than waiting for a grand international agreement.
What does it mean for India?
National climate change commitments are needed, but not everything can be driven from New Delhi.
India makes a national commitment to cap its carbon footprint, but does not distinguish between the industrialized states than the average and the forested states.
There needs to be some mechanism for the former to compensate the latter.
Also, large companies that commit to reducing their carbon footprint even in the absence of coercion can make a difference.
So can cities that seek to shift from private cars to public transport.
Regions with a history of environmental action can also change their energy mix to include more renewables.
But, such voluntary action, imposes costs on them.
So, some sort of omnibus international agreement is still needed considering decentralized action alone will not do the job on its own.
