The Declaration
A statement of what life will be like in a climate neutral city where a good life for all is possible within planetary boundaries.
Klicka här för att läsa deklarationen på svenska.
An introduction to the Declaration.
Within Viable Cities, we have experienced a strong need to produce a text that can create common understanding and frame the work we do together within the programme to achieve our common mission: climate-neutral cities with a good life for all within planetary boundaries. The way the statement is designed has the aim of creating an emotional understanding by the reader, not just an intellectual understanding of what we are facing. The goal is to involve as many people as possible in the work that needs to be done.
This is not a declaration that you should sign, physically, but the ambition is that as many people as possible that read it will think, “I’ll sign on to this”.
The declaration describes both where we are today and where we need to be in order to address the climate crisis. It should be seen as a tool that anyone who wants to work for sustainable and climate-neutral cities and municipalities can use as a whole or in part to describe the necessary transition that must take place and the personal responsibility that each of us must assume, whatever we do. The text will be updated annually, in a co-creative process, as our work progresses and the world changes.
It is a document that aims to be accessible to anyone, using everyday language that anyone can relate to and understand, whether it is a politician, a police officer, or a pension fund manager. It is also a document for the people, in that the declaration is the result of many people’s discussions about where we are today, what needs to be done, and what is most important.
The declaration is deliberately free of details about what should take place, but describes the goal and why change needs to happen right now. It should be seen as an introduction to our joint work and can be used as a foreword to local work in a city or municipality, or a background to the joining of forces for a transition we have never seen before but which must take place now.
The everyday language makes it accessible to anyone, at the same time the document contains links to scientific and credible sources, to show that what we describe has factual basis and, in part, to longer discussions we wish to have regarding different aspects of the text.
A declaration of our goal
Within the next ten years, we will achieve something that no one thought possible just a decade ago. Together — women and men, young and old, entrepreneurs and researchers, politicians and civil servants, volunteers and generally curious — we will change our societies to become climate neutral. We need to change our way of producing, consuming, investing and living so that for the first time in modern times we are no longer living beyond our means. It will require effort from all of us at work and in our private life.
Fortunately, many of us have already begun to change our way of life. But frankly, more people must be doing it and the changes will have to be more extensive and take place much more quickly. For years, every single one of us has used the earth’s resources as if they were unlimited. In the coming decade, we must learn to live live within the limits of what the planet can provide.
The goal is both clear and unclear at the same time: to increase our quality of life by lowering our emissions of harmful greenhouse gases and becoming climate neutral. Quality of life for one person is not the same as for another. For some it is that the body is active, for others that the brain is stimulated. However, common sense tells us that the “good life” does not result from great consumption, but from great thought.
In order to reduce emissions, the little choices we make everyday play a role. And this applies to everyone, regardless of where you were born or where you live, how old you are or how young you feel, what you pray for or who you pray to, who you love and what you like. On the other hand, our different conditions mean we are affected in completely different ways, unfairly enough. And that is why those of us individuals, organisations and cities with higher emissions also have a greater responsibility for the common goal: to increase the common quality of life in society by minimising our share of emissions.
“Viable” means capable of surviving or living successfully. The truth is that our planet is more viable than we humans are. The globe is capable of coping with the changing conditions for life, but humans and our societies are not. The only way to make our cities viable is to transform and create a society where we live within the limits of the planet.
So the question is how can we get there in just a decade? How do we make our cities viable as early as 2030? Although we do not know exactly how it will be done, together we must do everything we can to make it happen. When president John F. Kennedy said we would fly a man to the moon and back before the end of the decade in the 1960s, he had no idea of how it would happen. When the mission was completed, it became one of the best-known examples of what we humans can achieve when we do things together.
“Viable” should also be interpreted as “we” (vi, in Swedish) + “able”, that is, a “Swenglish” reminder of the ability that “we” can have. When we let helpful action spread like a pandemic, when we ask others what they dream of and how we can shape the city in order to contribute to it, or when we strive to create meaningful jobs — then we can improve the quality of life for everyone!
Everything is connected
The unusually hot summer. The unusually short winter. The unusually widespread forest fires. These unusual events are the effects of ordinary everyday action. What we eat, how we buy, where we travel. In order to change these habits we not only need to change as individuals — the climate crisis is a symptom of a bigger problem, and to address it, we also need to change our social and economic systems.
Our everyday lives and behaviours are governed by how we have built our buildings and our cities, how our physical and digital infrastructures are created, and governed by business models and ways of thinking, by laws and regulations. It is difficult to give up the car if you live where there is no public transport. It is difficult to start local manufacturing unless the conditions to do so are in place.
How we as a society react to the coronavirus makes it clear how interconnected everything is and how vulnerable it can be. It also provides the opportunity for many of us to experience the benefits of digital interconnection in a way that can increase our quality of life while reducing emissions. A big lesson of the crisis is to show how quickly we as a society can change our behaviours when it really matters. Another lesson is that complex problems have no universal solution, which is why we must take a holistic approach and embrace the complexity. Facing uncertainty about the future, we need to find out what really works to change our cities and gradually test and scale up.
Doing is more important than talking
We can talk and think as much as we please, but only change in practice can achieve real impact. Warm words about the importance of innovation only contribute to increasing the greenhouse effect if we do not make them a reality.
A clear mission helps us focus on what is important. In the situation we are in, it is better to be brave and make sufficiently thought-out attempts on a small scale than to back down and wait for a large-scale solution. The most boring idea may be the most effective, but the most effective idea may also prove not to work. We don’t know until someone has tried it. The faster we learn what works in a smaller setting, the sooner we know what solutions can be scaled up and introduced in more places.
We don’t know who will come up with the ideas that work best, but we know it can be anyone. Therefore, it is important that everyone is listened to, that all ideas are heard regardless of who has them. The responsibility rests heavily on those of us who are normally listened to, to now let others make their voices heard.
Here, those of us who work in municipal organisations have an extra responsibility for finding, copying and disseminating ideas that have proven to work locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. What solves a problem may as well have been found in Båstad as in Brussels. Even though we and Sweden are often role models for many others in our quest for a higher quality of life through reduced climate impact, we are hardly the best at everything.
But the transition is not the responsibility of the municipality, but the responsibility of society, that is, everyone’s responsibility. The municipality does not have a mandate to prohibit each of us from flying to Thailand whenever we wish, even though emissions from the trip degrade the quality of life for everyone else. There are many such areas where the municipality has no remit and simple solutions are not available. But who said the transition would be easy? Nevertheless, we must move forward as a society, all together.
Hand in hand towards the future
As pathfinders, we must take the hand of those who come after us. Therefore, we must explain what the goal means (higher quality of life for all), not just how we know we will have arrived (lower climate impact). Simple language and everyday descriptions of what a higher quality of life means are crucial for everyone to feel that what is unknown does not need to be intimidating. It can be comforting to hear that we will be able to treat ourselves to a good juicy burger in the future too, just like now, even if it is not made of animals.
How we tell something also matters. A bureaucratic language speaks to no one in particular. Formulations with intricate words address inwardly, to a few. Academic descriptions are rarely a feasible way to reach the many. Many sentences without question marks exclude the possibility of inviting opposing thoughts, good objections, and wise suggestions for improvement. Therefore, expressing in an inclusive way is not enough — non-exclusion is the goal. Everyone is included.
What remains unknown must be described with familiar images and explanations. They should be based on facts, but the feeling of an enhanced quality of life must be conveyed clearly. When we complicate the descriptions, we give ourselves more work unnecessarily because what we cannot explain in simple terms is not spread easily by others. Then we let go of each other’s hands and some will fall behind.
A common destination with different approach roads
No one has the opportunity to solve their society’s challenges on their own, or enough money to develop all new ideas themselves, or the power to tackle all the problems at the same time. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone must do something.
Each one of us, individuals and organisations, must join forces to face the problems we are best suited to solve and trust that other experts are doing their best to solve the problems in which we cannot contribute. With scarce resources, we must ensure that we distinguish between cause and effect. Are we working on the real problem or are we just trying to mitigate the impact of it?
Only stupidity allows individual egos to stand in the way of the common good. Lack of solidarity is also a lack of imagination. When we join forces for the future of society, those with aching toes need to move their feet. Joining forces, the expression itself means strength. Proudly copying others’ successful solutions and being proud when others want to copy our efforts — indeed, two ways to do the most with the least possible resources.
Although we are moving towards the same goal, we will choose different paths because we are in different places. The global goals for sustainable development are a common compass. Our curiosity, our enthusiasm and our patience are our renewable energy. But the solutions that work in one place can be a disaster in other contexts. Some of us will be forced to bridge gulfs of ignorance while others will face resistance to change that is hard as granite.
Therefore, it is important that we wave at each other from time to time, from our different paths, and that we give each other a helping hand when the roads cross on our common journey.
Together, we must remind ourselves that our mission is to achieve something in ten years that no one thought was possible just a decade ago. But also that it is possible — together!
