If you are disappointed about Durban, you might find it good to know that some people didn’t expect much from it anyway. One of these persons was David Victor, whose book on climate change is now on The Economist’s Book of the Year list. Victor basically says that bottom-up strategies will be more effective than top-down strategies.

One of the organizations that looks at bottom-up climate strategies in a systematic way is ICLEI, one of our guests in our event last year on cities and climate change. Just taking a look at ICLEI’s website makes clear that cities seem to be doing better than national governments in this area. While Canada was obstructing a deal in Durban, Vancouver renewed its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions. A good reason to be looking at local initiatives when talking about global change!