[sustran] (1) 'working partnership' between SUTP and Kyoto Cities. (2) And why is Kyoto Compliance an issue in 3rd world cities?

[Eric Britton]

Dear Carlos (and Manfred and Axel and Lloyd and and .),

 

I would like to propose that we set up an informal 'working partnership'
between SUTP and Kyoto Cities.  Now as it happens, this part of our site and
program is still in its very earliest stages of development, so for now we
are not as yet announcing it to the world and for now working only with
groups that know us well and/or have a deep understanding of how and why
such partnership work.  But it strikes me that the fit in our case is
potentially excellent, and that what we have to propose fits very nicely
into the partnership frame which you yourselves have already developed.  (I
attach here a note in which we try to set out how we see our potential
contribution from this end . . .  what we are trying to do is just one
focused thing.

 

You can see our working draft and the first partnerships entries if you go
to the left menu, clicking Pattern Break, Gearing for Action, Working
Partnerships. As you will see, the idea for now is simply to describe each
partner in a few lines, and then in a few more explain, if useful and
agreeable, how we see the partnerships as working.

 

The basic idea, as you already well understand it and as we are already
beginning to see in a first handful of cities, is to do what we can to build
up and support a strong local 'consortium' in their city that is ready to
support and work with the idea that something along the lines of a 20/20
program can make an important contribution.  Both for what it can do in
itself, but also as a pattern break that can open up new ways of informing
and making policy on these important matters in each city.  Indeed if we get
it right, the lessons can be useful in a lot of domains of lie in the city
beyond just transportation.  But that at least is our point of departure.

 

I very much hope that your team will agree to this as a next step. Indeed,
it is surely going to be a critical building block for all that we are
(both) trying to do.

 

Thanks for letting me know when you have time.

 

Regards,

 

Eric

 

PS. There is an as yet unresolved "problem" with the Kyoto Cities program
that probably needs to be dealt with better in our site and various
materials, and concerning which I would appreciate your counsel and ideas.
And this concerns those cities in the world (the majority in fact) where the
Kyoto Protocol is not really an issue.  Let's take any city in Thailand, for
example, and of course for the rest of your Asian area - where "Kyoto
Compliance" per se is simply not an issue, or at least not a priority issue.
Of course we understand that a 20% decrease in CO2 (or whatever indicator is
taken as a target) is going to have huge benefits for the city.  But if the
announced objective of our program is Kyoto, maybe this is something that
busy mayors and policy makers will just put onto the "nice but not critical"
pile on their desk, and then move on to other things.  Any thoughts for us
on this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kyoto World Cities Challenge - How we fit in 

As you will see if you click to the World Resources
<http://www.ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/resources.htm>  pages being prepared
in support of this program, we have already identified more than five
hundred groups and programs working in this or at least related areas world
wide. In which case, it's a fair question: why should we be thinking about
adding one more to all that? Might it not be preferable for us to get out of
the way let all these other people simply get on with the business at hand?
Hmm. 

This is a question which we are at times asked, not least by people and
groups with projects and programs of their own in areas we are trying to
address here. They of course have their own ideas and priorities. All to the
good in an area of technology and society that desperately requires many
different effort and approaches. As you are aware there is a great deal that
is going on in this broad area today. And if you require a reminder we can
point you to our World Resource Inventory here which already identifies more
than five hundred groups, projects and programs that are working on it, each
in their own way, in their own target area, with their own time focus, with
their own tools and goals. And resources to do the job. 

Certainly no one thing is unique about the Kyoto World Cities Challenge --
but perhaps the combination of a certain number of explicit goals and
particular methods which together give this program a certain originality
which permit it to be evaluate and judged as a useful effort worthy of your
support and contributions. Here are the main "defining factors" that in our
view combine to make Kyoto Cities a possible winner and certainly different
from the rest. In fact, this is how we define the background to our
partnership agreements with others working on these problems in their places
and ways:

1.	Extreme focus: (a) CO2; (b) transport in cities; (c) very sharp
targeted decreases (20%) in (d) a very short period of time (20 months)


2.	World coverage: World wide focus -- but ready to work on it with one
city at a time.  The world wide reach provides the base for the powerful
International Advisory Panel and its peer support network.


3.	City action focus: This is above all a city decision, a city action.
It does not depend on international treaties, other levels of government to
foot the bill; it works within the city, its existing asset base, quality of
leadership and degree of public support.  In that city!


4.	Explicit targeting: You do your homework and then set your targets -
and then you either succeed or you fail. And all that firmly in the public
eye. (No place to hide.)


5.	Strong female leadership and participation. In large part motivated
by dissatisfaction with traditional male dominance and the values that
appear to go with it.


6.	Car-like mobility:  This may surprise, but quite frankly we do not
see democratic pluralistic societies agreeing to accept large downgrading of
their mobility arrangements. Which gives us our target: as good or better
conditions of transit than they are getting our of their cars under present
arrangements.


7.	International peer support network: Personal engagement, high
quality and great variety of the supporting International Advisory
<http://ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/panel.htm>  Panel.  Members have both
international role, and also available to "cluster" to support discussions
and initiatives in their own city.

 

8.	Eclectic and expansive sectoral coverage: Huge diversity of
disciplines, backgrounds, geographies and competences, going way outside of
the 'normal' transport or even environment groups enriches the perspectives,
and the support network in each city and for the program overall.

 

9.	Comfort Zones (lack thereof): Many programs and almost all
committees seek to achieve "Comfort Zones" in which all interests present of
lurking in the background come to a general agreement as to priorities, what
needs to be done, how to do it, etc. Kyoto Cities seeks quite the reverse: a
large number of competing ideas and points of view, plenty of room for
internal contradictions and conflicts, and a good and continuing dose of
cognitive dissonance as a means for accommodating all this necessary
variety.


10.	Supporting context of intensive technology-based IP networking:  The
state of the art, practical, user friendly Communications
<http://ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/bridge.htm>  Bridge holds the underlying
key to making the whole thing work.


*     *     *

 

The Kyoto World Cities Challenge is one program that cities can, if they
wish, start to engage immediately. It is not the only thing that they or the
rest of the world should be doing before the challenges of environment and
costly dysfunctional transport that hinder almost all of them in their life
quality and economic viability. It may not even be the best one. But it may
be one good place to start. (Or should we keep on waiting and hope for the
best?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 <http://ericbritton.org> 

 <http://www.ericbrittononline.com> Technology, Economy, Society 

 



Francis Eric Knight Britton
Innovation consultancy/advisory 

EcoPlan International
8/10, rue Joseph Bara
75006 Paris, France 


 <mailto:eric.britton at ecoplan.org> eric.britton at ecoplan.org
IM: Skype - ericbritton
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tel: 
mobile: 

+331 4326 1323
+336 7321 5868 

 

 

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