What flies under the radar in the rest of Canada is the fact that Edmonton City Council recently passed a comprehensive and far reaching environmental strategy called The Way We Green (TWWG). Its goals and policy directions, including on climate change and energy, are nothing if not forward looking and very ambitious.

The Alberta Climate Dialogue project (ABCD) is a five-year university-community initiative (2010-2015) exploring how new forms of citizen participation in policymaking can enhance Alberta responses to climate change (I serve on ABCD’s Steering Committee). ABCD and the Centre for Public Involvement  (CPI) are exploring a partnership with the City of Edmonton to co-create a public participation campaign that seeks to advance climate change policy and action in Alberta.  This partnership would also advance knowledge, capacity, and practices of citizen dialogue and deliberation in Alberta and beyond.

On September 23, ABCD/CPI hosted a workshop for the City of Edmonton leaders, community stakeholders who were involved in the creation of TWWG, and ABCD’s leading researchers and public participation practitioners (as both presenters and participants). I had the pleasure of facilitating this event which set out to better understand how citizen deliberation can support the City’s responses to energy transition and climate change; leverage expertise to inform the City’s public engagement efforts; and help align key energy and climate change objectives on a public engagement spectrum. Judging from the buzz at tables and the thoughtful contributions about how serious citizen engagement could really help the City administration and Council to implement TWWG, the workshop was a success.

Following on the heels of this workshop, ABCD convened its annual planning session – this year participants contributed their research and practice expertise to support the Edmonton initiative, including design and learning dimensions. Graphic recorder Avril Orloff captured a snapshot of key elements of ABCD’s work and aspirations in the drawing included here (click on the image on this screen and the next to view it in detail).

Stay tuned for the next chapter in the City of Edmonton / ABCD / CPI partnership story – citizens and the City implementing wise choices for environmental sustainability.

-Mary Pat Mackinnon-

This is happening at the same time that citizens across the world  witness the ongoing environmental and economic devastation caused by BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in one of the world’s richest, most diverse and fragile marine ecosystems. With 60,000 barrels of oil continuing to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, there is a growing public dialogue about reorienting our approach to  to deal holistically with our economic, energy and environmental needs.

The Gulf of Mexico catastrophe  demonstrates  simple approaches to complex global challenges don’t work.  Economist Jeffrey Sachs in Commonwealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet and management guru Peter Senge in The Necessary Revolution, advocate transformative approaches to climate change that integrate economic, environmental and social dimensions through shared governance involving governments, the public, and corporate and community sectors.

A promising initiative with which I am involved (through Ascentum and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa) seeks to advance practical and theoretical knowledge about shared governance through citizen deliberations: the Alberta Climate Change Dialogue (ABCD). This five year project, funded by a $1 million Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) grant from the Social Science and Humanities Federation of Canada (SSHRC) with $3.1 million in matching and in-kind support, led by University of Alberta Principal Investigator Dr. David Kahane, focuses on citizen contributions. ABCD researchers and practitioners will explore, in partnerships with Alberta municipalities and provincial ministries, environmental NGOs and industry, how and to what degree citizen deliberations influence policy; and how and to what degree participation in formal deliberations shapes citizen knowledge, motivation, and capacity to act on climate issues.

Check out this website www.albertaclimatedialogue.ca or email  abcd@ualberta.ca for more information on the project.

- Mary Pat MacKinnon -