Racines citoyennes : la communauté locale au coeur de la transition écologique L’impact des initiatives climatiques locales et citoyennes à Montréal

Abstract

Within urban areas, a growing number of citizens independently set up initiatives to face climate change, such as greening, urban agriculture or alternative energy projects. This paper seeks to understand how local citizens’actors contribute to urban climate governance through small-scale social and environmental experiments. Based on a Montreal (Canada) neighbourhood Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie case study of eight initiatives, the research is based on a theoretical framework combining climate governance experiments and sociotechnical transition theory. The accumulation and infl uence of such initiatives can contribute to redefine urban issues and demonstrate the feasibility and acceptability of simple solutions in order to implement an urban transition in face of climate change. Using their social network but also their objectives and know-how, urban activists establish their legitimacy as stakeholders who can propose alternatives to the municipal government. Results of the study also show that such local experiments refl ect the growing power of informal collective modes of action. Indeed, through local “green” actions, citizens produce impacts that are immediate, concrete, simple and “personal-benefit-oriented.” By doing so, they build new ecosystems made of various partnerships. Th is off ers an innovative alternative model in the face of the current ways of consuming resources and about how we socially deal with the climate crisis under a paradigm shaped by capitalism and neoliberalism.