Abstract to the session: From Growth to Resilience: Changing Perspectives on Regional Development.
There is a growing awareness in cities, regions and nations all over the world of an ongoing global warming and its effects. The industrialized world has undertaken the task to lower the green house gas emissions, and most probably larger assignments will be distributed in future agreements. Opponents argue that this implies restrictions that threaten economic development; others argue that climate change mitigation can be looked upon as an opportunity to enhance national and regional economic development and the creation of new jobs. In times of economic decline, innovations in climate friendly technology are put forward from national and local governments as an appropriate cure. This follows the line of argumentation in the ecological modernization discourse. To make it short - economic growth and the creation of new jobs is one of many challenges for cities and regions, combating climate change is another. Is it possible to make a win-win solution out of these challenges? Based on two Swedish case studies, we put forward two different local solutions to this challenge. In both cases networking on different scales and across sectors is part of the strategy. In one of the cases the city is very active in using its networks as platforms both for advertising climate friendly production and boosting itself as a forerunner in climate mitigation. The case studies show that local resources to some degree determine the way climate mitigation and climate friendly production are combined with growth strategies in the two cities, shaping climate policies.