When the energy moves into the city

Naghmeh Nasiritousi, Senior Lecturer in the Theme of Environmental Change at Linköping University, opened the webinar by emphasizing the decisive role of cities in the climate transition. Despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that cities account for a large share of emissions, they also offer favorable conditions for rapid emission reductions. At the same time, their room for maneuver is constrained by limited mandates, financing challenges, political goal conflicts, national regulatory frameworks, technical bottlenecks, and coordination problems.

Naghmeh Nasiritousi presented the research project Bridging Silos – Can the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral Cities Accelerate Energy Transitions?, which she leads through the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

The project maps and analyzes 112 selected cities that aim to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. Through case studies in Stockholm and Amsterdam, the project evaluates how measures function in practice. In its first publication, the project conducted a literature review to examine which silos exist in transition processes. The results show that there are many types of silos, linked to levels of governance and forms of collaboration, both internal and external.

The project compares the findings from the literature review with the EU’s ambitions and has developed strategies that cities can use to bridge these silos. These include strengthening coordination, focusing on partnerships, promoting synergies, addressing goal conflicts, and integrating climate measures into all planning processes.

Citizen dialogue has great potential – but risks being overburdened

Martin Westin, researcher in environmental communication at SLU, described how our time is characterized by both increasing polarization in sustainability issues and persistently high levels of institutional trust, creating a paradoxical starting point for dialogue-based processes.

He presented research on climate citizens’ assemblies in Sweden, at both national and municipal levels. The studies show that such assemblies can function as important arenas for constructive dialogue between citizens with differing views. At the same time, a recurring tension is identified between the ambition to create inclusive dialogue and the ambition to use the assemblies to legitimize or accelerate already formulated climate goals. When these purposes are combined, dialogues risk being perceived as exclusionary and thereby losing their function.

As an alternative, Martin Westin proposed a more systematic perspective in which different forms of citizen engagement are viewed as parts of a broader dialogue system. In such a system, formal decision-making processes, participatory forums, civil society, and the media complement one another, rather than placing all democratic expectations on a single dialogue initiative.

The energy transition is also a spatial issue

Daniel Urey from the think tank LABLAB emphasized that the energy transition is fundamentally spatial and social. As energy production becomes visible in landscapes and local environments – through wind turbines, power lines, and land development – people’s relationships to both energy and place change, creating new conflicts around acceptance and justice.

Daniel Urey demonstrated how large-scale policy instruments, such as the EU Emissions Trading System, have concrete geographical consequences and how the costs and benefits of the transition are unevenly distributed across regions. LABLAB’s research therefore focuses on identifying where actual spatial conditions for energy transition exist. In a project in Dalarna, landscape analyses are combined with studies of how residents value places, showing that acceptance is often both regional and emotional – not solely local.

A recurring challenge is that energy issues are often handled within planning silos. When connections to landscape, natural values, and local development are lacking, both implementation and dialogue become more difficult.

Panel: implementation in focus – but goal conflicts remain

The panel discussion tied together the threads around a shared understanding that the climate and energy transition is largely slowed by implementation challenges rather than a lack of goals. At the same time, several goal conflicts were highlighted: between coordination and initiative fatigue, between dialogue and speed, and between democratic ideals and practical constraints.

The role of dialogue was discussed in particular. While the panel agreed on its importance, they problematized the notion of dialogue as a universal tool. Questions about where the limits of participation lie, which assumptions should be open to discussion, and who initiates dialogues revealed tensions between legitimacy, effectiveness, and governability.

Overall, the discussion showed that although there is broad consensus on the goal – a rapid and just transition – the pathways toward it involve real conflicts that require both analytical clarity and political trade-offs.