A Call For Local Climate Action
In 2021, 150 brilliant students from around the world tried to solve a Fijian village’s water crisis during a two-week design thinking challenge over Zoom.
We had 20 years of relationships in the village, local government support and local partners. It failed completely. Why? The students were 8,000 miles away.
Proximity matters more than smart minds with good intentions.
The Missing Middle: This is Why Climate Action Keeps Failing
Look at the UN climate action list “10 ways you can help fight the climate crisis” and you’ll see evidence of the same problem. The list jumps from a large-scale solution, “Transform global transport systems” at #3, to “Turn down your thermostat” at #4, without acknowledging that these combat wildly different levels of carbon emissions.
This is why climate action can feel impossible. It’s paralyzing to only worry about your personal carbon footprint (nanoscopic impact) AND solve global policy (mega impact). But there’s a productive space between these extremes that everyone ignores: local action.
Local Action Finds Common Ground
The climate movement often focuses on the wrong levels of action (too high or too low), but the just-right blue ocean is local investment and local action.
At the local level, individual choices become collective power. Global pledges feel abstract and top-down for many, but local stewardship hits different.
Local action means you don’t just shop at farmers markets, you help create or fund them. You don’t just want better buildings, you invest in local retrofitting companies. You don’t just wish for walkable neighborhoods, you organize to create them.
Fix the town’s floodplain. Eliminate farm runoff alongside the farmers. Build sidewalks. Test the soil and local waterways. Convert a church parking lot into a Friday makers’ market for the neighborhood. Restore a sand dune.
When you do these things, you’re improving property values, not touching partisan identity.
Pass your potential projects through a “yes in my backyard” test. If the climate projects reduce fossil fuel use and improve property values, you’ve got a winner.
Local climate action drives economic growth. The Department of Energy found that weatherization returns $2.78 for every dollar spent. When NYC added bike lanes to 9th Avenue, retail sales jumped 49%.
Why Local Works
Local succeeds for clear reasons.
- Trust matters—neighbors can hold each other accountable in ways UN delegates cannot.
- Feedback loops are faster—when something doesn’t work, you know in weeks, not years.
- Resource efficiency is built in—no expensive consultants flying in, just local expertise.
- Cultural fit is automatic—solutions match local values. A rain garden in Seattle works differently from one in Phoenix, and locals know why.
The key is to look for replicable templates; sustainability requires consistent and collective efforts. But knowing local matters isn’t enough—we need a clear way to distinguish which actions belong at which level.
The Three-Level Framework for Young Climate Leaders
So how do you know what level to work at? We suggest a three-level framework:
- Can I touch it within 50 miles? → Act directly
- Can I name the humans in charge? → Organize
- Is it truly global? → Ally, vote and support
Stay grounded in tangible impact at a local level while building toward the systemic change we seek.
This framework clarified what went wrong in Fiji. Our students were trying to solve local problems from a global distance.
When the students applied our three-level framework, everything changed. They stopped designing distant solutions and started organizing local, actionable ones.
But What About… Addressing the Doubts
Local is too small to matter
Wrong. Cities produce 70% of global emissions. Fix cities, fix most of the problem. Cities from New York to Melbourne have replicated elements of Copenhagen’s climate strategy, showing that initiatives at the state and local government level can spread far and wide.
Cities are just collections of neighborhoods. Local action scales when neighborhoods align.
We need global coordination to combat greenhouse gas emissions
We do. But while nations negotiate for decades, communities can act today. Local action creates pressure for national policy. The 1987 Montreal Protocol that protected the ozone layer succeeded because cities moved first.
Communities can’t afford this.
In fact, cities can’t afford NOT to act. Research shows these are high-return investments, and that every $1 million shifted from fossil fuels to clean energy creates a net gain of 5 jobs locally. That’s real employment in the community: installers, technicians and project managers.
Look, local projects don’t replace national strategy—but they often make it possible. Policies move when people do.
The Path Ahead To Address Climate Change: Patient Capital and Local Focus
Certainly recycle, buy sustainable clothing and vote for candidates that share your beliefs, just don’t feel paralyzed. You can take action.
As a young person, you can’t build a nuclear plant, but you can organize a farmers market in a parking lot to promote local consumption.
Start today. Pick something within 50 miles. Begin.
Appendix: What Counts As Local Climate Action?
Start with what’s broken where you live. Then fix it—together. Consider starting a local for-profit or non-profit business fighting the climate crisis.
- Installing rain gardens or permeable pavement installations to combat flooding
- Build retention ponds
- Remediate the soil
- Prune trees away from power lines
- Plant a community garden
- Build an urban farm
- Set up a composting hub
- Install solar panels
- Weatherize homes
- Retrofit homes
- Learn to service electric cars
- Paint cool roofs
- Build bike lanes or grow local sharing programs
- Monitor air quality
- Plant native species
- Organize a repair cafe
Author: Shayne Fitz-Coy is Co-Founder of Sabot Family Companies and CEO of Rustic Pathways, which operates the Climate Leaders Fellowship with Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab alongside the Rustic Pathways Foundation. Fitz-Coy co-founded the Climate Leaders Fellowship which has launched 517 local climate projects across 45 countries alongside John Hsu and Dr. Alice Siu.
Shayne leads 400+ professionals across portfolio companies in healthcare, education, and technology sectors. A Harvard (Psychology, cum laude) and Stanford MBA graduate, Fitz-Coy previously held operational roles at Cintas Corporation and growth positions in Silicon Valley.
He writes for Inc. and Fast Company on patient capital and sustainable business strategy. He splits time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Seoul.