CAPACITIES TO ENVISION, CHOOSE, AND EXECUTE

Capacity is a crucial factor in planning and achieving long term objectives for climate sustainability. Self-reliance is not just the capacity to choose, but also the capacity to envision and to execute. Organizations, companies and persons must choose to act in certain ways but they must also have the capacity to do so. A simple example is the piano: you can choose to play it but you must also have the capacity to do so. In the same way, living in low carbon societies requires the capacity (be that formation of skills, knowledge, or institutions within society) as well as a desire to do so.  Being able to envision, design, and pursue alternatives will require engagement not only with the technical aspects of climate action, but also the central capacity to imagine and design societies capable to nurturing a good life – a life that people actually want to lead – compatible with 2-1.5 C futures.  A key element of efforts intended to support this broader notion of capacity is engagement with bottom-up visions of futures that are both feasible and desirable.  The reflexive design of this project is intended to facilitate the capacity of country teams to envision, pursue and implement pathways towards these desirable and feasible futures by punctuating active learning by doing periods with moments of reflection.