Dossier : « La recherche au défi de la crise des temporalités » : Urgence climatique et temporalités locales : la territorialisation contrariée des politiques de lutte contre le changement climatique.

This article explores the issue of the temporality of climate change from the angle of the formulation and implementation of local public policies which profess to address this fundamental political challenge. Empirically, it draws upon an analysis of the appropriation of Local Climate Plans (LCP) in twelve 'intercommunal' bodies in New Aquitaine. In France, virtually all such bodies are now required to develop LCP. Through interviews and documentary analyses, we studied the political work that the implementation of this obligation has entailed, in particular regarding two obstacles to legitimating climate action at the local scale. Firstly, we show that for local authorities, despite the work of ecologically committed administrative staff, political backing is only given by a minority of isolated elected councillors. Secondly, each locality has its own historical trajectory of environmental action and, more generally, of public policymaking at the intercommunal scale. The sedimentation of this past into local configurations consistently affects the content and meaning of each LCP. More generally, we show that actors have great difficulty pinning down, prioritizing, and legitimating climate change as a 'public problem' that deserves to be acted upon locally. As with the two non-drivers of political change listed above, this again contributes to creative and significant climate initiatives not being framed as urgent at the local scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]