How plastic talks: sustainable transitions, entrepreneurship and governance in Tulum, Mexico

This chapter explores from a governance perspective how the global discourse about climate change unfolds at a local level in Tulum, a tourism destination in Mexico in which a group of Italian second home owners settled a decade ago. Tulum experiences a huge increase in tourism that also causes a massive pressure on the climate, in this case plastic waste or the lack of opportunities for recycling plastic. In this chapter we examine how the second home owners negotiate their position and resources with the different actors (the governments, local residents, private sector, and tourists) in the local and regional political space using climate change (plastic) as a concrete tool. The case is exemplary as too often, climate change is seen purely as a scientific debate, and climate science is misappropriated as an economic and political instrument. When we talk about governance climate change is a global agenda setting issue and also emerging as a new arena for broader political struggles over power, authority and territorial control. We seek in this chapter to open a progressive space for discussion and dialogue and challenge the existing policies on climate change, to provide new understandings of embarking the sustainability agenda.