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Lament for a network? Cities and networked climate governance in Canada
Abstract
There is substantial evidence that the global governance of climate change must pass through cities. While formal networks offer cities a means of generating effects that extend beyond their own borders, it remains unclear as to whether such networks can address collective action barriers and implementation gaps. City-networks, after all, are limited in their efforts to govern and must rely on information, service provision, and soft forms of coercion if they are to steer their members past these considerable challenges. This article contributes to extant efforts to assess their ability to do so by addressing two gaps in the literature. First, the article focuses on the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP), a city-network that has received little attention to date. Second, through analysis of two Canadian cities (Toronto and Winnipeg), the article provides an empirical illustration of the limitations of network authority and influence, and offers some thoughts on what this means for networked urban climate governance in Canada and beyond.
... Indeed, the last few federal governments in Canada have been criticized for overall lack of leadership (see White 2010), active suppression of climate research (see Nature 2012), and too much deference to provincial governments (see McGregor 2015). Recent Auditor General reports have found that the current government is not on track to meet its new Paris Accord commitments and has prioritized planning over actual implementation, for both mitigation and adaptation goals (OAGC 2017a(OAGC , b, 2018. 1 There has been perhaps more action at the subnational level, with carbon pricing policies already implemented by several provinces (e.g., see Lachapelle et al. 2012) as well as climate partnerships or networks formed at both the regional (e.g., see Houle et al. 2015) and municipal levels (e.g., see Gordon 2016). However, the provinces have traditionally lagged in comparison with the American states (Rabe 2007) and more recently have abandoned commitments in lockstep with the states (Rabe 2016), while the broader regional and municipal networks have been only marginally productive (Gordon 2016;Houle et al. 2015). ...
... Recent Auditor General reports have found that the current government is not on track to meet its new Paris Accord commitments and has prioritized planning over actual implementation, for both mitigation and adaptation goals (OAGC 2017a(OAGC , b, 2018. 1 There has been perhaps more action at the subnational level, with carbon pricing policies already implemented by several provinces (e.g., see Lachapelle et al. 2012) as well as climate partnerships or networks formed at both the regional (e.g., see Houle et al. 2015) and municipal levels (e.g., see Gordon 2016). However, the provinces have traditionally lagged in comparison with the American states (Rabe 2007) and more recently have abandoned commitments in lockstep with the states (Rabe 2016), while the broader regional and municipal networks have been only marginally productive (Gordon 2016;Houle et al. 2015). The relationship between climate science and policy outcomes at all levels of government in Canada is at the very least curious and offers an interesting case for potentially furthering our broader understanding of science-policy interaction for climate change. ...
... However, some of these initiatives have lost their initial momentum (Houle et al. 2015), while others have encountered barriers such as concerns of regional competition and lack of interest at the federal level (Selin and VanDeveer 2005). As for action by individual provinces, governments in both British Columbia and Quebec have had some success in implementing carbon pricing initiatives without losing much electoral support (Harrison 2012;Lachapelle et al. 2012), but provincial action has historically lagged behind, or in lockstep with, that of US states (Rabe 2007(Rabe , 2016. 5 Mitigation efforts at the municipal level include, for instance, the Partners for Climate Protection network, which includes 247 Canadian municipalities (Gordon 2016). However, its success has been limited; more support from upper levels of government will ultimately be needed (Ibid.). ...
Can better-functioning science–policy relationships (SPRs) address the seeming discrepancy between the scientific consensus on climate change and the insufficient ensuing policy outcomes? Certain scholarly works on science–policy interfaces and evidence-based policy are optimistic, while the literature on research utilization is pessimistic. The field of science, technology, and society and the concept of co-production advance a broader view, suggesting that more holistic (i.e., institutional or systemic) changes may offer a way forward. This article synthesizes causal claims from such literatures into an analytical framework of potential pathways from co-productive SPR characteristics to policy action. It then investigates, through expert interviews, three climate SPRs in Canada: a municipal-level case between the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium and local communities, a provincial-level case between the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and the Climate Action Secretariat, and a national-level case between the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and the federal government. In light of the analytical framework, the cases suggest a theoretical hierarchy of function for SPRs: incidental interaction (at the bottom), basic partnership, interactive dialogue, and true co-production (at the top), each of which can be coupled with a supplementary network (to the side). This template is presented as the Science–Policy Relationship Hierarchy model. Collectively, the cases and the model reveal causal pathways that may explain why any given SPR ends up functioning the way it does (e.g., external political conditions are important), implying prescriptions for improvement. Besides the analytical framework and model, the main contribution is the finding that co-productive strategies are unlikely to lead to concrete policy changes on their own, but are crucial for cultivating soft policy influences and side benefits.
... In our study, such sprawl often featured the creation of new parks and cycle lanes/multi-use pathways before/during gentrification in 1996-2006, contributing to the relatively high number of CTs experiencing greening. Toronto was one of the first local governments to integrate climate change into planning/policy documents (Gordon, 2016), but these only applied to the pre-amalgamation City of Torontowhich included just 15% of the current city. Following amalgamation in 1998, Toronto saw increasing institutional support for environmentalism/sustainability, resulting in a phase of neoliberal market-based "roll-out environmentalism" that differed from previous civic community-oriented environmentalism and emphasized economic gains over social/environmental improvements (Desfor & Keil, 2004;Keil & Boudreau, 2005). ...
... Multiple mechanisms might establish this link: TMNs improve access to know-how, obtaining funds (possibly compensating for a lack of domestic support), prestige considerations, protection against changes in political priorities, or the possibility to better affect higher-level policy-making (Acuto, 2013;Aust, 2019;Davidson et al., 2019;Domorenok, 2019). There is no consensus on the effects of TMN membership: some studies find that members are more likely to have mitigation plans (Domorenok, 2019;Heikkinen et al., 2019;Lee and Koski, 2014;Rashidi and Patt, 2018;Reckien et al., 2015); others struggle to find evidence (Gordon, 2016;Kalafatis, 2018;Krause, 2012;Pitt, 2010;Rosenthal et al., 2015). All these studies speak to • Hypothesis 3: TMN membership is systematically associated with mitigation planning. ...
Research on urban climate action has identified a broad range of potential factors explaining why and how local governments decide to tackle climate change. However, empirical evidence linking such factors in order to explain actual urban climate action has so far been mixed. To address this roadblock, our paper relies on a novel approach, postulating that different configurations of factors may lead to the same outcome (“equifinality”), through a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). It is based on an available data set of local climate mitigation plans in 885 European cities. We find that urban climate action is systematically associated with four qualitatively different configurations of factors, each with its own consistent narrative (“networker cities”, “green cities”, “lighthouse cities”, “fundraising cities”). Crucially, some factors play a positive role in some configurations, a negative in others, and no role in further configurations (e.g., whether a city is located in a country with supportive national climate policies). This confirms that there is no single explanation for urban climate action. Achieving greater robustness in empirical research about urban climate action may thus require a shift, both conceptual and methodological, to the interactions between factors, allowing for different explanations in different contexts.
... In parallel, other articles report on trans-city networks as supporting the status quo rather than progressive climate actions and change (Heikkinen et al., 2019), and small to moderate increases in participating cities' climate actions (Krause, 2012). Gordon (2016) discusses the operational incapacity of the Canadian Partners for Climate Protection network, which struggled to keep cities engaged and meet its commitments. Shefer (2019), focusing specifically on bilateral cooperation (Berlin and Freiburg with Tel Aviv-Yafo) found that learning was rather superficial and did not seem to make a substantial contribution to urban climate governance in the recipient city (Tel Aviv). ...
Cities are expected to contribute to climate mitigation by providing effective climate policy actions in a multilevel governance context. Yet, it is unclear what we actually know about the strengths and weaknesses of urban climate policy measures and how municipal policy learning could be enhanced. In this article we present a comprehensive review on cities’ experience in climate mitigation policy and policy learning, focusing on research published in journal articles. We provide observations from the literature on municipal experience in policy practice and on how local governments manage learning in urban mitigation policy. The review provides valuable examples and reflections on individual policy initiatives, both in terms of policy framing and policy instruments, but finds sporadic evidence on systematically successful policy learning and capacity building processes in the scientific literature. The number of scientific articles on empirical assessments of local policy learning are few, and the research found, published in numerous journals, potentially addressing different research communities, provides limited knowledge on policy learning in terms of lessons learned, lessons drawing and capacity building. Moreover, the literature builds mostly on case studies within particular institutional contexts, which makes the transferability of findings problematic. While evidence on policy learning is still limited, there are indications that under the right conditions, cities can “learn to learn”.
... Examples include studies on epistemic communities (Haas, 1992;1989), or on transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink, 1999;. Many scholars have also started to broadly refer to networked governance (Gordon, 2016a;2016b;Bouteligier, 2013a;Khan, 2013;Juhola and Westerhoff, 2011;Bäckstrand, 2008). Authors using the network-as-actor perspective tend to focus more on the network as a whole, its behaviour and its actions, than on looking at its relational characteristics. ...
This dissertation seeks to explain the emergence of novelty through the case of transnational municipal networks engaged in global climate governance. Its theoretical framework uses network theory, complex systems approaches and some insights from organisational theories. Its empirical analysis is based on the study of 15 climate TMNs. Through an analysis of TMNs' governance instruments and interactions with a variety of actors, I found that TMNs' centrality and diversity of contacts help explain the emergence of novel governance instruments. In the absence of centrality and diversity, the presence of governance entrepreneurs might explain why some TMNs generate more novelties than others.
By providing a new explanation for the emergence of novelties, this dissertation highlights potential mechanisms for the diversification of governance approaches to the wicked problem of climate change.
... TMNs appear to be a case of networked governance since they connect local actors to public, private, local and transnational partners (Lee, 2013). Gathering a variety of actors beyond member cities, they blur the traditional distinctions among public, private, national and international actors (Gordon, 2016a;2016b). ...
Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) are increasing in size, scope and number on the global arena. They reflect a tendency for city governments to coordinate environmental action through networked forms of governance. In this article, we argue that a new generation of TMNs has entered the global scene to help cities steer their efforts to handle environmental issues. In contrast to the characteristics of older TMNs as public, inclusive, and self-governed, new-generation TMNs are influenced by private actors, they are exclusive, and employ enforcement mechanisms to secure the fulfilment of network goals. To underline the diversity of TMNs and thus better understand urban networked governance, we present a case study of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative covering its conduct in 2013–2019. Looking at its actor composition and membership terms, we identify a hybrid nature different from the one described in earlier literature on European TMNs primarily. This subscription to a hybrid form of governance calls for a larger discussion on the implications of this shift in governance type and on the extent to which hybridisation implies a shift of power from the public to the private sphere.
... Lorsqu'elle s'y intéresse, la littérature en RI porte en général sur les grandes métropoles et leur contribution dans l'économie mondiale. En somme, cette recherche a pour but d'approfondir nos connaissances sur les particularités de la politique urbaine canadienne, plus spécifiquement en contexte québécois (Chiasson et Mévellec, 2014), ainsi que sur la place des villes canadiennes dans la gouvernance globale sur l'environnement (Gore, 2010;Gordon, 2013;Gordon, 2016). ...
Confrontées à l’inaction des États et à la sévérité de la crise environnementale, plusieurs grandes villes choisissent non seulement d’agir localement, mais aussi sur la scène internationale dans le but de trouver des solutions et s’adapter au défi climatique. Longtemps considérées comme étant nuisibles à l’environnement de par leur consommation de diverses ressources, les autorités locales constituent aussi des acteurs stratégiques dans la lutte aux changements climatiques, puisqu’elles exercent une influence considérable sur les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Afin d’avoir un effet agrégé à l’échelle mondiale, plusieurs métropoles participent au sein d’organisations transnationales municipales. C’est d’ailleurs le cas de la Ville de Montréal qui après avoir soumis une demande officielle d’adhésion en novembre 2015, est devenu membre du réseau C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) à la fin de 2016. Ce dernier regroupe plus 90 métropoles et cherche notamment à adopter un plan d’action commun pour répondre au réchauffement planétaire. Compte tenu du fait qu’il existe une variation importante au niveau de la participation des villes à l’international, que les facteurs plutôt objectifs, tels que la vulnérabilité, les capacités et la connectivité d’une ville ne semblent pas justifier cette différenciation, nous proposons d’étudier l’influence du maire dans la mise à l’agenda d’une telle option. Plus spécifiquement, cette recherche vise à répondre à la question suivante: comment le maire de Montréal, Denis Coderre, a-t-il influencé le processus de mise à l’agenda décisionnel de l’adhésion de sa ville à l’organisation C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group en 2015? Pour répondre à cette question, nous adoptons l’approche théorique de l’agenda setting proposée par John W. Kingdon dans son livre intitulé Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (2003). Ce travail séminal en politique publique permet de poser comme hypothèse de travail que Denis Coderre a agi comme un entrepreneur politique. Grâce aux données collectées, par l’entremise d’entrevues et d’analyse de divers types de contenus, ce projet vise à apporter une contribution à la fois empirique et théorique à la littérature sur les politiques publiques, les études urbaines et les relations internationales.
... A dedicated climate action body, agency, or working group at city level may then help traditionally organised departments to break out of these siloes and achieve synergies across technological and societal transitions at city level (Lee 2018). • Being part of capacity-building and learning networks: Much is also expected from cities' participation in the vast number of city networks that have emerged since the early 1990s , Jordan and Turnpenny 2015, Acuto and Rayner 2016, Castán Broto 2017, Gordon 2016. Progressive cities in less progressive nations may find like-minded cities in more progressive nations through these networks, there is an abundance of information available for network members and non-members on network websites, and, by combining resources (funds, staff, and so on), these networks are capable of carrying out more rigorous climate governance experiments than cities can when they act alone (Bansard, Pattberg, and Widerberg 2017, Johnson, Toly, and Schroeder 2015, Barber 2013. ...
Cities are key in climate mitigation and adaptation, and they have developed into sites of innovative urban climate governance that can spur on climate action. Building on this development, a rich scholarship (within earth system governance and beyond) is now available that seeks to understand the development and performance of urban climate governance around the world. This article systematically reviews a decade of urban climate governance scholarship (building on 260 publications from 2009 to 2018). It is informed in this by four research challenges that were identified by leading scholars of urban climate governance a decade ago. The article seeks to understand how much progress has been made in the literature during this decade, and to identify the key research challenges for the critical decade that lies ahead of us.
... A primary takeaway is that the agency of "networks" to do so is both limited and highly contingent on structural ; local institutional, political, and individual Krause, 2011); and domestic conditions. The agency of TMNs has further been found to be limited by their inability to compel compliance with nominal commitments, leading them to rely on alternative sources of authority underpinned by, for example, material resources, reputation, and organizational capacity (Gordon, 2016b). As a result, the agency of TMNs and cities is seriously constrained by the local conditions present in particular cities, including the presence of political leadership and policy champions, the institutional context, urban geography, and demographics (Aylett, 2014;). ...
Cambridge Core - Environmental Policy, Economics and Law - Urban Climate Politics - edited by Jeroen van der Heijden
... A primary takeaway is that the agency of "networks" to do so is both limited and highly contingent on structural (Lee, 2013); local institutional, political, and individual (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2003;Krause, 2011); and domestic (Gore, 2010;Bulkeley & Kern, 2009;Valente de Macedo et al., 2016) conditions. The agency of TMNs has further been found to be limited by their inability to compel compliance with nominal commitments, leading them to rely on alternative sources of authority (Bulkeley & Kern, 2009) underpinned by, for example, material resources, reputation, and organizational capacity (Gordon, 2016b). As a result, the agency of TMNs and cities is seriously constrained by the local conditions present in particular cities, including the presence of political leadership and policy champions, the institutional context, urban geography, and demographics (Aylett, 2014;Bulkeley & Betsill, 2003;Hughes, 2017). ...
... While it is encouraging that the literature on global climate governance is beginning to engage with the role of cities in a more substantive sense (Gordon, 2016;Johnson, 2017), our motivation is to push this debate further. As the climate change governance literature is beginning to grapple with new debates about governing climate change in cities, including notions of 'experimentation' and 'scaling' experiments, we wish to contribute with a timely discussion of existing empirical research on these phenomena, and some critical reflections, in order to enable nuance in these debates and generate a productive research agenda. ...
Over the past few decades, cities have repeatedly demonstrated high levels of ambition with regard to climate action. Global environmental governance has been marked by a proliferation of policy actions taken by local governments around the world to demonstrate their potential to advance climate change mitigation and adaptation. Leading ‘by example’ and demonstrating the extent of action that it is possible to deliver, cities have aspired to raise the ambition of national and international climate governance and put action into practice via a growing number of ‘climate change experiments’ delivered on the ground. Yet accounts of the potential of cities in global environmental governance have often stopped short of a systematic valuation of the nature and impact of the networked dimension of this action. This article addresses this by assessing the nature, and challenges faced by, urban climate governance in the post‐Paris era, focusing on the ‘experimentation’ undertaken in cities and the city networks shaping this type of governance. First, we unpack the concept of ‘urban climate change experimentation’, the ways in which it is networked, and the forces driving it. In the second and third parts of the article, we discuss two main pitfalls of networked urban experimentation in its current form, focusing on issues of scaling experiments and the nature of experimentation. We call for increased attention to ‘scaling up’ experiments beyond urban levels of governance, and to transformative experimentation with governance and politics by and in cities. Finally, we consider how these pitfalls allow us to weigh the potential of urban climate ambition, and consider the pathways available for supporting urban climate change experimentation.
... Generally speaking, the impact of city-networks in terms of mobilizing city engagement appears to be contingent on local, national, or structural conditions, although these findings do vary across networks (Busch, 2015;Lee, 2013;Reams, Clinton, & Lan, 2012;Reckien et al., 2014). Sharp et al. highlight the impact institutional structure of local government as a mediating factor between network impact and local policy (Sharp, Daley, & Lynch, 2011), while others highlight the importance of the organizational capacity of the network organization itself as a key factor enabling or constraining the capacity of networks to effectively steer their members in a particular direction (Gordon, 2016a;Gore, 2010). ...
Cities are increasingly central to the global governance of climate change, and much of their activity takes place within city‐networks operating at national, regional, and global scales. As the scope and ambition of city activities have been augmented over the past decade, so the scholarship has evolved as well. I set out in this review article to trace this evolution by focusing on four lines of inquiry organized around the conceptual foundations of governance experimentation, horizontal coordination, vertical integration, and political contestation. As we stand at the cusp of a vital moment in the global response, I suggest the need for a concerted effort to direct more, and more sustained, attention to the last of these. I argue that careful, critical, and creative thinking with respect to the power relations shaping the role of cities as global climate governors offers a means through which scholars can best contribute to augmenting the capacity for a just and effective urban contribution to the global effort.
This article is categorized under:
• Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions
... Andrade & de Oliveira, 2015a;Bansard, Pattberg, & Widerberg, 2017;Castells, 2005;Nasiritousi, Hjerpe, & Linnér, 2016), así como las redes de colaboración (ej. H. A. Bulkeley, Broto, & Edwards, 2014;Gordon, 2016;Howlett, 2002;Lee, 2013), o el estudio de las relaciones transnacionales (H Bulkeley et al., 2014;Harriet Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005;Harriet Bulkeley & Newell, 2015;Durazo-Hermann, 2000;Hoffmann, 2011;R. O. Keohane & Victor, 2011). ...
Resumen El artículo discute dos enfoques utilizados en el estudio de las relaciones internacionales de los actores locales en América Latina, el liberal institucionalista y el de Política Verde (PV). Usualmente, la literatura en el tema analiza su participación en la arena internacional desde las escuelas tradicionales de las Relaciones Internacionales (RRII), como la liberal institucionalista, que pone al Estado en el centro del análisis y, por consecuencia ofrece una concepción centralizada del poder en las RRII. Esto ha impedido profundizar en el tema y entender de una manera más integral la acción internacional de los actores locales, es decir, como protagonistas y no actores pasivos. Por otro lado, enfoques alternativos, como es el caso de la teoría verde, incluye en el análisis la descentralización del poder y la desterritorialización de las RRII. De esta manera el enfoque de PV contribuye con nuevas perspectivas en viejos debates en la disciplina sobre soberanía y poder en el sistema internacional. Contrastando la escuela liberal institucionalista, con la llamada Política Verde, el articulo pretende así mostrar limitantes de las escuelas clásicas y empujar a futuras discusiones que contribuyan a ampliar nuestro conocimiento sobre las relaciones internacionales de actores locales.
... As noted in Chap. 1, one of the challenges in theorizing the power of cities in global environmental politics is that they lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international regimes, such as the UNFCCC (Acuto 2013;Victor 2011, 2016;Herrschel and Neuman 2017). As Taedong Lee (2015: 32-33) has argued, cities are on the one hand bound by the rules of sovereign nation-states while, on the other, nested within policy networks (such as ICLEI, the C40 or the UNFCCC) that often transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions (Toly 2008;Gordon , 2015. As we have seen in Chap. 1, many cities are now playing-or at the very least, claiming to play-a central role in the global fight against climate change. ...
... As noted in Chap. 1, one of the challenges in theorizing the power of cities in global environmental politics is that they lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international regimes, such as the UNFCCC (Acuto 2013;Victor 2011, 2016;Herrschel and Neuman 2017). As Taedong Lee (2015: 32-33) has argued, cities are on the one hand bound by the rules of sovereign nation-states while, on the other, nested within policy networks (such as ICLEI, the C40 or the UNFCCC) that often transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions (Toly 2008;Gordon , 2015. As we have seen in Chap. 1, many cities are now playing-or at the very least, claiming to play-a central role in the global fight against climate change. ...
... As noted in Chap. 1, one of the challenges in theorizing the power of cities in global environmental politics is that they lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international regimes, such as the UNFCCC (Acuto 2013;Victor 2011, 2016;Herrschel and Neuman 2017). As Taedong Lee (2015: 32-33) has argued, cities are on the one hand bound by the rules of sovereign nation-states while, on the other, nested within policy networks (such as ICLEI, the C40 or the UNFCCC) that often transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions (Toly 2008;Gordon , 2015. As we have seen in Chap. 1, many cities are now playing-or at the very least, claiming to play-a central role in the global fight against climate change. ...
... As noted in Chap. 1, one of the challenges in theorizing the power of cities in global environmental politics is that they lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international regimes, such as the UNFCCC (Acuto 2013;Victor 2011, 2016;Herrschel and Neuman 2017). As Taedong Lee (2015: 32-33) has argued, cities are on the one hand bound by the rules of sovereign nation-states while, on the other, nested within policy networks (such as ICLEI, the C40 or the UNFCCC) that often transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions (Toly 2008;Gordon , 2015. As we have seen in Chap. 1, many cities are now playing-or at the very least, claiming to play-a central role in the global fight against climate change. ...
... As noted in Chap. 1, one of the challenges in theorizing the power of cities in global environmental politics is that they lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international regimes, such as the UNFCCC (Acuto 2013;Victor 2011, 2016;Herrschel and Neuman 2017). As Taedong Lee (2015: 32-33) has argued, cities are on the one hand bound by the rules of sovereign nation-states while, on the other, nested within policy networks (such as ICLEI, the C40 or the UNFCCC) that often transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions (Toly 2008;Gordon , 2015. As we have seen in Chap. 1, many cities are now playing-or at the very least, claiming to play-a central role in the global fight against climate change. ...
... Yet there remains a pressing need to better understand how city-networks function internally, whether they are capable of closing the gap between rhetorical commitment and meaningful impact, and how they might be able to do so in the absence of formal coercive authority ( Jordan et al. 2015). Scholarship has begun to address questions of power, authority, and coordination but none have yet focused on the question of accountability (Acuto 2013a, b;Bouteligier 2012;Gordon forthcoming 2016;Hakelberg 2014;Johnson et al. 2015;Lee 2013). ...
Cities are increasingly seen as essential components of the global response to climate change: setting targets, taking action, and rendering themselves accountable to global audiences for their efforts. Why cities are making themselves globally accountable in the absence of compulsion or obligation, and what it means for cities to operate simultaneously as global and locally accountable actors, constitute important puzzles for scholars of global climate politics. In this article I set out the basic parameters of this phenomenon, and offer a conceptual framework with which to parse the politics of accountability in networked urban climate governance. I apply this framework to identify three distinct forms of accountability present in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group: an external politics of recognition; a network politics of ordering, and; an internal politics of translation. The article explores each for their distinct political processes, orientation, and power dynamics, and offers some propositions with respect to how they interact, and what it means both locally and globally when cities make themselves globally accountable.
Most research on transnational city networks on climate change focuses on how they form part of a reorganization of the character of global politics away from state-centric forms of governance towards either multilevel, transnational and/or ‘polycentric’ governance. Consistent with these broad approaches to global (climate) governance, work specifically on city networks focuses on their abilities to generate coordination, learning and experimentation across and within cities regarding climate change. This article argues that analyzing these networks within political economy frameworks generates different but important additional insights. Drawing on the analysis of two cities in Latin America—Mexico City and Lima—within the C40 network, the article argues that C40 promotes particular forms of investment in its member cities, pursuing the interests of transnational capital and assembling combinations of actors to generate this effect. While such a dynamic within C40 may promote decarbonization, it nevertheless skews the process of responding to climate change in those cities. It does so by coercing those cities to prioritize climate mitigation rather than adaptation, over-riding local preferences, and, ignoring local expertise. As a result, C40 undermines the capacity for such cities to generate their own solutions.
Purpose
The purpose of this empirical case study is to study and explain the role of public leadership in the expansion of municipal climate action in Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
In 2017 and 2018, the authors conducted13 semi-directed interviews with municipal staff and elected officials from three municipalities, a documentary analysis of primary and secondary sources. Interviews and documentation collected were also coded using the software NVIVO 12. The authors compared three municipal case studies: the City of Toronto (Ontario), the City of Guelph (Ontario), and the Town of Bridgewater (Nova Scotia).
Findings
The authors found that leadership is a prominent factor explaining the expansion of municipal climate action in Canada. Municipal climate action is initiated and championed by an individual, elected officials or municipal staff, who lead and engage in the development of policy instruments to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. These leaders facilitate the formulation and implementation of instruments, encourage a paradigm shift within the municipality, overcome structural and behavioural barriers, and foster collaboration around a common vision. Optimal municipal climate leadership occurs when the leadership of elected officials and municipal is congruent, though networks play a significant role by amplifying municipal sustainability leadership. They support staff and elected officials leadership within municipalities, provide more information and funding to grow the capacity of municipalities to develop instruments, to the point that conditions under which municipalities are driving climate action are changing.
Research limitations/implications
This paper hopes to contribute to better understand under what conditions municipalities drive change.
Originality/value
There is an international scholarly recognition that municipalities should be further explored and considered important actors in the Canadian and international climate change governance. Gore (2010) and Robinson and Gore (2015) highlighted that we are yet to understand the extent to which municipalities are involved in climate governance in Canada. This article directly addresses this gap in the current scholarly literature and explores the expansion of climate municipal leadership with the aspects of interviews.
In what ways is climate change political? This book addresses this key - but oddly neglected - question. It argues that in order to answer it we need to understand politics in a three-fold way: as a site of authoritative, public decision-making; as a question of power; and as a conflictual phenomenon. Recurring themes center on de- and re-politicization, and a tension between attempts to simplify climate change to a single problem and its intrinsic complexity. These dynamics are driven by processes of capital accumulation and their associated subjectivities. The book explores these arguments through an analysis of a specific city - Ottawa - which acts as a microcosm of these broader processes. It provides detailed analyses of conflicts over urban planning, transport, and attempts by city government and other institutions to address climate change. The book will be valuable for students and researches looking at the politics of climate change.
In what ways is climate change political? This book addresses this key - but oddly neglected - question. It argues that in order to answer it we need to understand politics in a three-fold way: as a site of authoritative, public decision-making; as a question of power; and as a conflictual phenomenon. Recurring themes center on de- and re-politicization, and a tension between attempts to simplify climate change to a single problem and its intrinsic complexity. These dynamics are driven by processes of capital accumulation and their associated subjectivities. The book explores these arguments through an analysis of a specific city - Ottawa - which acts as a microcosm of these broader processes. It provides detailed analyses of conflicts over urban planning, transport, and attempts by city government and other institutions to address climate change. The book will be valuable for students and researches looking at the politics of climate change.
Cambridge Core - Environmental Policy, Economics and Law - Cities on the World Stage - by David J. Gordon ***** Print: https://tinyurl.com/y7t3lo57 ******* eBook: https://tinyurl.com/y8bqq4lw *******
## Cities, and the transnational city-networks in which they participate, are increasingly acknowledged as leaders in the global response to climate change. Yet a commonplace assertion that remains prominent is that cities are motivated solely by an innate pragmatism and problem-solving orientation. In this book I focus on the politics shaping whether and in what ways cities have come to do global climate governance, and how those politics operate to shape and drive city engagement through transnational city-networks. Drawing from scholarship on social constructivism, social movements, global governance and social fields, the book develops a theory of global urban governance fields that sheds light on the subtle relations of authority and power within this global urban governance domain. The resulting analysis applies this framework to explain how the C40 Cities Leadership Group, a prominent transnational city-network, has contributed to increasing the amount, scope, and ambition of member city engagement. It does so by drawing out a link between observed increases in engagement and the convergence of cities around particular ways of understanding and enacting their role of global climate governors. Highlighting the nature and function of power within these voluntary governance initiatives, the book provides a means of thinking critically about the transformative potential of cities as they step onto the grand stage of world politics. ##
The modern era is facing unprecedented governance challenges in striving to achieve long-term sustainability goals and to limit human impacts on the Earth system. This volume synthesizes a decade of multidisciplinary research into how diverse actors exercise authority in environmental decision making, and their capacity to deliver effective, legitimate and equitable Earth system governance. Actors from the global to the local level are considered, including governments, international organizations and corporations. Chapters cover how state and non-state actors engage with decision-making processes, the relationship between agency and structure, and the variations in governance and agency across different spheres and tiers of society. Providing an overview of the major questions, issues and debates, as well as the theories and methods used in studies of agency in earth system governance, this book provides a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers, as well as practitioners and policy makers working in environmental governance. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.
A growing concern worldwide is whether or not urban sustainability policies promote social equity. In Western countries, sustainability policies are at the forefront of an emerging regime of urban governance. While some researchers have shown how such policies support, counter or ride along with predominant neoliberal trends, others suggest that they may form a beacon for progressive politics. However, these studies do not investigate whether the political economy of urban sustainability policies promotes equity on a national scale. The present article addresses this gap by investigating ‘sustainable city’ discourses in 11 Canadian municipalities. Contrary to recurring hopes, these policies do not fully embrace a return to social equity. Instead, they overwhelmingly privilege a form of ‘environmental neoliberalism’ by focusing on a creative, educated and professionalized urban community. The article examines how these policy discourses conceive social equity around the themes of economic growth, housing, income and democratic participation. Today’s urban compromise leaves little room for social equity.
The sustainable development goals emphasize the need for multi-level governance to stimulate actions across many levels and involving actors from multiple sectors. Cities and human settlements are critical sites for implementation of these universal objectives, indicating the need for local action that serves global and local interests. This paper reviews recent literature on this theme, illustrating challenges and opportunities influencing local action, with particular focus on municipalities. The partial implementation and limited evaluation of previous initiatives such as Local Agenda 21 are highlighted, suggesting past experiences offer insights into how the SDGs may be implemented. The review suggests research may support municipal action by illustrating how and in what ways municipalities can integrate the SDGs in strategy, policy and practice.
The distinct role of subnational governments such as states and provinces in addressing climate change has been increasingly acknowledged. But while most studies investigate the causes and consequences of particular governments' actions and networking activities , this article argues that subnational governments can develop climate action as a collective entrepreneur-ial activity. Addressing many elements explored in this special issue, it focuses on the second question and identifies climate entrepreneurship in two subnational governments—the states of California (USA) and São Paulo (Brazil). Examining internal action, as well as interaction with local authorities, national governments and the international regime, entrepreneurial activities are identified in the invention, diffusion and evaluation of subnational climate policy in each case. The article draws from the recent scholarship on policy innovation, entrepreneurship and climate governance. It contributes to the literature by exploring entrepreneurial subnational government activity in addressing climate change and expanding the understanding of the effects of policy innovation at the subnational level.
This chapter examines the various types of international engagement by cities and city-regions, and the impact that has had on the constellation, operation and explanation of global governance. This involves identifying the key issues in emerging understandings of, and theoretical perspectives on, new international relationships. Particular attention will be given to the variations that emerge in the analysis and explanation of global governance, as well as different perspectives on network governance and its varying scales. In addition, the utility of the multi-level governance perspective will be examined, and ideas about regime formation through international networking as the increasingly more widespread mode of governing. From this discussion we move on to a second set of questions about understanding the rationales behind new international imaginaries of power, opportunity and interdependencies, as well as, importantly for the democratic systems examined here, questions of authority and legitimacy in the emerging new, and increasingly complex, multi-scalar and multi-actor forms of global governance.
Buildings produce a large proportion of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and municipalities control a number of policy levers that can help to reduce those emissions. This article explains variation among Canadian cities regarding policies adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular focus on green building standards. By applying insights from the study of the politics of public policy to urban politics, this article finds that while electoral disincentives prevent most cities from enacting high impact green building policies, the success of some cities can be attributed to the influence of independent municipal environment departments. These departments facilitate policy learning by providing information and resources. The findings suggest that policy makers could improve the effectiveness of local climate change policy by creating municipal environment departments that have organizational capacity—funding, staff, and a cross-cutting mandate—and are insulated from interference from politicians and line departments.
Confusion over how forces from beyond state borders affect domestic policy occurs because analysts often conflate different nondomestic factors, or focus on particular sources of influence to the exclusion of others. To remedy this problem, the authors make a distinction between the structural economic forces associated with rising levels of trade, finance and investment (globalization), and the increased activities or influence of transnational actors and international institutions, and the ideas they promote (internationalization). A focus on how transnational actors and international institutions influence domestic policy reveals four distinct pathways through which internationalization produces policy change - the use of markets, international rules, normative discourse and infiltration of domestic policy-making processes. The authors develop hypotheses to show the conditions under which influence is successfully achieved along each path. The case of ecoforestry policy change in the 1990s in Canada's Pacific Coast province, British Columbia, is used to illustrate the validity of the hypotheses.
In climate change, as in other areas, recent years have produced a 'Cambrian explosion' of transnational institutions, standards, financing arrangements, and programs. As a result, climate governance has become complex, fragmented, and decentralized, operating without central coordination. Most studies of climate governance focus on interstate institutions. In contrast, I map a different realm of climate change governance: the diverse array of transnational schemes. I analyze this emerging system in terms of two theoretical frameworks developed to describe, explain, and evaluate complex governance arrangements- regime complex theory and polycentric governance theory-revealing fruitful avenues for positive and normative research. I conclude by arguing that the benefits of institutional complexity could be increased, and the costs reduced, through nonhierarchical 'orchestration' of climate change governance, in which international organizations or other appropriate authorities support and steer transnational schemes that further global public interests.
Canadian municipalities have direct or indirect control or influence over approximately 52% of greenhouse gas emissions. As early as 1988, some Canadian municipalities embraced the challenge of climate change and through municipal programs recorded emissions reductions. Given the recent publication of the Government of Canada's climate change plan which clearly emphasizes a prominent role for municipalities in meeting greenhouse gas emission reductions, and equally, the federal government's declared intent to provide further financial support to cities and communities through its 'New Deal for Cities and Communities', it is important to consider the potential role that Canadian municipalities can take in responding to climate change, and most importantly, the barriers they face in responding. Based on these observations, this paper presents evidence from a survey of 392 Canadian municipalities (all municipalities with populations of more than 10,000 people) conducted between the summer of 1998 and spring of 1999. The survey provides information on a key issue, which despite the date of the survey remains centrally relevant today: barriers to Canadian municipal response. Building on both quantitative and qualitative results from the survey data and updated information on the number of municipalities participating in Federation of Canadian Municipality (FCM) climate change programs, the paper concludes with recommendations as to how municipal capacity to respond to climate change can be increased. Copyright © 2005 by the Institute of Urban Studies All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
This report draws lessons from experience in the European Union, Australia and Germany and uses them to provide recommendations for how Canadian federal and provincial governments can put in place co-ordinated, effective climate-change policy.
Global climate governance conducted in settings such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Major Economies Forum, and Group of Twenty (G20) has proven incapable, to date, of generating an effective response. Greenhouse gas emissions have steadily increased since the issue was added to the global agenda in the early 1990s and prospects appear slim for a single, all-encompassing international legal agreement. Outside the formal regime, however, there are signs of dynamism as non-nation state actors engage in a variety of climate governance experiments. Cities, and city-networks such as the C40 Climate Leadership Group, represent important sources of innovation in the broader system of global climate governance: they challenge prevailing norms regarding who should govern climate change, and how coordinated governance responses can be generated. This paper presents a brief history of the C40, and assesses, drawing on ideas from network theory, some of the opportunities and limitations of networked climate governance. Recognizing that cities, and city-networks, exist within a broader multi-level governance context, the paper concludes with some thoughts related to updating Canadian federal climate policy in order to leverage and enable innovative city-network governance initiatives, address gaps in current federal climate policy, and link climate change to other, pressing issues, on the urban agenda.
In this paper, I look at how subnational policies in the United States are interacting with policy making at the federal level to address the issue of global climate change. I focus on a coordinated attempt to get the national government to fund local efforts to address climate change. Although local climate initiatives in the US were successfully translated into a national policy to support these local efforts, their implementation through hybrid arrangements that are being formed between business and local governmental actors will potentially create additional challenges to federal policy making. I introduce the notion of boomerang federalism, which builds on the extant research on federalism and vertical policy integration, to explain the process through which local efforts mobilize initiatives at the national level that, in turn, provide support for the local initiatives themselves. Reviewing the implementation process of this effort, I discuss the ways that businesses are working alongside local governments to address climate change.
Little research has been done about what cities could or should do concerning potential global warming. A few cities have adopted programs to deal with impacts they perceive may occur, and a worldwide network of 100 cities involved with CO2 reduction has recently emerged. Global warming is a new issue for cities and most are only dimly aware of how it may affect them. Toronto, through the efforts of a few leaders, has become a pioneer in the development of an urban response program to global warming. It has charged a city agency to deal with global warming issues, in particular emissions reduction. Chicago is aware of the issue and is concerned about the negative impacts global warming could produce. While behind Toronto, Chicago is moving forward in a number of areas. These two cities illuminate the policy-making process for global warming at the urban level and the role 'policy entrepreneurs' can play at this level. In comparing the two cities, a common model of policy development is utilized.
This paper addresses two questions: (1) Given a commitment at the national level to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, what tools are available to national‐level governments to induce complimentary actions required at subnational levels? (2) In the absence of a serious commitment at national and regional levels to reduce GHG emissions, what is the scope for, and jurisdictional rights of, cities to undertake actions? In this context, federal, regional and municipal legislation relevant for GHG emissions is examined in Canada, the USA and Germany. Regarding the first question, different national governments find themselves in considerably different positions to implement climate initiatives at subnational levels, with the German government in the strongest position and the Canadian government in the weakest. The implications of this for a nation's willingness to adopt emission reduction targets could be serious. Regarding the second question, there are few significant differences among Canadian, US and German municipalities’ jurisdictional capabilities (and limitations) to reduce GHG emissions. Though limited in their legal capacity, these municipalities demonstrate that through their own, often informal, initiatives they can reinforce and compliment the more formal, regulatory actions by senior‐level governments, thereby paving the way for senior‐level governments to deliver meaningful domestic emission reductions.
The focus of this article is the Swedish experience of local governance and
climate change, including mitigation and adaptation. The municipal response to these
two challenges is set within a broader policy context that acknowledges Sweden as a
pioneer in environmental governance, including its comparatively high ambitions
with regard to the reduction of greenhouse ga emissions. Central–local relations in
climate policy are analysed, and climate change mitigation and adaptation are
exemplified by some snapshots of municipal initiatives, including the popular habit of
networking between municipalities within as well as across national borders. In
conclusion we briefly evaluate the Swedish local governance experience of climate
change mitigation and adaptation to date as characterized by radical rhetoric and
ambitious goals combined with a lot of promising initiatives, although still with fairly
modest results in terms of tangible outcomes. Finally, we reflect upon what we
consider to be the most important questions for future research on local governance
and climate change.
While many national governments are still delaying dealing with global warming, 14 city/governments have joined the Urban COâ Project to get a head start on reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions. Here`s how one project member-Toronto, Ontario-is setting policies that will make reducing its carbon dioxide emissions easier and less expensive in the future.
With this paper we present an analysis of sixty transnational governance initiatives and assess the implications for our understanding of the roles of public and private actors, the legitimacy of governance ‘beyond’ the state, and the North–South dimensions of governing climate change. In the first part of the paper we examine the notion of transnational governance and its applicability in the climate change arena, reflecting on the history and emergence of transnational governance initiatives in this issue area and key areas of debate. In the second part of the paper we present the findings from the database and its analysis. Focusing on three core issues, the roles of public and private actors in governing transnationally, the functions that such initiatives perform, and the ways in which accountability for governing global environmental issues might be achieved, we suggest that significant distinctions are emerging in the universe of transnational climate governance which may have considerable implications for the governing of global environmental issues. In conclusion, we reflect on these findings and the subsequent consequences for the governance of climate change. Keywords: climate change, governance, transnational, private authority, public, legitimacy
In a multilevel and multicentric governance arena, pathways and mechanisms of influence are several and non-state capacities for technical leadership and norm entrepreneurship prove more significant than is the case within a strictly multilateral framework. Among actors with such capacities are municipalities, which multiply their influence through horizontal and vertical relationships. Transnational municipal networks present opportunities for both intermunicipal dialogue and the pooling of global influence, highlighting the presence and influence of the city in the world. This paper examines the collective response of some cities to climate change, exploring the place of cities in global environmental politics through analysis of two transnational municipal networks: the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives' Cities for Climate Protection and the International Solar Cities Initiative. The article addresses the following questions: How might municipal efforts toward a climate-stable future be significant to the larger issue of ecological justice in global environmental politics? Might cities be able to redefine the rules of the game and take a stand on ‘inefficient’ norms? After briefly accounting for the relationship between cities and the world, the article characterizes technical leadership as a legitimizing force of and in global environmental governance and norm entrepreneurship as a potential source of contestation and subversion in global environmental politics. The paper describes what cities are globalizing, in terms of pollution, environmental degradation, and risk, and in terms of management and politics. Finally, the article explores the possibility that emerging horizontal and vertical relationships, intermunicipal relationships, and relationships between cities or networks of cities and other scales of governance potentiate legitimizing roles for cities in climate governance and subversive roles in climate politics.
In this article we examine the emergence and implications of transnational climate-change governance. We argue that although the study of transnational relations has recently been renewed alongside a burgeoning interest in issues of global governance, the nature of transnational governance has to date received less attention. We contend that transnational governance occurs when networks operating in the transnational political sphere authoritatively steer constituents toward public goals. In order to stimulate a more systematic study of the diversity and significance of this phenomenon, the article develops a typology based on the actors involved and their authority-public, private, or hybrid-and the primary governance functions performed in order to steer network constituents-information-sharing, capacity building and implementation, or rule-setting. A comparative discussion of transnational governance networks for climate change illustrates each category and the value of the typology in assessing the multiple mechanisms through which transnational governance occurs. In conclusion, we suggest that our typology provides a useful starting point for future research and reflect on the implications for the study of global affairs. (c) 2009 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
International relations research has regarded networks as a particular mode of organization, distinguished from markets or state hierarchies. In contrast, network analysis permits the investigation and measurement of network structures emergent properties of persistent patterns of relations among agents that can define, enable, and constrain those agents. Network analysis offers both a toolkit for identifying and measuring the structural properties of networks and a set of theories, typically drawn from contexts outside international relations, that relate structures to outcomes. Network analysis challenges conventional views of power in international relations by defining network power in three different ways: access, brokerage, and exit options. Two issues are particularly important to international relations: the ability of actors to increase their power by enhancing and exploiting their network positions, and the fungibility of network power. The value of network analysis in international relations has been demonstrated in precise description of international networks, investigation of network effects on key international outcomes, testing of existing network theory in the context of international relations, and development of new sources of data. Partial or faulty incorporation of network analysis, however, risks trivial conclusions, unproven assertions, and measures without meaning. A three-part agenda is proposed for future application of network analysis to international relations: import the toolkit to deepen research on international networks; test existing network theories in the domain of international relations; and test international relations theories using the tools of network analysis.
This book explores the ways in which the word ‘network’ has been deployed in literature. In particular, it offers a commentary on how the idea of networks has been used to illustrate contemporary forms of socio-economic organisation (as with the idea of a ‘network society’ or a ‘network state’), broadly conceived to also include the political aspects of networks. The term ‘network’ has become a ubiquitous metaphor to describe too many aspects of contemporary life. In doing so, the book argues, the term has lost much of its analytical precision and has no clear conceptual underpinnings. This study brings some intellectual clarity to the discussion of networks by asking whether it is possible to construct a clearly demarcated idea of a network as a separable form of socio-economic coordination and governance mechanism with its own consistent logic. In doing this, the primary contrast is with hierarchies and markets as alternative and already well understood forms of socio-economic coordination each with their own distinctive logic. The book identifies two underlying programmatic issues: the question of whether there can be a particular logic to the network form of organisation, and whether there are any limits to networks. The book contends that if networks are to mean anything then they must not apply to everything, so this raises an obvious limit to their embrace. The questions thus become where and how to draw these limits. These are reviewed in the light of the concrete organisational forms that networks have taken in the contemporary period.
This article analyzes how U.S. climate change politics and policy making are changing in the public, private and civil society sectors, and how such changes are likely to influence U.S. federal policies. It outlines the current status of U.S. climate change action and explores four overlapping pathways of policy change: (1) the strategic demonstration of the feasibility of climate change action; (2) the creation and expansion of markets; (3) policy diffusion and learning; and (4) the creation and promulgation of norms about the need for more aggressive climate change action. These four pathways seek to fruitfully draw from rationalist and constructivist approaches to policy analysis, without collapsing or confusing the different logics. Building on this analysis, it predicts that future federal U.S. climate policy will include six major components: (1) A national cap on GHG emissions; (2) A national market based cap-and-trade GHG emissions trading scheme; (3) Mandatory renewable energy portfolio standards; (4) Increased national product standards for energy efficiency; (5) Increased vehicle fleet energy efficiency standards; and (6) Increased federal incentives for research and development on energy efficiency issues and renewable energy development. In addition, expanding federal climate policy may bring about significant changes in U.S. foreign policy as U.S. international re-engagement on climate change is likely to occur only after the development of more significant federal policy. Copyright 2007 by The Policy Studies Organization.
What geographical and institutional conditions are important for initiating and sustaining climate-change mitigation at the local level? Taking this question as a point of departure, we analyze local climate mitigation as a case of multilevel network governance. This is illustrated by the case of two Swedish cities, which are both involved in city networking in favour of climate-change mitigation. Different business structures and other local conditions in significant ways influence both the level of ambition and the climate-policy strategies of the two cities. The sheer size and intensity of the networking activities clearly illustrate the fact that cities are increasingly becoming arenas of globalization, rather than passive victims of global forces, thus confirming the call for a multilevel network-governance approach in policy and politics as well as in research.
We examine the reasons why a US locality would voluntarily commit to the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign. Using geographic information systems analytic techniques, we map and measure a locality’s vulnerability to climate-change impacts at the county level of spatial precision. We analyze multiple measures of climate-change vulnerability, including expected temperature change, extreme weather events, and coastal proximity, as well as economic variables, demographic variables, and civic-participation variables that constitute a locality’s socioeconomic capacity to commit to costly climate-change policy initiatives. Bivariate and logistic regression results indicate that CCP-committed localities are quantitatively different to noncommitted localities on both climate-change risk and socioeconomic-capacity dimensions. On vulnerability measures, the odds of CCP-campaign participation increase significantly with the number of people killed and injured by extreme weather events, projected temperature change, and coastal proximity. On socioeconomic-capacity measures, the odds of CCP-campaign involvement increase with the percentage of citizens that vote Democrat and recycle, as well as the number of nonprofit organizations with an environment focus. The odds decrease in a county area as the percentage of the labor force employed in carbon-intensive industries increases.
Cities are increasingly seen as essential components of the global response to climate change: setting targets, taking action, and rendering themselves accountable to global audiences for their efforts. Why cities are making themselves globally accountable in the absence of compulsion or obligation, and what it means for cities to operate simultaneously as global and locally accountable actors, constitute important puzzles for scholars of global climate politics. In this article I set out the basic parameters of this phenomenon, and offer a conceptual framework with which to parse the politics of accountability in networked urban climate governance. I apply this framework to identify three distinct forms of accountability present in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group: an external politics of recognition; a network politics of ordering, and; an internal politics of translation. The article explores each for their distinct political processes, orientation, and power dynamics, and offers some propositions with respect to how they interact, and what it means both locally and globally when cities make themselves globally accountable.
In the face of the most perilous challenges of our time-climate change, terrorism, poverty, and trafficking of drugs, guns, and people-the nations of the world seem paralyzed. The problems are too big, too interdependent, too divisive for the nation-state. Is the nation-state, once democracy's best hope, today democratically dysfunctional? Obsolete? The answer, says Benjamin Barber in this highly provocative and original book, is yes. Cities and the mayors who run them can do and are doing a better job. Barber cites the unique qualities cities worldwide share: pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. He demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries. Featuring profiles of a dozen mayors around the world-courageous, eccentric, or both at once-If Mayors Ruled the World presents a compelling new vision of governance for the coming century. Barber makes a persuasive case that the city is democracy's best hope in a globalizing world, and great mayors are already proving that this is so.
Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability. Cities and Climate Change is the first in-depth analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change. The book argues that key challenges concerning the resources and powers of local government, as well as conflicts between local goals for economic development and climate change mitigation, have restricted the level of local action on climate change. These findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary analysis of these issues, and will appeal to students and researchers interested in sustainability at local and global scales. © 2003 Harriet Bulkeley and Michele M. Betsill. All rights reserved.
Through analysis of transnational municipal networks, such as Metropolis and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Sofie Bouteligier's innovative study examines theories of the network society and global cities from a global ecology perspective. Through direct observation and interviews and using two types of city networks that have been treated separately in the literature, she discovers the structure and logic pertaining to office networks of environmental non-governmental organizations and environmental consultancy firms. In doing so she incisively demonstrates the ways in which cities fulfill the role of strategic sites of global environmental governance, concentrating knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions vital to the function of transnational actors.
This book illustrates the importance of global cities for world politics and highlights the diplomatic connections between cities and global governance. While there is a growing body of literature concerned with explaining the transformations of the international order, little theorisation has taken into account the key metropolises of our time as elements of these revolutions. The volume seeks to fill this gap by demonstrating how global cities have a pervasive agency in contemporary global governance. The bookargues that looking at global cities can bring about three fundamental advantages on traditional IR paradigms. First, it facilitates an eclectic turn towards more nuanced analyses of world politics. Second, it widens the horizon of the discipline through a multiscalar image of global governance. Third, it underscores how global cities have a strategic diplomatic positioning when it comes to core contemporary challenges such as climate change. This book will be of much interest to students of urban studies, global governance, diplomacy and international relations in general.
Why do some cities join transnational climate change networks while others do not? This study examines the factors that drive cities' participation in transnational climate change networks, such as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the Cities for Climate Protection program. Hierarchical analysis of 256 cities in 118 countries suggests that the degree of cities' globalization, or their level of "global cityness," is positively associated with the cities' membership in the global networks. The level of individual cities' integration into the international economy and transportation grid is crucial for sharing ideas of global environmental responsibility. This tendency is found both in global cities of both developing and developed countries. Hierarchical models also suggest that attributes of cities-not country attributes such as democracy, income level, and being an Annex I country under the Kyoto Protocol-account for cities' memberships in transnational networks.
Relationships between local and global scales deserve more attention than they have received in the global change research enterprise to date. This paper examines how and why scale matters, drawing on six basic arguments; examines the current state of the top-down global change research paradigm to evaluate the fit across relevant scale domains between global structure and local agency; and reviews current research efforts to better link the local and global scales of attention and action.
With multilateral efforts to mitigate climate change in gridlock, attention has turned to transnational climate governance initiatives, through which sub- and non-state actors seek to reduce greenhouse gases. These initiatives include networks of cities committed to lowering their carbon footprints, voluntary corporate reduction targets and disclosure processes, and many of the rules that govern carbon markets. The paper considers the role of “traditional” actors in world politics—states and intergovernmental organizations—in orchestrating such initiatives. This strategy accounts for nearly a third of transnational climate governance initiatives, we find, and upends the conventional dichotomy between “top down” and “bottom up” solutions to global collective action problems. We develop a theory to explain when states and intergovernmental organizations are likely to engage in orchestration, and we provide initial support for this theory with a new dataset of transnational climate governance initiatives and case studies of two of the most active orchestrators, the World Bank and the United Kingdom.
Policy makers who embrace market‐based approaches to environmental regulation, typically eschew carbon taxes in favor of the political advantages of cap and trade, which offers lower visibility of costs to consumers and the opportunity to allocate valuable permits freely to industry. Against this backdrop, the article examines two surprising proposals for carbon taxes, by the government of British Columbia (BC) and by the federal Liberal Party of Canada. Both reflected a triumph of party leaders' normative “good policy” motives over “good politics.” The BC tax alone succeeded first because it was adopted by a party already in government. Second, the onset of a recession before the next elections shifted voters' attention to the economy, which advantaged the BC Liberals but disadvantaged their federal counterparts. However, proposals for carbon taxes were unpopular in both jurisdictions, offering a cautionary tale concerning the fate of politicians' normative commitments absent electoral backing.
This paper examines the relationship between urbanisation and globalisation beyond the so-called global cities that have been the focus of so much contemporary urban research. The paper argues that there is a problematic polarisation in urban studies between research on 'global' cities and work on presumably 'non-global' cities. The existing geographical literature on scale, place and uneven development offers a more complex and process-based view of contem- porary urbanism. It allows the globalisation-urbanisation nexus to be studied in and through a diverse range of cities. This argument is developed via a case study of key moments in the economic development of Lexington, Kentucky, a city that, like most others, is forgotten or overlooked by global cities researchers.
The past decade has witnessed a growing interest among scholars of international relations, and global environmental governance in particular, in the role of transnational networks within the international arena. While the existence and potential significance of such networks has been documented, many questions concerning the nature of governance conducted by such networks and their impact remain. We contribute to these debates by examining how such networks are created and maintained and the extent to which they can foster policy learning and change. We focus on the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, a network of some 550 local governments concerned with promoting local initiatives for the mitigation of climate change. It is frequently asserted that the importance of such networks lies in their ability to exchange knowledge and information, and to forge norms about the nature and terms of particular issues. However, we find that those local governments most effectively engaged with the network are mobilized more by the financial and political resources it offers, and the legitimacy conferred to particular norms about climate protection, than by access to information. Moreover, processes of policy learning within the CCP program take place in discursive struggles as different actors seek legitimacy for their interpretations of what local climate protection policies should mean. In conclusion, we reflect upon the implications of these findings for understanding the role of transnational networks in global environmental governance.
South Africa, being a developing nation, is faced with many challenges, including poverty and one of the world's highest HIV/AIDS infection rates. It is within this context that this paper presents an overview of the role played by major stakeholders in climate change mitigation policies, with the focus on two South African cities, namely Cape Town and Johannesburg. This paper aims to identify the internal and external factors that act as barriers to, or promote, climate change mitigation policy development and implementation in South African cities. These may take the form of the city's internal structures, political interventions and support, and external factors including partnerships with outside organizations, including all tiers of government, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions. The media and an energy crisis in the Cape prove to play an unexpected role in assisting Cape Town to implement climate change mitigation measures.
While sustainable cities have been promoted as a desirable goal within a variety of policy contexts, critical questions concerning the extent to which cities and local governments can address the challenges of sustainability remain unanswered. We use a multilevel governance perspective to examine the discursive and material struggles which take place in creating sustainable cities. In exploring the politics of implementing climate protection through development planning in Newcastle upon Tyne and transport planning in Cambridgeshire, we find that the interpretation and implementation of sustainability are shaped by forms of governance which stretch across geographical scales and beyond the boundary of the urban. We argue that the 'urban' governance of climate protection involves relations between levels of the state and new network spheres of authority which challenge traditional distinctions between local, national and global environmental politics.
Purpose
This study aims to analyze city networks as they face the challenges of global warming. It seeks to introduce the notion of “governance from the middle” as an alternative to traditional intergovernmental policy. This is developed by focusing on the particular experiences of the C40 Cities Leadership Group and discussing its prospects and risks.
Design/methodology/approach
CCI works with a number of commercial banks, institutional investors, international financial institutions and other capital providers to design financing programmes and source capital.
Findings
The C40 Group illustrates some fundamental traits of city networks with a hybrid governance structure, combining traditional public institutional structures with market‐based arrangements, organizationally and qualitatively governing from the middle. Critical factors in this dynamic are the use of an external implementing body, providing new organizational opportunities for the network, and the prominence given to an integrated procurement process, which develops incentive structures for action and effectively connects actors at various levels of society. The latter emphasis on market‐incentives as a template for action is an innovative governance feature but not the panacea many want. The complex nature of the governance arrangement itself, the structural asymmetries among its members, and the diversified set of issues the network intends to address are all factors that remain to be researched.
Originality/value
The study provides new perspectives on the conceptual discussions about governance by introducing the notion of “governance from the middle”. These allow us in turn to continue research about the role of market‐arrangements in linking global and local ambitions. This could have a decisive policy impact on climate governance in general.
8 While the Conference of the Parties wrangle at an international scale with climate policy, a quiet and effective 9 set of policies and measures is being implemented at a local scale by municipalities across the globe. This study 10 examines the motivation municipalities have for undertaking policies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, when 11 the theory of free-riding would predict that local administrations should find it difficult to unilaterally reduce their 12 emissions for the benefit of the global climate. Through interviews with officials and/or staff in 23 municipalities in 13 the United States enacting climate policy, data are gathered that suggest local government abatement policies are 14 primarily a top–down decision based on what officials or staff members believe to be "good business" or rational 15 policy choices. They are primarily driven by the potential for cost savings and other realized or perceived co-benefits 16 rather than by public pressure. Economic data from some dozen municipal projects are analyzed, finding justification 17 for the often-disputed claim that at least initial reductions in emissions can be made at cost savings.-benefits of climate policy 20 1. Can cities overcome "free-rider" obstacles? 21 As nations have debated details of the Kyoto Protocol, the first government to actually adopt an emis-22 sions reduction target was a city: Toronto, Canada (Young, 1995). In 1990, 7 years before the Kyoto 23 Protocol targets were established, the city council unanimously passed a resolution setting a target to 24 reduce Toronto's carbon dioxide emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by the year 2005 (Harvey, 1993). 25 Worldwide, municipalities have followed with their own targets. This study examines the motivation 26 behind such municipal action on climate change in the United States, and performs a brief analysis of the 27 extent to which their perceptions of savings were valid.
The paper contributes to the research on understanding local global warming politics. Strategic documents from The Cities for Climate Protection Campaign (CCPC) are analysed to show how CCPC has constructed climate change protection as a local issue. The paper's premise is that the climate change issue must be translated or framed to enable actors to work with this problem in a local context, and that successful framing requires establishing a coherent method of describing social reality. CCPC emphasises that the different elements of local and global sustainable development agendas can be mutually reinforcing, and that climate change protection can be reconciled with local priorities and initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). It is argued that this framing of climate change makes it difficult to see why and how climate change should be an important concern for local communities. The modest reductions of GHG in CCPC cities thus far highlights that finding meaningful new ways of linking the global and the local should be a core concern of CCPC.
The global response to climate change has reached a critical juncture. Since the 1992 signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the nations of the world have attempted to address climate change through large-scale multilateral treaty-making. These efforts have been heroic, but disappointing. As evidence for the quickening pace of climate change mounts, the treaty-making process has sputtered, and many are now skeptical about the prospect of an effective global response. Yet global treaty-making is not the only way that climate change can be addressed or, indeed, is being addressed. In the last decade myriad initiatives have emerged across the globe independently from, or only loosely connected to, the "official" UN-sponsored negotiations and treaties. In the face of stalemate in the formal negotiations, the world is experimenting with alternate means of responding to climate change. Climate Governance at the Crossroads chronicles these innovations--how cities, provinces and states, citizen groups, and corporations around the globe are addressing the causes and symptoms of global warming. The center of gravity in the global response to climate change is shifting from the multilateral treaty-making process to the diverse activities found beyond the negotiating halls. These innovations are pushing the envelope of climate action and demonstrating what is possible, and they provide hope that the world will respond effectively to the climate crisis. In introducing climate governance "experiments" and examining the development and functioning of this new world of climate policy-making, this book provides an exciting new perspective on the politics of climate change and the means to understand and influence how the global response to climate change will unfold in the coming years.
While a number of significant campaigns since the early 1990s have resulted in bans of particular weapons, at least as many equivalent systems have gone unscrutinized and uncondemned by transnational campaigners. How can this variation be explained? Focusing on the issue area of arms control advocacy, this article argues that an important influence on the advocacy agenda within transnational networks is the decision-making process not of norm entrepreneurs nor of states but of highly connected organizations within a given network. The argument is illustrated through a comparison between existing norms against landmines and blinding laser weapons, and the absence of serious current consideration of such norms against depleted uranium and autonomous weapons. Thus, the process of organizational issue selection within nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations (IOs) most central to particular advocacy networks, rather than the existence of transnational networks around an issue per se, should be a closer focus of attention for scholars interested in norm creation in world politics.
Research on climate change policy and politics has become increasingly focused on the actions and influence of subnational governments. In North America, this attention has been particularly focused on why subnational governments have taken action in the absence of national leadership, what effect action might have on future national climate policy, and whether the collective action of networks of municipal governments are reshaping and challenging the character of national and global climate governance. This paper examines Canadian municipal climate in light of the absence of a comprehensive and effective climate national strategy. The paper considers various reasons why local governments in Canada have not been central players in national plans, and why their actions have not been more influential nationally. The paper argues that the potential influence of Canadian municipalities on national climate policy is weak, given the loose nature of the network and the long-held structural view that municipalities are not significant units of political analysis in national political and policy debates. The paper concludes by considering the constraints and opportunities of subnational climate networks and municipal network analysis. Copyright 2010 by The Policy Studies Organization.
This paper argues that the EU is not as unique a governance system as the Babylonian
variety of its labels may suggest. Like its member states, the EU features a combination
of different forms of governance that cover the entire range between market and
hierarchy. Unlike at the national level, however, this governance mix entails hardly any
network forms of governance, which systematically involve private actors. The EU is
largely governed by negotiated agreements between inter- and transgovernmental
actors. While business, interest groups or civil society organizations are seldom granted
a real say in EU policy-making, market-based mechanisms of political competition have
gained importance. Thus, the EU is less characterized by network governance but by
inter- and transgovernmental negotiations, on the one hand, and political competition
between member states and regions, on the other. Both operate in shadow of hierarchy
cast by supranational institutions.
In 2001, President George W. Bush confirmed that the US would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Despite the US' withdrawal, its neighbor Canada chose to ratify the Kyoto Protocol the following year. The divergence of these two highly integrated countries is surprising, since Canada and the US accepted comparable commitments in the 1997 Kyoto negotiations, and both could expect the costs of compliance to be significant given the greenhouse-gas intensive nature of their economies. The divergence cannot be explained by politicians' electoral incentives since Canadian and US politicians alike faced strong business opposition and a relatively inattentive public. A strong normative commitment to international cooperation to protect the global commons was necessary to overcome political opposition to ratification, but still not sufficient. In particular, while both Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and US President Bill Clinton supported ratification, only Chrétien had the institutional capacity to deliver on his values. (c) 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This article focuses on a variant of multi-level governance and Europeanization, i.e. the transnational networking of local authorities. Focusing on local climate change policy, the article examines how transnational municipal networks (TMNs) govern in the context of multi-level European governance. We find that TMNs are networks of pioneers for pioneers. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a,regulating fiction', a standard towards which they aspire. It establishes a small sector of the global economy as most desirable in planning the future of cities. By contrast, mega-cities function as the dramatic 'other' of world and global cities, and highlight the developmentalist discourse through which most cities in poor countries are assessed as fundamentally lacking in qualities of city-ness. I argue that the long-standing categories of western/third-world cities have been translated into the apparently transnational accounts of global and world cities. Western cities continue to be the primary site of production of apparently unlocated urban theory; so-called third-world cities (and other cities off the map of the world cities cartography) are interpreted through a developmentalist lens and, where they are referred to at all, are framed in terms of 'difference' or irrelevance. This article draws attention to the emergence of an alternative set of theoretical approaches, which are more inclusive in their geographical reach and which are concerned with the diverse dynamics of ordinary cities. These approaches have not yet realized that they have the potential to broaden the base for theorizing about cities and, with this in mind, the article explores the potential for a more cosmopolitan urban theory. The policy stakes in this are high, and the article notes that there are important political reasons to promote the analysis of ordinary cities in the face of the persistence of ambitions in many cities to become 'world cities'.