Cities have emerged as pivotal actors in transnational climate governance. As main resource consumers, they hold the key to addressing the causes of anthropogenic climate change. Recognizing their significance, intergovernmental institutions such as climate change conferences have applauded cities for their voluntary climate initiatives. However, the capability of such subnational entities as potential problem-solving agents is constrained by the current state-centric system of global governance. In particular, the limited autonomy and resources of cities lead us to question their potential impact in transnational climate governance.
This review examines three books published in 2015 which, each in their own way, contribute to answering the question of the ways in which cities influence climate governance at different levels. Taedong Lee’s book, Global Cities and Climate Change: The Translocal Relations of Environmental Governance, seeks to explain why cities integrate in climate change networks and why global cities are more likely to initiate or be part of transnational climate actions. Lee targets ‘translocal relations’ as a determining factor for global cityness, which is itself seen as influencing global climate governance (p. 17). In An Urban Politics of Climate Change: Experimentation and the Governing of Socio-Technical Transitions, Harriet Bulkeley, Vanesa Castán Broto and Gareth Edwards are interested in what cities do individually and locally, and analyze them as places of experimentation of different kinds. Using a theoretical framework drawn from Foucauldian concepts and urban political ecology, they show how cities, through experiments, can help in fostering socio-technical transitions to govern climate change. Finally, The Urban Climate Challenge: Rethinking the Role of Cities in the Global Climate Regime – edited by Craig Johnson, Noah Toly and Heike Schroeder – considers both the local and the global to show the constraints that cities experience when engaging with climate governance. This collection of essays brings in diverse theoretical and empirical elements that help to provide an answer to the question of the impact of cities.
In Global Cities and Climate Change, Lee seeks to uncover the reasons why cities engage in climate governance as well as the role of global cityness in their participation in transnational activities. He develops a theory of translocal relations, which explains the interactions of local authorities on the one hand and other local authorities (or diverse actors such as national governments, international organizations, firms and individuals) on the other. His main assumption is that cities are autonomous actors the rise of which presents an opportunity for effective climate action, as they are largely free from the constraints that disable state action.
For Lee, the participation of global cities in transnational networks depends on their status as hubs of economic and political activity and their participation in international socialization processes, such as city networks. He also insists on the influence of the political structure at the national level; these factors help in determining whether global cities can become important transnational policy entrepreneurs. Political leadership is nonetheless a critical variable. Being part of climate governance through city networks is not sufficient; activism is another necessary condition. Political performance and urban climate governance can also increase the weight of global cities. What Lee demonstrates in the end is clear: cities are legitimate and significant participants in transnational climate governance. His concept of translocal relations integrates the local and the global in an innovative way.
Lee’s theory poses a new question for transnational studies: can the translocal be an answer to the current disconnection of multilevel transnational governance? The author’s analysis enables us to understand how cities come to join city networks, but this is not sufficient to assess the effects they may have. Can cities, through networks, influence climate governance and, if so, how?
One of the interesting lessons to draw from Lee’s book lies in the author’s understanding of global cities as, first and foremost, local actors. The local level is, indeed, a primary concern when engaging in a study of cities and climate change. Although many studies on cities dedicate part of their reflection to the local level, Bulkeley, Castán Broto and Edwards do so in an innovative way in An Urban Politics of Climate Change, as they unravel the ways in which individual city actions may facilitate larger policy and social changes. Drawing on urban political ecology and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, the authors explain the impact of cities through the occurrence of experiments that may lead to socio-technical transitions beyond the limits of ecological systems.
The originality of their work lies in the focus on experiments as ad hoc initiatives that form an alternative to ordinary climate policy. Experiments are understood as generating topological shifts and therefore going past the limits of the city and established ecological systems, which underlines how far their impact can go. Through eight case studies, the authors explore mainly housing and energy experiments which aim to mitigate climate change in cities in both developed and developing countries. For Bulkeley, Castán Broto and Edwards, experimentation mostly generates technical innovations and does not pay enough attention to changing the social status quo. Social inequalities being of great concern in this book, the concluding part offers an argument in favour of an urban politics of justice. By underlining the links between local practices and transnational norms, An Urban Politics of Climate Change enhances the potential role of experiments in enacting climate justice by reproducing, challenging and negotiating social and environmental inequalities. Although it is not the authors’ primary interest, some additional comments on the implications of such a shift for climate governance would have added great value to the book. All in all, this insightful work enables us to foresee urban experiments as transformative initiatives that should not be dismissed in an analysis of transnational climate governance.
The Urban Climate Challenge – edited by Johnson, Toly and Schroeder – deepens the links between the local and the global observed by Lee as well as Bulkeley, Castán Broto and Edwards, to show how cities influence, as well as are constrained by, climate governance. For the contributors of this book, the participation of cities in transnational climate governance makes them global actors. As such, their activism is influenced by the rules, norms and practices set up by international institutions.
However, cities ‘lack the formal standing that is often accorded to sovereign nation-states within international agreements’ (p. 11). To what extent do cities participate in transnational climate governance? How is their participation shaped and bounded by international and national law and policy? After a brief presentation of theoretical issues underpinning both urban and global climate governance, the book concentrates on the ways in which cities handle national and international practices, policies and law to engage in the global arena. Using the argument of urban climate leadership, different authors show, in a fashion that is similar to Lee’s work, the links between cities through networks, and the links between cities and other partners such as firms.
Importantly, the contributors to The Urban Climate Challenge outline the significant role of cities as relational agents at the global level. One reason why local actors manage to participate in and influence global climate governance is their capacity to create links with other actors, share information and, in the end, gain resources. The book’s main virtue therefore lies in stressing and carefully explaining the ability of cities to connect diverse actors and resources, and showing the emergence of a governance system that pulls apart the ties between territories, authority and rights. Other authors concentrate on the effects of the interactions of the local and the national levels on climate governance, underscoring the ways in which the national structure constrains the resource capacity of cities, a point alluded to in Lee’s work. Furthermore, like Bulkeley, Castán Broto and Edwards, several contributors to The Urban Climate Challenge advocate the creation of an enabling institutional structure at the national level and greater financing at the international level. They concur on the need for transnational climate governance to acknowledge its multilevel structure and make it more efficient.
The last part of the volume insists on the complexity of the urban climate challenge. Some interesting directions for future research are presented regarding norm diffusion within the international system. The editors conclude by highlighting the need for a renewed focus on how ‘cities and city networks affect our understanding of the international system’ (p. 241). Even though this point is crucial for transnational climate governance, it is not sufficiently developed by the authors. What might be the impact of norms diffused through city networks, and how might this diffusion process affect transnational law and governance? While it offers stimulating reading overall, on this final issue the book lacks strength.
Even though cities are constrained by national and international structures, the findings in the three reviewed works show that their diverse resources enable them to engage creatively with rules, norms, principles and practices. Cities can contribute productively to climate action at local, national and international levels through translocal relations. What emerges is a progressive shift from international to transnational climate governance. Nonetheless, states remain the main actors in the international system. As such, states have a decisive part to play in the transition by, for example, involving cities, or other subnational and private actors, in the discussion.
The works also underline a need to conceptualize, at the theoretical level, the impact of the current transnational framework on cities’ actions. Are existing networks and other transnational constellations conducive to city action, or do they instead obstruct initiatives? Answers to this question will solidify our grasp of this new form of transnational climate governance, which we are currently trialling and encouraging but which we do not yet completely understand.
