Climate pioneership and leadership in structurally disadvantaged maritime port cities

Rüdiger K.W Wurzel,Jeremy F.G Moulton,Winfried Osthorst,Linda Mederake,Pauline Deutz,Andrew E.G Jonas

doi:10.1080/09644016.2019.1522039

Rüdiger K.W Wurzel, Jeremy F.G Moulton + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2019.1522039

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Abstract

ABSTRACTInnovative climate governance in small-to-medium-sized structurally disadvantaged cities (SDCs) are assessed. Considering their deeply ingrained severe economic and social problems it would be reasonable to assume that SDCs act primarily as climate laggards or at best as followers. However, novel empirical findings show that SDCs are capable of acting as climate pioneers. Different types and styles of climate leadership and pioneership and how they operate within multi-level and polycentric governance structures are identified and assessed. SDCs seem relatively readily willing to adopt transformational climate pioneership styles to create ‘green’ jobs, for example, in the offshore wind energy sector and with the aim of improving their poor external image. However, in order to sustain transformational climate pioneership they often have to rely on support from ‘higher’ levels of governance. For SDCs, there is a tension between learning from each other’s best practice and fierce economic competition in climate innovation.

Highlights

Research on climate leaders and pioneers was initially dominated by international relations (IR) and comparative politics (CP) scholars who focused mainly on climate governance at the international, supranational and state level (e.g. Rowlands 1995, Gupta and Grubb 2000)
Cities are both major sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and laboratories for experimentation with innovative learning-by-doing climate governance measures, some of which could possibly be up-scaled from the local level to ‘higher’ governance levels (e.g. Bulkeley et al 2015, Kemmerzell 2017, Kern, this Volume); thirdly, there is the issue of state ‘hollowing out’ where states are said to have lost power upwards, sideways and downwards (e.g. Strange 1998)
Based on our empirical evidence it seems safe to state that Bremerhaven exhibited a higher degree of experimentation and innovation in local climate governance than Hull which focused more on the mainstreaming of innovative local climate action within economic development, with the latter remaining dominant

Summary

Introduction

Research on climate leaders and pioneers was initially dominated by international relations (IR) and comparative politics (CP) scholars who focused mainly on climate governance at the international, supranational and state level (e.g. Rowlands 1995, Gupta and Grubb 2000). Both Bremerhaven and, to a lesser degree, Hull have experimented with innovative local climate governance measures They have done so while acting primarily as pioneers as defined by Liefferink and Wurzel (2017), who have argued that leaders actively try to attract followers while this is not normally the case for pioneers (see the Introduction by Wurzel et al, this Volume). When considering the vulnerability of maritime port cities to climate change (e.g. sea water level rise) and the resource constraints which SDCs suffer from, it is perhaps surprising that Bremerhaven and Hull adopted a significant number of climate mitigation initiatives instead of solely supporting adaptation activities which are beyond the scope of this article. As one City Council official stated, the flooding has been key in developing the city’s climate actorness: ‘From the experience in 2007 with the floods there and the 2013 tidal surge, we’re a lot further ahead than a lot of cities’

Urban climate strategy

Green economy

Conclusion

Findings

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