How to Lead Collaborative Governance for Climate Transformation: A Guide for City Leaders and Decision-makers

Abstract

Based on extensive international research on city climate governance and co-creation, this policy briefing allows for a nuanced understanding of how contextual features provide distinct types of challenges and condition city leadership in situations of diverse actors and purposes. The complexity of the challenge requires design and employment of a mix of collaborative, regulative, and financial policy tools to pursue effective climate transformation. Such a hybrid form of governance enables cities to inspire and mobilize multiple actors, adapt infrastructures, and enhance their own space of manoeuvre across scales. The briefing suggests 10 essential lessons highlighting key policy tools that climate-ambitious cities may mix and draw upon. The findings build on a combination of (climate) governance and leadership theory and empirical examples from a variety of global cities, including the cities of Cape Town, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Oslo.