Abstract
Climate change is one of the most challenging environmental and social problems for contemporary urban planning. In response to this phenomenon, city networks have emerged as new configurations of urban climate governance that encourage the implementation of experiments such as testing new solutions regarding sustainable transport. While city networks are gaining momentum and influence as effective platforms to transform and scale up pilot experiments into city-wide schemes, little is known regarding their role in conditioning and leveraging such urban experiments Our paper investigates the underexplored nature of urban experiments within city networks and provides a better understanding of how these networks condition urban experiments. To this end an analytical model has been developed and applied to the case of the C40 Climate Leadership Group (C40) and its Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide. Our findings suggest that the C40 encourages variation in local climate experiments and the generation of new and innovative climate solutions in member cities. In particular they reveal that the implementation of climate positive experiments has passed the ‘variation’ stage, is currently in the ‘selection’ stage, and likely to move towards the ‘retention’ stage in the near future. Potential experimentation outputs of the case are identified as built environment change, new citizen practices, policy change, infrastructural change and new technology. Noticeably, we consider that the C40 plays an important role in providing fundamental institutional support to implement and leverage climate projects within its member cities.
Highlights
In the past 20 years, it has been widely recognised that humanity has entered the ‘urban age’ (Brenner and Schmid 2014)
Urban climate governance has emerged in response to the significant and alarming phenomenon of global climate change
This new form of governance encourages urban experimentation, and this is increasingly international as cities become more connected to different peers and international actors, including city networks
Summary
In the past 20 years, it has been widely recognised that humanity has entered the ‘urban age’ (Brenner and Schmid 2014). It is projected that approximately two-thirds of the world’s population (i.e., approximately 7 billion people) will reside in cities by 2050 (UN 2014) In this present context, cities and their related urban activities are considered primary sources of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that generate more than 70% of global emissions (UN-Habitat 2011). Other cities that are currently in water crisis include Beijing (China) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) (Wright 2018; Leahy 2018). This vulnerability to risk means that cities play a critical role in enhancing the prospects of humanity through managing various global threats, including climate change
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