Tackling climate change on the local level: A growing research agenda

Climate change, as one of the most pressing problems of our time, affects different levels of governance. At the international level, countries negotiate to find common ground on various topics related to climate change, but most importantly on how to share the burden of mitigating global warming and its effects on humankind. At the national level, national governments formulate greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) targets, set out climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, and formulate respective framework policies. But when it comes to the implementation of these targets, strategies, or policies, the protagonists are most often local governments or administrations. This is particularly the case for adaption measures, but also in the traffic, energy, or building sector, i.e., such sectors that concern infrastructural matters. In these areas, local communities have a high problem-solving capacity due to local knowledge and experience and should therefore engage actively in climate protection or adaptation endeavors (Domorenok & Zito, 2021; van der Heijden, 2021). This special issue on “Local Climate Governance” brings together 11 research teams that engage with a wide diversity of topics related to local climate policy, as well as different theoretical and methodological approaches. In this editorial, we summarize the most important findings of this special issue, link it to the most recent research on local climate policy, and make some suggestions for further research. Overall, it can be stated that the findings of this special issue speak well to the recent literature on the drivers of local climate policy. In a nutshell, this literature finds several factors that drive the adoption of climate policies at the local level, such as the wealth and the size of a municipality, as more populated and richer local communities are usually better equipped with financial resources and have higher institutional and staff capacity at their disposal (see for example, Hui et al., 2019; Rhodes et al., 2021). Hence, a city's or municipality's climate protection ambition depends on a beneficial combination of socio-demographic and socio-economic conditions (Haupt & Kern, 2022). Furthermore, researchers link the adoption of mitigation policies with a green, left, or liberal political ideology in the respective municipality, the engagement in transnational city networks, but also geographical proximity to forerunning local communities or the existence of regional leaders (e.g., Abel, 2021; An et al., 2023; Kammerer et al., 2023; Kern et al., 2023). For adaptation policy, the most important drivers seem to be the perceived need to respond, in other words, climate change vulnerability (for example Bausch & Koziol, 2020; Kammerer et al., 2023), but also the possibility of citizens participating (Cattino & Reckien, 2021; Haupt et al., 2022). The findings in this issue show that local communities are actively involved in climate change mitigation under certain circumstances. For example, Nakazawa et al. (2023) show that in Japan between 2019 and 2022 net-zero declarations rapidly diffused across subnational governments. In the beginning, this development was triggered by factors related to the subnational entity, for example, the participation in transnational city networks, endowed human and financial resources, or political leadership. Later, and with a growing number of local communities adopting net-zero policies, this trend spilled over to neighboring cities and affiliated prefectural governments. But while a trend toward local-level engagement in climate protection can be observed, this is also dependent on ideological preferences and socio-economic or demographic patterns. Zeigermann et al. (2023), for example, show, in their analysis of the distribution of climate funding across all 400 cities and counties in Germany, that it is primarily urban and semi-urban areas, which are usually wealthier, denser populated, and better educated, that actively engage in climate protection activities. But also the political orientation is crucial. Political orientation, as a driver of local climate policy is taken up as well by Switzer and Jung (2023). In their study of mitigation policies in U.S. cities, the authors highlight that cities with more liberal residents adopt more mitigation policies than cities with a majority of conservative residents. Harvey-Scholes et al. (2023) analyze the role of citizens' policy entrepreneurship and climate action using empirical data from UK local government climate emergency declarations. They show that citizens can influence local policymakers and suggest that a higher number of citizens “advocating for government action can drive faster decarbonization” (p. 17). When it comes to adaptation policy, Schulze and Schoenefeld (2023) identify the wealth and size of a municipality as an important determinant of local adaptation policy. Soni et al. (2023), additionally identify risk awareness, i.e., the existence of local hazards as an important driver of adaptation policymaking. Finally, Gmoser-Daskalakis et al. (2023) study policy actors actively participating in multiple policy forums and developing initial policy preferences applying item response theory (IRT) models. In their analysis of the nascent subsystem sea level rise in California's San Francisco Bay region, they find that actors actively develop policy preferences that are influenced by their engagement and prior organizational beliefs. While the authors found specialized interests in sea level rise along social and environmental dimensions, they were unable to identify strong coalitions and conclude that these may need to be formed in this emerging subsystem in the future. The literature on policy learning and framing shows that it is important to legitimate local climate policies through success. But the success of climate policies is often hampered by a lack of financial and human resources, or legal authority. Furthermore, local climate policies are often not well integrated into existing policies in other areas (Neij & Heiskanen, 2021). More knowledge about policy instruments through systematic assessments and comparison of their effectiveness can thus contribute to policy learning at the local level and thus the implementation of more successful policies (Domorenok & Zito, 2021; Neij & Heiskanen, 2021; Otto et al., 2021). In this special issue, Kern et al. (2023), Soni et al. (2023), and Schulze and Schoenefeld (2023) highlight the importance of policy learning through systematic assessments and comparisons. Kern et al. (2023) study the medium-size forerunner cities Turku, Groningen, Rostock, and Potsdam and compare them regarding climate policy and transformation pathways. Besides the comparative approach of strengths and weaknesses in climate adaptation and mitigation, the authors assume that collaboration between matching cities is a useful tool to develop new solutions that can be applied in other cities. Their study contributes by assessing the scaling potential of local experiments such as institutional and organizational innovations, participatory and integrative approaches, or leadership. Drawing on the climate action and policy mix literature, Soni et al. (2023) study diverse policy actions adopted by cities to adapt to and mitigate climate change effects. The authors contribute by examining cities regarding the interplay between the variety of hazards and the diversity of climate action mixes. The authors develop a modified Shannon diversity index to measure climate action mixes through the breadth across different actions and the depth of these efforts measured by the progress along the policy cycle. They empirically test their approach in 162 cities across the U.S. and find that climate hazards push local climate action in cities. Cities, facing multiple threats, react by a diverse mix of climate actions. These are primarily global climate networks for policy learning opportunities and local networks for a shared understanding of how to deal with environmental threats. Schulze and Schoenefeld (2023) recognize the need to evaluate and compare adaptation measures and propose in their paper a new two-dimensional framework to measure public adaptation policy output. Their “Climate Adaptation Policy Index (CAPI)” combines two dimensions: an institutionalized and a measures dimension. Using survey data from a diverse sample of German municipalities, the authors prove with factor analysis that these two dimensions constitute a meaningful measurement of adaptation policy output in municipalities. Cluster analysis is also used to identify different stages of adaptation policy. Potential determinants of local adaptation policy making – such as size and wealth of municipalities – are further examined through regression analysis. The article by Nagel and Schäfer (2023) focuses on powerful stories of local climate action in two medium-sized German cities. The study assumes that local climate action can be improved by narratives to communicate information to achieve climate neutrality and to better adapt to climate impacts. Using the “narrative rate” index” the authors compare the two cities by tracing the different narratives. The paper concludes that besides “hard facts” such as measurable emission reduction values, “soft facts” such as narratives also play an often-underestimated role in the ecological transformation of cities. The current literature reveals that local climate policies are highly dependent on the political system, the embeddedness in a multi-level system, and interventions by the supraordinate level (e.g., Kern et al., 2023; Osthorst, 2021; Schwartz, 2019). So, for example, according to Kern et al. (2023), EU regulation is influenced by international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and provides a strong framework and regulation for environmental policy at the local level. Therefore, based on the EU Green Deal, EU climate policy plans to achieve the zero-emission target by 2050. These ambitions have been translated to different degrees into local climate policy of the member states. Other factors are relevant and covered by articles in this special issue such as characteristics of the energy system and the national energy mix, financial autonomy of municipalities, or national funding programs. For example, in Germany, there is the National Climate Initiative (NKI) that has an influence on local climate policy (see Zeigermann et al., 2023). Kern et al. (2023) compare the EU cities Turku, Groningen with the German cities Rostock and Potsdam to analyze drivers of transformation toward climate neutrality and resilience. In this context, Corcaci and Kemmerzell (2023) investigate trans-local activities within the European multilevel system for four German cities (Darmstadt, Hagen, Offenbach, and Oldenburg). They conclude that favorable context conditions, like the socio-economic, socio-demographic, or ideological factors presented above, can enable strong engagement in the multilevel system, which in turn may accelerate climate innovations. It is thus a combination of beneficial conditions and a strong involvement in respective governance structures that is linked to successful local climate policy. A somewhat different, but also insightful perspective is shed by Stoddart and Yang (2023) on local climate policy. In their article, they investigate the role of provincial governments and municipalities in the Canadian multilevel system drawing on media data. They come to the conclusion that the media visibility of local governments in regional or national newspapers is very low. Hence, the increasing interest in local-level actors in the scientific literature is not reflected in the media, which implies that the public is not made aware of the important role that local governments could or should play in combating climate change. While the articles in this special issue cover a wide range of topics and case studies, they are particularly diverse regarding the theoretical perspectives. They cover a wide range of different conceptual approaches and frameworks, demonstrating the diversity of theoretical perspectives that can be applied to the study of local climate policy. The first group of theoretical approaches is actor-centered. Thus, these articles focus on actors' constellations and the role of specific actors: To this end, Gmoser-Daskalakis et al. (2023) activate the Advocacy coalitions framework (ACF) by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) to study actor preferences on sea level rise, which is a “nascent subsystem” closely related to climate policy. Harvey-Scholes et al. (2023) focus on the role of citizens in the process of climate emergency declarations and to do so draw on the policy entrepreneurship theory (see, e.g., Mintrom, 2019) to demonstrate how citizen entrepreneurs drive local climate policy by collaborating actively with traditional political elites. Nagel and Schäfer (2023) use the narrative policy framework (see, e.g., Shanahan et al., 2013) which involves a constructivist view on the policy processes to trace climate policy narratives in two German cities. Finally, Stoddart and Yang (2023) apply framing theory (see, e.g., Boykoff, 2011) with a specific view on regional and local political arenas and actors to investigate the media visibility of local-level climate action. The second cluster of theoretical frameworks focuses more on climate action and policy measures of the examined cities. Soni et al. (2023) place their study within the conceptual literature developed by the climate action and policy mix scholars. Corcaci and Kemmerzell (2023) apply a concept structural framework with a focus on multi-level governance (MLG) and trans-local action (see, e.g., Benz, 2012). The third cluster of frameworks deals with the context of the cities – that is often used in a comparative perspective. With a focus on network effects between the cities and regions, the empirical study by Nakazawa et al. (2023) contributes to the literature on policy diffusion (see e.g., Berry & Berry, 2018). Kern et al. (2023) draw in their work on the matching cities and scaling approach (see e.g., Kern et al., 2023; van der Heijden, 2022). The theory of socioeconomic determination (Schneider & Janning, 2006) offers a framework for the study of the disparity of funding structures across urban and rural regions and cities conducted by Zeigermann et al. (2023). Switzer and Jung (2023) apply the contextual responsiveness theory (see Mullin, 2008; Switzer & Jung, 2023). Schulze and Schoenefeld (2023) more specifically build on the concept of institutional adaptation that captures adaptation governance including policy, instrumental, organizational, and coordination aspects (see also Patterson, 2021). The concepts of adaptation capacity and adaptation readiness also include multiple dimensions and, to some extent, policy indicators (Schulze & Schoenefeld, 2023). The wide diversity of theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives taken in this special issue demonstrates the heterogeneity of the research field. Local contexts are highly diverse and so are the scientific approaches. While this allows innovative perspectives and valuable insights into very specific contexts that have high policy implications for the respective case, the sheer vastness of the field also makes it confusing. It is thus difficult to deduct clear theoretical, empirical, or practical conclusions that are generalizable. Hence, an important task for the scholarship on local-level climate policy is to systematize the already gained knowledge. To this end, we are calling for more meta-studies, as well as larger-scale research projects and/or collaborations that include more than one geographical region, enable mutual learning, and allow for generalizable theories on local-level climate policy. On the other hand, findings cannot always be transferred from one entity to another. In particular, our issue shows that remote areas are understudied (Zeigermann et al., 2023). Research about big cities or forerunner municipalities is vital, due to their great potential to mitigate GHG emissions and climate vulnerability. Also, the respective literature has gathered highly valuable knowledge about best practice examples. However, remote areas represent the typical case for many European countries, but also worldwide, as a large percentage of the global population still lives in rural areas. Hence, we need more knowledge to help the local population adapt to the unequivocal climate change impacts and to learn how to unravel the unused potential in these areas. 作者: Melanie Nagel and Marlene Kammerer 作为当今时代最紧迫的问题之一，气候变化影响着不同层面的治理。在国际层面，各国通过谈判寻找不同气候变化议题的共同点，而最重要的则是在“如何分担全球变暖减轻工作及其对人类影响”一事上达成一致。在国家层面，各国政府制定温室气体减排(GHG)目标，制定气候变化减缓及适应战略，并制定各自的框架政策。但当涉及到这些目标、战略或政策的实施时，主角往往是地方政府或行政部门。这对气候变化适应措施而言尤为如此，交通、能源或建筑部门(即涉及基础设施问题的部门)也一样。在这些领域，地方社区由于拥有地方知识和经验而具备很强的问题解决能力，因此应该积极参与气候保护或适应工作(Domorenko & Zito, 2021; van der Heijden, 2021)。 本期特刊主题为“地方气候治理”，汇集了11个研究团队，后者研究了与地方气候政策相关的不同主题，使用了不同的理论和方法。本篇社论中，我们总结了本期特刊最重要的研究发现，将其与地方气候政策的最新研究相联系，并为进一步研究提出建议。 总体而言，本期特刊的研究发现很好地阐明了有关地方气候政策驱动因素的最新文献。 简而言之，该文献发现了“推动地方层面采纳气候政策”的几个因素，例如城市的财富和规模，因为人口越多、越富裕的地方社区通常拥有更好的财政资源、以及可供使用的、更强的制度及员工能力(Hui et al., 2019, Rhodes et al., 2021)。因此，一个城市或市政的气候保护目标取决于社会人口条件和社会经济条件的有益组合(Haupt & Kern, 2022)。此外，研究人员将气候缓解政策的采纳与以下方面相联系:城市的绿色、左翼或自由主义政治意识形态、跨国城市网络的参与、与领先的地方社区的地理邻近性、或区域领导人的存在(An et al., 2023, Abel, 2021, Kammerer et al., 2023, Kern et al., 2023)。对于适应政策，最重要的驱动因素似乎是感知的响应需求，换句话说，气候变化脆弱性(Bausch & Koziol, 2020, Kammerer et al., 2023)，但也包括公民参与的可能性(Cattino & Reckien, 2021, Haupt et al., 2022)。 本期文章的研究结果表明，地方社区在某些情况下积极参与气候变化缓解工作。例如，Nakazawa等人(2023)表明，2019年至2022年间，日本的净零排放声明在地方政府中迅速传播。最初，这一扩散是由与地方实体相关的因素引发的，例如参与跨国城市网络、赋予的人力及财政资源、或政治领导力。后来，随着越来越多的地方社区采纳净零排放政策，这种趋势蔓延到邻近城市和隶属的县政府。 然而，虽然能观察到地方层面的气候保护参与趋势，但这也取决于意识形态偏好和社会经济模式或人口模式。例如，Zeigermann等人(2023)在对德国400个城市和县的气候资金分配的分析中表明，积极参与气候保护活动的主要是城市和半城市地区，这些地区通常更富裕、人口更密集、受教育程度更高。但政治取向也至关重要。Switzer和 Jung(2023)也将政治取向视为地方气候政策的驱动力。在对美国城市气候缓解政策的研究中，作者强调，自由派居民较多的城市比保守派居民较多的城市采取更多的气候缓解政策。 Harvey-Scholes等人(2023)使用英国地方政府气候紧急声明的实证数据，分析了公民政策创业和气候行动的作用。他们表明，公民能影响地方决策者，并暗示更多的公民“倡导政府行动能推动更快的低碳化”(p. 17)。 至于气候适应政策，Schulze和Schoenefeld(2023)将城市的财富和规模视为地方适应政策的重要决定因素之一。Soni等人(2023)还将风险意识(即地方灾害的存在)识别为适应决策的重要驱动力。 最后，Gmoser-Daskalakis等人(2023)应用项目反应理论(IRT)模型，研究了积极参与多个政策论坛并制定初步政策偏好的政策行动者。在对加利福尼亚州旧金山湾区新生子系统——海平面上升——的分析中，他们发现，行动者积极制定政策偏好，而政策偏好受行动者参与和先前的组织信念的影响。虽然作者发现社会和环境方面关注海平面上升，但作者无法确定强有力的联盟，并得出结论认为，未来可能需要在该新兴子系统中形成这些联盟。 有关政策学习和政策建构的文献表明，通过地方气候政策成功进而对政策进行合法化非常重要。但气候政策的成功往往因缺乏财力和人力资源或法律权威而受到阻碍。此外，地方气候政策往往没有很好地融入其他地区的现有政策(Neij & Heiskanen, 2021)。通过系统评估政策工具和比较政策工具的有效性，进而更多地了解政策工具，有助于地方层面的政策学习，从而为“实施更成功的政策”一事作贡献(Domorenok & Zito, 2021; Neij & Heiskanen, 2021; Otto et al., 2021)。本期特刊中，Kern等人(2023)、Soni等人(2023)以及Schulze和Schoenefeld(2023)都强调了通过“系统评估和比较”来进行政策学习的重要性。 Kern等人(2023)研究了中等规模的领先城市——图尔库、格罗宁根、罗斯托克和波茨坦，并对其气候政策和转型路径进行了比较。除了对气候适应及减缓方面的优劣势进行比较，作者认为，匹配城市之间的协作是一项有用工具，以期发展可应用于其他城市的新解决方案。他们的研究贡献在于评估了一系列地方实验的扩展潜力，例如制度及组织创新、参与式和综合性方法或领导力。 Soni等人(2023)基于有关气候行动和政策组合的文献，研究了城市为适应和减轻气候变化影响而采取的不同政策行动。通过分析城市情境下各种灾害与气候行动组合的多样性之间的相互作用，作者作出了贡献。作者提出一项经修改的香农多样性指数，以不同行动的广度来衡量气候行动组合，并以政策周期的进展来衡量行动深度。作者使用该方法对美国162个城市进行了实证检验，发现气候灾害推动了城市的地方气候行动。面临多重威胁的城市会采取不同气候行动组合来应对威胁。这些主要是全球气候网络和地方网络，前者提供政策学习机会，后者就如何应对环境威胁提供共同理解。 Schulze和Schoenefeld(2023)认识到评价和比较适应措施的必要性，并在其论文中提出一项新的二维框架来衡量公共适应政策产出。他们提出的“气候适应政策指数(CAPI)”结合了两个维度:制度化维度和衡量维度。通过使用多样化的德国城市样本调查数据，作者以因素分析证明，这两个维度为城市适应政策产出提供了有意义的衡量标准。还使用了聚类分析以识别适应政策的不同阶段。通过回归分析进一步研究了地方适应决策的潜在决定因素，例如城市的规模和财富。 Nagel和Schäfer(2023)的文章聚焦于德国两个中等城市的地方气候行动的强大叙事。该研究假设，可以通过叙事来改善地方气候行动，以期传播信息，进而实现气候中和并更好地适应气候影响。通过使用“叙事率”指数，作者以追踪不同叙事的方式来比较这两个城市。文章的结论认为，除了可衡量的减排值等“硬事实”以外，叙事等“软事实”也在城市生态转型中发挥作用，但这种作用经常被低估。 现有文献表明，地方气候政策高度依赖于政治系统、在多层次系统中的嵌入性、以及上级干预(Osthorst, 2021, Kern et al., 2023, Schwartz, 2019)。例如，根据Kern等人(2023)的研究，欧盟监管受到《巴黎协定》等国际协议的影响，并为地方层面的环境政策提供了强有力的框架和监管。因此，基于《欧盟绿色新政》，欧盟气候政策计划在2050年实现零排放目标。这些目标已不同程度地转化为欧盟成员国的地方气候政策。 本期特刊文章涉及了其他相关因素，例如能源系统和国家能源组合的特征、城市的财政自主权、或国家资助项目。例如，德国的国家气候倡议(NKI)能影响地方气候政策(Zeigermann et al., 2023)。Kern等人(2023)将欧盟城市——图尔库、格罗宁根，与德国城市——罗斯托克和波茨坦进行比较，以分析一系列驱动气候中和与复原力转型的因素。 在此情境下，Corcaci和Kemmerzell(2023)调查了四个德国城市(达姆施塔特、哈根、奥芬巴赫和奥尔登堡)在欧洲多层次系统内的跨地方活动。他们的结论认为，有利的情境条件，如上述社会经济因素、社会人口因素或意识形态因素，能为多层次系统的强有力参与提供适宜条件，进而能加速气候创新。因此，这结合了有利条件和各自治理结构中的积极参与，这一结合与“成功的地方气候政策”相关联。 Stoddart和Yang(2023)对地方气候政策提出了一种不同的、但富有洞察力的观点。在其论文中，他们使用媒体数据调查了省政府和市政府在加拿大多层次系统中的作用。他们的结论认为，地方政府在地区或全国性报纸中的媒体知名度非常低。因此，科学文献对地方行动者日益增长的研究兴趣并未反映在媒体上，这意味着公众无法意识到地方政府在应对气候变化方面可能或应该发挥的重要作用。 虽然本期特刊收录的文章涵盖了广泛的主题和案例研究，但它们在理论观点方面尤其多样化。它们涵盖了广泛的概念方法和框架，证明了可应用于地方气候政策研究的理论观点的多样性。 “第一组”理论方法聚焦于行动者。因此，这些文章聚焦于行动者群体和特定行动者的作用:为此，Gmoser-Daskalakis等人(2023)运用了由Sabatier和Jenkins-Smith (1993)提出的倡导联盟框架(ACF)，以研究关于海平面上升的行动者偏好，海平面上升是与气候政策密切相关的“新生子系统”。Harvey-Scholes等人(2023)聚焦于公民在气候紧急声明过程中的作用，为此，作者利用政策创业理论(Mintrom, 2019)来证明公民企业家如何通过与传统政治精英积极合作以推动地方气候政策。Nagel和Schäfer(2023)使用叙事政策框架(Shanahan et al., 2013)(该框架包括对政策过程的建构主义观点)来追踪两个德国城市的气候政策叙事。最后，Stoddart和Yang(2023)应用框架理论(Boykoff, 2011)，透过对区域和地方政治舞台及行动者的特定视角来调查地方气候行动的媒体可见性。 “第二组”理论框架更多地聚焦于城市的气候行动与政策措施。Soni等人(2023)将其研究置于气候行动和政策组合学者提出的概念文献中。Corcaci和Kemmerzell(2023)应用一项概念结构框架，聚焦于多层次治理(MLG)和跨地方行动(Benz, 2012)。 “第三组”框架研究了城市情境——这通常用于比较视角。Nakazawa等人(2023)的实证研究聚焦于城市和地区之间的网络效应，为政策扩散文献作贡献(Berry & Berry, 2018)。Kern等人(2023)的研究基于匹配城市和扩展方法(Kern et al., 2023, van der Heijden, 2022)。社会经济决定理论(Schneider & Janning, 2006)为Zeigermann等人(2023)研究城乡地区之间的资金结构差异提供了框架。Switzer和Jung(2023)应用了情境响应度理论(Mullin, 2008, Switzer & Jung, 2023)。Schulze和Schoenefeld(2023)的研究更具体地基于制度适应概念，此概念描述了适应治理，包括政策、工具、组织和协调方面(Patterson, 2021)。适应能力和适应准备度的概念还包括多个维度，并在某种程度上包括政策指标(Schulze & Schoenefeld, 2023)。 本期特刊所采用的理论观点、方法论观点和实证观点的广泛多样性证明了该研究领域的异质性。地方情境具有高度多样性，科学方法也一样。虽然这允许对非常具体的情境使用创新视角和有价值的见解(这些情境对各自的案例具有很高的政策启示)，但该领域的巨大范围也使其令人困惑。因此，很难得出普适的明确理论结论、实证结论或实践结论。因此，地方气候政策学术的一个重要任务是将已经获得的知识系统化。为此，我们呼吁开展更多元研究以及更大规模的研究项目和/或合作，将多个地理区域包括在内，实现相互学习，并允许就地方气候政策提出普适理论。 另一方面，研究结果并不总是能从一个实体转移到另一个实体。特别地，本期内容表明，有关偏远地区的研究并不充足(Zeigermann et al., 2023)。对大城市或领先城市的研究至关重要，因为其在减少温室气体排放和气候脆弱性方面具有巨大潜力。此外，相应的文献还收集了有关最佳实践示例的知识，这些知识十分宝贵。然而，偏远地区是许多欧洲国家的典型情况，也是全世界的典型情况，因为全球很大一部分人口仍然生活在农村地区。因此，我们需要更多的知识来帮助地方居民适应明确的气候变化影响，并学习如何挖掘这些地区未利用的潜力。 Autoría: Melanie Nagel y Marlene Kammerer El cambio climático, como uno de los problemas más apremiantes de nuestro tiempo, afecta a diferentes niveles de gobernanza. A nivel internacional, los países negocian para encontrar puntos en común sobre diversos temas relacionados con el cambio climático, pero más importante aún sobre cómo compartir la carga de mitigar el calentamiento global y sus efectos en la humanidad. A nivel nacional, los gobiernos nacionales formulan objetivos de reducción de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI), establecen estrategias de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático y formulan políticas marco respectivas. Pero cuando se trata de la implementación de estos objetivos, estrategias o políticas, los protagonistas suelen ser los gobiernos o administraciones locales. Este es particularmente el caso de las medidas de adaptación, pero también en el sector del tráfico, la energía o la construcción, es decir, aquellos sectores que se refieren a cuestiones de infraestructura. En estas áreas, las comunidades locales tienen una alta capacidad de resolución de problemas debido al conocimiento y la experiencia locales y, por lo tanto, deberían participar activamente en esfuerzos de protección o adaptación al clima (Domorenko & Zito, 2021; van der Heijden, 2021). Este número especial sobre “Gobernanza climática local” reúne a 11 equipos de investigación que abordan una amplia diversidad de temas relacionados con la política climática local, así como diferentes enfoques teóricos y metodológicos. En este editorial, resumimos los hallazgos más importantes de este número especial, los vinculamos con las investigaciones más recientes sobre políticas climáticas locales y hacemos algunas sugerencias para futuras investigaciones. En general, se puede afirmar que los hallazgos de este número especial se corresponden con la literatura reciente sobre los impulsores de la política climática local. En pocas palabras, esta literatura encuentra varios factores que impulsan la adopción de políticas climáticas a nivel local, como la riqueza y el tamaño de un municipio, ya que las comunidades locales más pobladas y ricas suelen estar mejor equipadas con recursos financieros y tienen mayores niveles institucionales. y la capacidad del personal a su disposición (ver, por ejemplo, Hui et al., 2019, Rhodes et al., 2021). Por lo tanto, la ambición de protección climática de una ciudad o municipio depende de una combinación beneficiosa de condiciones sociodemográficas y socioeconómicas (Haupt & Kern, 2022). Además, los investigadores vinculan la adopción de políticas de mitigación con una ideología política verde, de izquierda o liberal en el municipio respectivo, la participación en redes de ciudades transnacionales, pero también con la proximidad geográfica a comunidades locales precursoras o la existencia de líderes regionales (por ejemplo, An et al. al., 2023, Abel, 2021, Kammerer et al., 2023, Kern et al., 2023). Para las políticas de adaptación, los impulsores más importantes parecen ser la necesidad percibida de responder, en otras palabras, la vulnerabilidad al cambio climático (por ejemplo Bausch & Koziol, 2020, Kammerer et al., 2023), pero también la posibilidad de que los ciudadanos participen (Cattino & Reckien, 2021, Haupt et al., 2022). Los hallazgos de este número muestran que las comunidades locales participan activamente en la mitigación del cambio climático bajo ciertas circunstancias. Por ejemplo, Nakazawa et al. (2023) muestran que en Japón, entre 2019 y 2022, las declaraciones de emisiones netas cero se difundieron rápidamente entre los gobiernos subnacionales. Al principio, este desarrollo fue desencadenado por factores relacionados con la entidad subnacional, por ejemplo, la participación en redes de ciudades transnacionales, los recursos humanos y financieros dotados o el liderazgo político. Más tarde, y con un número cada vez mayor de comunidades locales adoptando políticas netas cero, esta tendencia se extendió a las ciudades vecinas y a los gobiernos de las prefecturas afiliadas. Pero si bien se puede observar una tendencia hacia el compromiso a nivel local en la protección del clima, esto también depende de preferencias ideológicas y patrones socioeconómicos o demográficos. Zeigermann et al. (2023), por ejemplo, muestran, en su análisis de la distribución de la financiación climática en las 400 ciudades y condados de Alemania, que son principalmente las zonas urbanas y semiurbanas, las que suelen ser más ricas, más densamente pobladas y mejor educadas, que participan activamente en actividades de protección del clima. Pero también la orientación política es crucial. Switzer y Jung (2023) también abordan la orientación política como motor de la política climática local. En su estudio de las políticas de mitigación en ciudades estadounidenses, los autores destacan que las ciudades con residentes más liberales adoptan más políticas de mitigación que las ciudades con una mayoría de residentes conservadores. Harvey-Scholes et al. (2023) analizan el papel del emprendimiento político de los ciudadanos y la acción climática utilizando datos empíricos de las declaraciones de emergencia climática de los gobiernos locales del Reino Unido. Muestran que los ciudadanos pueden influir en los formuladores de políticas locales y sugieren que un mayor número de ciudadanos “que abogan por la acción gubernamental puede impulsar una descarbonización más rápida” (p. 17). Cuando se trata de políticas de adaptación, Schulze y Schoenefeld (2023) identifican la riqueza y el tamaño de un municipio como un determinante importante de la política de adaptación local. Soni et al. (2023), identifican además la conciencia del riesgo, es decir, la existencia de peligros locales, como un importante impulsor de la formulación de políticas de adaptación. Finalmente, Gmoser-Daskalakis et al. (2023) estudian a los actores políticos que participan activamente en múltiples foros políticos y desarrollan preferencias políticas iniciales aplicando modelos de teoría de respuesta al ítem (TRI). En su análisis del naciente aumento del nivel del mar en el subsistema de la región de la Bahía de San Francisco en California, encuentran que los actores desarrollan activamente preferencias políticas que están influenciadas por su compromiso y creencias organizacionales previas. Si bien los autores encontraron intereses especializados en el aumento del nivel del mar a lo largo de las dimensiones social y ambiental, no pudieron identificar coaliciones fuertes y concluyeron que es posible que sea necesario formarlas en este subsistema emergente en el futuro. La literatura sobre aprendizaje y formulación de políticas muestra que es importante legitimar las políticas climáticas locales a través del éxito. Pero el éxito de las políticas climáticas a menudo se ve obstaculizado por la falta de recursos financieros y humanos, o de autoridad legal. Además, las políticas climáticas locales a menudo no están bien integradas en las políticas existentes en otras áreas (Neij & Heiskanen, 2021). Por lo tanto, un mayor conocimiento sobre los instrumentos de políticas a través de evaluaciones sistemáticas y la comparación de su efectividad puede contribuir al aprendizaje de políticas a nivel local y, por lo tanto, a la implementación de políticas más exitosas (Domorenok & Zito, 2021; Neij & Heiskanen, 2021; Otto et al., 2021). ). En este número especial, Kern et al. (2023), Soni et al. (2023) y Schulze y Schoenefeld (2023) destacan la importancia del aprendizaje de políticas a través de evaluaciones y comparaciones sistemáticas. Kern et al. (2023) estudian las ciudades precursoras de tamaño mediano Turku, Groningen, Rostock y Potsdam y las comparan en cuanto a políticas climáticas y vías de transformación. Además del enfoque comparativo de fort