What can city leaders do for climate change? Insights from the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group network

The urban population of the world has grown significantly, with about 54% currently living in urban areas, a proportion set to increase to 66% by 2050 (United Nations, Citation2018). This population growth is increasingly distributed across mega-cities. In 2016 there were 31 mega-cities with a population of over 10 million and eight of them with over 20 million (United Nations, Citation2016a). Such rapid growth brings in its wake localized impacts from global challenges such as climate change and environmental sustainability for these places and their leadership (C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Citation2015). The recent Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Citation2021) report includes a chapter that examines from global to regional impacts of climate change, which although apparently is extra-territorial, affects urban places differently. Consequently, for place leaders, boundary spanning and boundary cooperation become crucial not only in the development of collaborative governance, but also to address local and regional impact of global challenges (Dąbrowski, Citation2017; Sørensen et al., Citation2020). The important impacts of cities and urbanization in our world are widely recognized (Barber, Citation2013; Hambleton, Citation2014), with increasing focus on the role of cities for the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Graute, Citation2016; Pipa, Citation2020; United Nations, Citation2016b). In particular, cities are major contributors to climate change (e.g., Acuto, Citation2013a; While & Whitehead, Citation2013), one of the most important ‘grand challenges’ facing humanity in the 21st century. Grand challenges are defined as ‘formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coordinated and collaborative effort’ (George et al., Citation2016, p. 1880).

Cities account for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Acuto, Citation2016, p. 612), even though they cover less than 2% of the Earth’s surface (United Nations, Citationn.d.). It is, therefore, clear that our fight against climate change will depend on what is happening in and around cities. However, we still understand very little about the specific approaches city’s leaders are taking to address this issue. In this respect, the experiences of cities’ participation in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (hereafter C40) illustrate how urban areas can take actions and make a difference.

In brief, the C40 is a group of 96 cities representing over 650 million people and one-quarter of the global economy. It aims to tackle climate change and gathering urban action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks (whilst increasing the health, well-being and economic opportunities of urban citizens). The C40’s website is one of the most important repositories of knowledge about actions implemented by cities to cope with climate change, with an active store of contemporary case studies.

Drawing upon an original dataset (formed from this repository of case studies), this article presents the results of an examination of the climate-mitigation actions undertaken by C40. Our research question was the following: How do city leaders undertake actions (defined as making things happen) for tackling and mitigating climate change? Specifically, our original research identifies which boundary organizations, objects and experiences (‘boundary cooperative arrangements’) can be used by city leaders to promote and sustain climate change actions.

We focus on boundary cooperative arrangements that are present in city actions for tackling climate change (Huxham & Vangen, Citation2000, p. 1160; Nicholds, Citation2021; Sotarauta et al., Citation2017, p. 188), acknowledging the role of collaboration and boundary spanning (Beer et al., Citation2019; Broadhurst et al., Citation2021a) as key enablers of place-based leadership (given the polycentric, multilevel and hybrid systems of collaborative governance in whose city leaders operate) (Jordan et al., Citation2018; Kim, Citation2016; Skelcher et al., Citation2013; Torfing et al., Citation2012).

We take a broad view of city leaders and their leadership arenas (e.g., Bowden & Liddle, Citation2018; Budd et al., Citation2017; Budd & Sancino, Citation2016; Hambleton, Citation2014; Lazzeretti & Tavoletti, Citation2005; Potluka et al., Citation2021; ‘t Hart & Tummers, Citation2019). Drawing from a quintuple-helix model (Carayannis et al., Citation2012), we consider a broad range of leaders, such as politicians and public, business and third-sector managers, but also, for example, active lay citizens, academics, journalists and social media leaders, and social innovators/entrepreneurs. The article draws specifically on the literature on place leadership and collaborative governance (which both emphasize the key importance of boundary-spanning leadership in affecting change) and connects, too, with the literature on grand challenges in management and organization studies. This, for example, includes the work of George et al. (Citation2016, p. 1880), who highlighted the fundamental role of coordinated and collaborative efforts and mechanisms for addressing grand challenges.

The paper is structured as follows. The next section provides the theoretical backdrop to our work. The third sets out the methodology and how we constructed our original dataset. The findings are presented in the fourth section; and concluding remarks and policy implications are provided in the fifth section.

source :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2021.2005244#d1e203