Local Authorities on their Way to Climate Action

Reaching ambitious GHG emission reduction goals and adapting to climate change requires local action. Thus, the importance of cities for climate governance has been recognized by international organizations, the EU, and its member states. This presentation discusses, first, the integration of local climate action in multilevel climate governance. Second, it provides an overview on the changing relations between cities and governmental organizations – from the emergence of transnational city networks in the early 1990s (such as ICLEI) to the introduction of the ‘EU Mission on Climate-neutral and Smart Cities’. Third, this talk focuses on the dynamics between smaller and bigger municipalities and their role as forerunners and laggards.

Kristine Kern is professor at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) in Erkner (Germany) (research group “Urban Sustainability Transformations”). She is also affiliated to Åbo Akademi University in Turku (Finland). She earned her PhD in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and has also worked at the Berlin Social Science Center (Germany) and the universities of Potsdam (Germany), Wageningen (The Netherlands), Minnesota (Minneapolis, USA) and Södertörn University (Sweden). Her research concentrates on environmental governance, climate governance, and sustainability transformations in multi-level systems, including transnational governance of cities and regions.

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