Cities in EU multilevel climate policy: governance capacities, territorial approaches, and upscaling local experiments

Reaching ambitious GHG emission reduction goals at national and EU levels requires local action. Thus, the importance of cities and towns for climate governance has been recognized by the European Union and its member states. However, the embeddedness of local climate action in EU multilevel governance and the dependency on national energy and climate policy is often neglected. Thus, this paper discusses, first, the changes of local climate governance in the EU multilevel system because different instruments are needed for specific types of cities. Second, the paper provides an overview on the phases of EU-city relations from the emergence of transnational city networks to the establishment of the EU Covenant of Mayors and the development of the European Green Deal. Third, the paper focuses on the dynamics between leading and lagging cities in Europe. On this basis, the paper discusses the current challenges of local climate action in EU multilevel governance, in particular the need to develop appropriate governance capacities, to take the spatial dimension into account, and to upscale local experiments. Urban transformations in Europe require governance capacities for strategic, integrative, adaptive, and innovative actions. Moreover, there is a need to acknowledge the territorial dimensions of local climate action. Furthermore, scaling and scalability plays an essential role for the European Green Deal. Upscaling the experiences of forerunners implies that they can serve as models for other municipalities. Urban transformations towards climate-neutrality depend on the transfer potential of sectoral transitions and the cities’ capabilities to change underlying ideas and policy paradigms and thus develop unique transformation pathways.