IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v6y2018i3p126-135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transnational Municipal Climate Networks and the Politics of Standardisation: The Contested Role of Climate Data in the New Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy

Author

Listed:
  • Friederike Gesing

    (artec Sustainability Research Center, University of Bremen, Germany)

Abstract

This article analyses the formation of a new global network, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), by two existing initiatives, the EU-based Covenant of Mayors and the UN-supported Compact of Mayors. While this merger of two transnational networks provides evidence for the increased coordination and standardisation of transnational municipal climate action, this remains a contentious and incomplete process. The article identifies different modes of transnational climate governance that have contributed to conflict between the founding networks and zooms in on the role of municipal climate data. Using empirical evidence, it analyses the contested politics of municipal climate data, including the role of the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) as a standard tool, the definition of a common target, and the inclusion of financial actors. Concerns over the reshaping of public-private boundaries and the possible commodification of public data are identified as major obstacles for the (EU) Covenant of Mayors, which consequentially seeks to remain as independent as possible within the new GCoM. Data politics emerges as a crucial factor for the future direction of transnational municipal climate policy and the ongoing processes of standardisation and coordination.

Suggested Citation

  • Friederike Gesing, 2018. "Transnational Municipal Climate Networks and the Politics of Standardisation: The Contested Role of Climate Data in the New Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 126-135.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v6:y:2018:i:3:p:126-135
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v6i3.1111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1111
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v6i3.1111?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Hale, 2016. "“All Hands on Deck”: The Paris Agreement and Nonstate Climate Action," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 16(3), pages 12-22, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Martiskainen, Mari, 2020. "Hot transformations: Governing rapid and deep household heating transitions in China, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Lukas Hermwille & Lisa Sanderink, 2019. "Make Fossil Fuels Great Again? The Paris Agreement, Trump, and the USFossil Fuel Industry," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 19(4), pages 45-62, November.
    3. Debora Sotto & Arlindo Philippi & Tan Yigitcanlar & Md Kamruzzaman, 2019. "Aligning Urban Policy with Climate Action in the Global South: Are Brazilian Cities Considering Climate Emergency in Local Planning Practice?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-31, September.
    4. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Van de Graaf, Thijs, 2018. "Building or stumbling blocks? Assessing the performance of polycentric energy and climate governance networks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 317-324.
    5. Chelsea Batavia & Michael Paul Nelson, 2018. "Translating climate change policy into forest management practice in a multiple-use context: the role of ethics," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 81-94, May.
    6. Friederike Gesing, 2018. "Transnational Municipal Climate Networks and the Politics of Standardisation: The Contested Role of Climate Data in the New Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 126-135.
    7. Marcel T. J. Kok & Kathrin Ludwig, 2022. "Understanding international non-state and subnational actors for biodiversity and their possible contributions to the post-2020 CBD global biodiversity framework: insights from six international coope," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-25, March.
    8. Arora-Jonsson, Seema & Gurung, Jeannette, 2023. "Changing business as usual in global climate and development action: Making space for social justice in carbon markets," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    9. Daniel Berliner & Alex Ingrams & Suzanne J. Piotrowski, 2022. "Process effects of multistakeholder institutions: Theory and evidence from the Open Government Partnership," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), pages 1343-1361, October.
    10. Sander Chan & Paula Ellinger & Oscar Widerberg, 2018. "Exploring national and regional orchestration of non-state action for a," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 135-152, February.
    11. Thomas Hale, 2020. "Catalytic Cooperation," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(4), pages 73-98, Autumn.
    12. Federico Caprotti, 2018. "Future cities: moving from technical to human needs," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-4, December.
    13. David Horan, 2022. "Towards a Portfolio Approach: Partnerships for Sustainable Transformations," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(1), pages 160-170, February.
    14. Philipp Pattberg & Cille Kaiser & Oscar Widerberg & Johannes Stripple, 2022. "20 Years of global climate change governance research: taking stock and moving forward," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 295-315, June.
    15. Angel Hsu & Xuewei Wang & Jonas Tan & Wayne Toh & Nihit Goyal, 2022. "Predicting European cities’ climate mitigation performance using machine learning," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    16. Jong-Ryool Kim & Eui-Chan Jeon & Seongmoon Cho & Hana Kim, 2018. "The Promotion of Environmental Management in the South Korean Health Sector—Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.
    17. Magdalena M. Klemun & Morgan R. Edwards & Jessika E. Trancik, 2020. "Research priorities for supporting subnational climate policies," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(6), November.
    18. Alfie ChristopherByron Gaffney & Darrick Evensen, 2020. "Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Learning from CITESCoP17," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(1), pages 3-10, February.
    19. Rose A Graves & Ryan D Haugo & Andrés Holz & Max Nielsen-Pincus & Aaron Jones & Bryce Kellogg & Cathy Macdonald & Kenneth Popper & Michael Schindel, 2020. "Potential greenhouse gas reductions from Natural Climate Solutions in Oregon, USA," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-30, April.
    20. Sam Taveirne & Ben Derudder, 2024. "Overcoming gridlock? The role of city networks in transnational cooperation on climate mitigation," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(4), pages 644-659, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v6:y:2018:i:3:p:126-135. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.