Learning pathways and the governance of innovations in urban climate change resilience and adaptation

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) has led to different innovative models of urban climate change governance. To date, there have been few reflexive inquiries into how urban governance actors and processes are learning to innovate as a result of participating in TMNs. In response, this paper draws on theories of institutional learning and urban governance to offer a conceptual distinction between innovations in governance and the governance of innovations in the context of climate resilience and adaptation. We apply these concepts to evaluate the case studies of Rotterdam and Berkeley, where we highlight the actors, networks, and resources required to motivate and sustain actions against concurrent sectoral interests. Experiences from the two cities show that learning pathways are constructed and reified through processes of communication and negotiation, which can result in the grounding of TMN resources. A focus on unpacking the variations in learning and implementation within cities across diverse political economic contexts can offer insights into the opportunities for enabling more meaningful and sustained forms of innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change resilience
• transnational municipal networks
• urban governance
• innovation
• learning

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Marc Wolfram, Jeroen van der Heijden, Sirkku Juhola, and James Patterson for leading this special issue, as well as officials in Berkeley and Rotterdam for fieldwork support. This paper was initially drafted for a workshop held in Amsterdam in September 2016 entitled ‘Innovative Urban Governance for Mitigation and Adaptation: Mapping, Exploring and Interrogating’, organized by Jeroen van der Heijden and supported by the EU COST Action: IS1309–Innovations in Climate Governance: Sources, Patterns and Effects (INOGOV). Previous drafts of this paper benefited from comments offered by Marc Wolfram, Sirkku Juhola, Nanja Nagorny, Luca Bertolini, Peter Kraftl, Rosie Day, and three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ryan Bellinson is a PhD candidate in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on urban climate change governance, with an emphasis on the strengths and limitations of nontraditional decision-making pathways for developing socially just and scientifically stringent climate policy.

Eric Chu is a Lecturer in Planning and Human Geography in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. His research is on the politics of climate change governance in cities, with particular emphasis on the globally comparative perspectives of socio-spatial change, development planning, policy reform, and local environmental justice.

ORCID

Ryan Bellinson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1009-1279

Eric Chu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5648-6615