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:v:6:y:2018:i:3:p:126-135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles Roger & Thomas Hale & Liliana Andonova, 2017. "The Comparative Politics of Transnational Climate Governance," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, January.
    2. Felix Wilmsen & Friederike Gesing, 2016. "A New Passage Point on an Old Road?," ZenTra Working Papers in Transnational Studies 68 / 2016, ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies, revised Nov 2016.
    3. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vanesa Castán Broto & Linda K. Westman, 2020. "Ten years after Copenhagen: Reimagining climate change governance in urban areas," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(4), July.

    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. Sander Chan & Idil Boran & Harro van Asselt & Paula Ellinger & Miriam Garcia & Thomas Hale & Lukas Hermwille & Kennedy Liti Mbeva & Ayşem Mert & Charles B. Roger & Amy Weinfurter & Oscar Widerberg & P, 2021. "Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(3), pages 245-259, May.
    2. Thomas Hale, 2020. "Catalytic Cooperation," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(4), pages 73-98, Autumn.
    3. Joshua Philipp Elsässer & Thomas Hickmann & Sikina Jinnah & Sebastian Oberthür & Thijs Graaf, 2022. "Institutional interplay in global environmental governance: lessons learned and future research," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 373-391, June.
    4. Sierra, Jazmin & Hochstetler, Kathryn, 2017. "Transnational activist networks and rising powers: transparency and environmental concerns in the Brazilian National Development Bank," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 79089, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. 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).
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. repec:bla:glopol:v:8:y:2017:i::p:113-123 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Oscar Widerberg & Idil Boran & Sander Chan & Andrew Deneault & Marcel Kok & Katarzyna Negacz & Philipp Pattberg & Matilda Petersson, 2023. "Finding synergies and trade‐offs when linking biodiversity and climate change through cooperative initiatives," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(1), pages 157-161, February.
    13. Benjamin M. Abraham, 2021. "Ideology and non-state climate action: partnering and design of REDD+ projects," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 669-690, December.
    14. P. P. Stoll & W. P. Pauw & F. Tohme & C. Grüning, 2021. "Mobilizing private adaptation finance: lessons learned from the Green Climate Fund," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 1-19, August.
    15. Berliner, Daniel & Ingrams, Alex & Piotrowski, Suzanne, 2022. "Process effects of multistakeholder institutions: theory and evidence from the Open Government Partnership," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111060, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. 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.
    17. Stefano F. Verde & Simone Borghesi, 2022. "The International Dimension of the EU Emissions Trading System: Bringing the Pieces Together," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 83(1), pages 23-46, September.
    18. Katherine Romanak & Mathias Fridahl & Tim Dixon, 2021. "Attitudes on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a Mitigation Technology within the UNFCCC," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-16, January.
    19. 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).
    20. Marielle Papin, 2019. "Transnational municipal networks: Harbingers of innovation for global adaptation governance?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 467-483, October.
    21. Job Taminiau & John Byrne, 2020. "City‐scale urban sustainability: Spatiotemporal mapping of distributed solar power for New York City," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(5), 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:v:6: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 (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.