Translocal climate club as a wall of fame? A panel study on the US cities’ membership in the Global Covenant of Mayors, 2014–2024

The role of climate clubs in proliferating stringent climate policies, both mitigation and adaptation, relies on their ability to incentivize prospective members to join them and incur the costs of implementing such policies. This paper focuses on translocal climate clubs (TCCs) that target localities as members and work to enhance their climate policy stringency. TCCs can help local governments ‘ratchet up’ their adaptive capacities to climate risks by attracting localities that have less invested in such capacities as new members. We examine whether the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), one of the prominent TCCs, has the potential to induce this ratchet-up effect. Our analysis of 109 US cities between 2014 and 2024 reveals that GCoM attracts new signatories from localities already with high adaptive capacities rather than those that lack one, therefore implying its limited role in ratcheting up local adaptation improvements. Theoretically, TCCs may serve as platforms for climate leaders rather than mechanisms to elevate less-prepared cities. As for a policy suggestion, GCoM needs to enhance support for cities with weaker climate capacities to foster more inclusive participation.