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Configuring Urban Carbon Governance: Insights from Sydney, Australia

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  • Pauline M. McGuirk
  • Harriet Bulkeley
  • Robyn Dowling

Abstract

In the political geography of responses to climate change, and the governance of carbon more specifically, the urban has emerged as a strategic site. Although it is recognized that urban carbon governance occurs through diverse programs and projects—involving multiple actors and working through multiple sites, mechanisms, objects, and subjects—surprisingly little attention has been paid to the actual processes through which these diverse elements are drawn together and held together in the exercise of governing. These processes—termed configuration—remain underspecified. This article explores urban carbon governance interventions as relational configurations, excavating how their diverse elements—human, institutional, representational, and material—are assembled, drawn into relation, and held together in the exercise of governing. Through an analysis of two contrasting case studies of urban carbon governance interventions in Sydney, Australia, we draw out common processes of configuring and specific sets of devices and techniques that gather, align, and maintain the relations between actors and elements that constitute intervention projects. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of conceiving of governing projects as relational configurations for how we understand the nature and practice of urban carbon governance, especially by revealing the diverse modes of power at work within processes of configuring.

Suggested Citation

  • Pauline M. McGuirk & Harriet Bulkeley & Robyn Dowling, 2016. "Configuring Urban Carbon Governance: Insights from Sydney, Australia," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 106(1), pages 145-166, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:106:y:2016:i:1:p:145-166
    DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2015.1084670
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    Cited by:

    1. Pauline McGuirk & Robyn Dowling, 2021. "Urban governance dispositifs: cohering diverse ecologies of urban energy governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(4), pages 759-780, June.
    2. Fredrik Envall, 2023. "Situated dynamics of environmental governance in Swedish smart energy experimentation: Tentativeness, demonstration, upscaling," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(5), pages 922-940, August.
    3. Robyn Dowling & Pauline McGuirk & Sophia Maalsen & Jathan Sadowski, 2021. "How smart cities are made: A priori, ad hoc and post hoc drivers of smart city implementation in Sydney, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(16), pages 3299-3315, December.
    4. Enora Robin & Vanesa Castán Broto, 2021. "Towards A Postcolonial Perspective On Climate Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 869-878, September.
    5. Sara Fuller, 2020. "Towards a politics of urban climate responsibility: Insights from Hong Kong and Singapore," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(7), pages 1469-1484, May.
    6. Tozer, Laura & University, Durham, 2020. "Catalyzing political momentum for the effective implementation of decarbonization for urban buildings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. Anthony M Levenda, 2019. "Mobilizing smart grid experiments: Policy mobilities and urban energy governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(4), pages 634-651, June.

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