ABSTRACT
Beginning with the larger efforts of ICLEI and UCGL and developing into myriad smaller organizations, several are the examples of city-based engagements that at least since the 1990s have progressively established an urban presence within the realm of global governance. As I have noted in Chapter 3, city networks have grown exponentially in numbers and membership and have progressively carved out a more extensive role in environmental governance. Organizations such as ICLEI have made extensive efforts in this direction since the 1990s, as with the the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) Campaign launched by ICLEI with the aim of gathering a coalition of local governments sufficient to account for at least 10 per cent of global GHGs emissions. Nonetheless, the story of the more recent Climate Leadership Group, or ‘C40’, is perhaps the most significant case of global city agency in global environmental politics. 1 Belonging to that ‘new’ wave of transnational networks which appeared around the turn of the millennium, the Climate Leadership Group has a relatively recent lineage that only dates back to mid-2005. However, its networked organization and expanding centrality in international climate governance, along with its global city focus, make it a particularly interesting case of urban intersection with the dynamics of world politics. As I will emphasize here, the networked unfolding of the C40 can demonstrate the influential structuration of global cities by depicting the relation among them and wider spheres of politics. Likewise it can illuminate the role of global cities as ‘international’ actors. The C40 highlights how these two can combine to develop an assemblage of metropolises that constitutes both a structure and a ‘group actor’ in global governance, thus further unveiling the multiscalar dynamics described in the previous chapter. Significantly, as I will evince in relation to this process, C40 cities have a pivotal part to play in promoting new governmental technologies through an emphasis on networked forms of diplomacy and hybrid (i.e. public-private) modes of governance.
