ABSTRACT
Climate change mitigation and adaptation are on the agenda of most German as well as European cities. Many city governments claim that cities should play a significant role in the socio-technical transition towards low-carbon energy futures. To support this, much academic literature highlights the role of cities in climate change (Bulkeley, Castan Broto, and Edwards 2012; Hodson and Marvin 2011). New agencies are created and a massive amount of expertise about climate mitigation and adaptation is generated that indicates an eventual shift in what is considered to be a relevant problem in local politics, perhaps even questioning the meaning of local government in times of global environmental challenges (Betsil and Bulkeley 2006). On the other hand, arguments taken from the climate change discourse are frequently used in an instrumental manner to justify measures that are irrelevant for climate change as is the case with some municipal administrative units.
