ABSTRACT
Global climate governance is at something of a crossroads. As states continue to toil away within the confines of the UN, engaging in negotiations towards a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a constellation of governance ‘experiments’ (Hoffmann 2011; Bulkeley et al. 2014; Bulkeley & Castan Broto 2012) has garnered the attention of practitioners and scholars alike. These novel governance initiatives both respond, and contribute, to the broader fragmentation of climate governance that has been observed in the literature (Biermann et al. 2009). The extent to which these experiments, as they co-evolve with the inter-state process, can generate progress or effective governance responses remains an open one. However, the general mood amongst practitioners and in the popular press is one of optimism and opportunity. This is especially apparent with respect to cities, such that our current epoch has been dubbed the “century of the city” (Pierce et al. 2009), and it has been suggested that “if only mayors ruled the world” a more effective, collective governance would be possible (Barber 2013: 3).
