Polycentric pioneers? Explaining variations in governance models and their impacts on local climate change policy

The science behind climate change has been established, and now the mitigation of climate change has become a political puzzle. We need to act quickly to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, and so this project is designed to find and then share effective policy solutions that can be used across society.

Until very recently, attempted solutions for climate change were 'top down': for example, the United Nations organised annual conferences, and those countries responsible for producing the most greenhouse gases dominated these negotiations. However, this approach for dealing with climate change has failed to generate effective change quickly enough, and academics are looking for new governance solutions for this most pressing and significant of issues.

Increasingly, scholars argue that we need to be improving policy-making the local level, and empowering a wide range of people take a lead in responding to climate change. In particular, they argue we need 'polycentric governance'. Polycentric governance involves businesses, NGOs and government agencies working independently of each other, while also overlapping and coordinating with one another, as part of complex, multi-level networks. The outcome should be that no individual group or organisation is solely responsible for mitigating climate change, and so every 'node' in the network is encouraged to fulfil its part without fearing being exploited by others.

Yet, despite growing support amongst academics for polycentric governance, there is limited research into how these networks can be created, or whether they even have a positive impact in mitigating climate change. This research project seeks to address that lack of knowledge by pursuing two research objectives.

First, the project will explain how and why polycentric models are developed, by analysing three key factors: the role of the European Union; the impact of a country's national governance model, such as the presence of federalism; and a city's status as a country's capital or not. To do so, the project will map out the interconnecting networks of different groups and individuals within six city regions in Germany, Sweden and the UK. These three countries were similarly ambitious towards climate change in the early 2010s, and the six city regions have been carefully selected to be as similar as possible, while also showing differences in the three key factors under exploration.

Second, the project will then determine how and why these different city regions' polycentric practices affect the creation of ambitious climate change policies. This goal will be achieved by analysing the climate policy documents of a wide range of actors within each city region, as well as interviewing key individuals. Here, a useful extra outcome of the research will be the ability to explore how changes in the UK's political landscape during the Brexit negotiations have influenced local climate change policy too.

Having then analysed how and why different governance models shape the ambitiousness of local climate policy, guidance will be created for policy-makers across Western Europe. This advice will inform policy-makers about which types of governance initiatives are most effective for helping to create more ambitious climate policy. The advice will seek to improve climate policy at the local level, and it will be designed with multiple audiences in mind, depending on whether policy-makers and practitioners work at the local, national or European level. As a result, this project aims to help every level of governance to be more effective at mitigating climate change.

Finally, this project will also seek to inform and empower citizens about how they can effect change themselves, by sharing the results of the study via a wide range of media outlets, pitching a TV programme on the topic, and by giving several public lectures.

There is an urgent need for governance models to be optimised for mitigating climate change. As such, the primary goal of the project's impact activities is to shape policy; the secondary goal is to inform the wider public about their capacities to mitigate climate change as actors in their own right. Because policy guidance is the primary goal of this project's impact agenda, the Manchester Climate Change Agency (MCCA) has been involved in the design of the project and will be a partner throughout the research process. Beneficiaries of the policy guidance will include local, national and European policy-makers in Western Europe, and employees working for NGOs, businesses and civil society groups that seek to strengthen climate policy ambition as part of their work. Any emissions reductions resulting from this guidance will benefit all of society. £10,900 has been allocated purely to generating policy guidance, and further University of Manchester funds will be sought to expand these activities. As this project focuses primarily on guiding public policy, the budget is prioritised towards achieving that goal, and so activities designed to engage with the wider public will be cost-free. Policy guidance will be pursued via four main activities, and engagement with the public will be pursued in three ways. Throughout the project, I will seize further opportunities for generating impact as they arise.

Policy guidance will be pursued by firstly holding two events targeted at policy-makers and practitioners based in Manchester (co-hosted by the MCCA) and London. Around twenty individuals from a wide range of organisations will attend each event, where they will learn about how governance models can be designed to include a wider range of actors and to encourage greater climate policy ambition and experimentation. Attendees will benefit by learning best practice examples of polycentric governance models, and their impacts upon climate ambition. Feedback from this event will then shape the second activity. The second activity which will be a national workshop, held in London, for local government employees based in cities across the UK and for national-level policy-makers. This one-day event will be designed to discuss how local and national governance models can be designed to facilitate the development of climate mitigation policy. Third, having built on the feedback and discussions at the national workshop, I will submit evidence to the national parliaments of the UK, Germany and Sweden, as well as the European Parliament, both digitally and in person. Finally, this policy guidance will be generalised for small and large cities across Western Europe and then made available on the project's website.

Wider public engagement will seek to alter the perspective that climate change should be solved by 'others'. I will seek to inform the public about how they can influence the policy process themselves and to empower them to do so, and will pursue these goals in three ways. First, I will write articles for high-profile blogs, such as The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' and the Washington Post's 'Monkey Cage' regarding the findings of the project. Second, I will participate in the Political Studies Association's Total Exposure competition, whereby applicants pitch a proposal to a panel of media executives. I will propose a TV show in which I visit the city-regions of this project and explain the role of citizens and local initiatives in producing pioneering climate policies. Finally, I will host a range of public lectures at The University of Manchester for local citizens. Attendees will benefit by understanding how to influence the climate policy process, facilitating their involvement in future, possibly more polycentric, climate policy projects. As well as informing the public, these events will then shape my subsequent research project, on citizens' abilities to influence climate policy.