Cities beyond Crisis: The Case of Climate Action in Manila and Bangkok

• In Event: Subnational Climate Policy

Abstract

How do global norms translate into local action? Despite the climate crisis’ transboundary threat, state-centric mitigation and adaptation efforts dominate global environmental governance. Top-down approaches to climate decision-making do not only reinforce territorially-bounded climate solutions. They also obscure the heterogeneity of institutional capacity across and within countries, and the vital role sub-national actors play in the implementation of national commitments. While the climate crisis is global in its reach, it is local in impact; cities occupy unique governance roles as public service providers and first responders during emergencies. My paper addresses these tensions by centering cities as critical agents in both global and urban governance, and explores the conditions, motivations, and mechanisms by which urban actors localize: adopt and translate norms embedded in international agreements into local policy. I bridge literature on norms, environmental studies, and state capacity to present a novel reconceptualization of localization, and theorize that cities are more likely to localize when they possess (1) autonomy to seek and reallocate funds, (2) capacity to develop specialized agencies and hire technical experts, and (3) access to international networks within their jurisdiction. However, cities that do localize do so to different degrees. Cities that develop strong network ties both within and beyond their jurisdictions face stronger incentives to localize. These relationships may generate fiscal and technical support that can sustain cities’ localization efforts. They also create informal accountability mechanisms through requirements to evaluate and publicly report progress on their commitments. These requirements can, in turn, foster competitive target-setting with other cities, as well as bottom-up pressure from local communities to fill policy gaps. To test these theoretical expectations on motivations and mechanisms, I use a mixed-methods research design. In the first phase, I use a large-N binary logistic regression analysis on a novel globally-representative dataset of over 500 cities (2010-2022), populated with data on various structural factors (independent variables): political and fiscal decentralization and regime type at the national level, and international network membership and economic growth at the city level. I operationalize localization (dependent variable) as whether and to what extent primary city plans explicitly reference international environmental agreements (e.g., Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals). In the second phase, I develop a comparative case analysis to test expectations on cities’ motivations and the mechanisms for localization with a focus on Southeast Asia, particularly Metro Manila, Philippines and Bangkok, Thailand–two of the most populous, climate-vulnerable metropolitans of Southeast Asia. Manila and Bangkok are both coastal capitals that face a disproportionate threat of flooding and rising sea levels, yet possess varying levels of democracy and regime types. The analysis uses quantitative and qualitative text analyses that draw from extensive fieldwork, including archival data and semi-structured interviews with local government bureaucrats, international organization representatives, and members of civil society such as non-governmental organizations and local universities. My research to date reveals that despite varying institutional arrangements, regime types, levels of economic development, and even underlying motivations, both cities pursue policies that can be traced directly to the norms embedded in climate agreements.
By acknowledging the unique role of cities in climate response, the project demonstrates the limitations of state-centric explanations of norm diffusion, and advances a reimagination of global governance structures that recognize and include cities as political agents. My paper also contributes a sub-national framework for measuring diverse conditions for and outcomes of global climate norm localization, which may prove useful in studying and responding to the global proliferation of climate denial and right-wing populist ideology.

Author

• Gaea Morales