Transformative Climate Governance

Katharina Hölscher is a senior researcher on climate governance and sustainability transitions at the Dutch Research Institute For Transitions (DRIFT) with Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She is involved in various research projects in Europe and worldwide focusing on climate governance and resilience in cities, transformation research and transition management. Katharina has published on climate governance and urban transitions and edited a book on transition management in cities.

Niki Frantzeskaki is Professor on Urban Sustainability Transitions and Director of the Centre for Urban Transitions at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Niki has published close to 100 peer reviewed articles, released three books on urban sustainability transitions and edited 15 special issues about sustainability and sustainability transitions. She coordinates research on environmental governance and urban transitions by leading and being involved in a portfolio of research projects with research institutes across Europe, Canada, Brazil and Australia.

How to progress climate science to be policy-relevant and actionable? This book presents a novel framework to give a positive vision and structuring approach to guide research and practice on transformative climate governance, to shift the narrative from apathy and stalemate to action and transformation. Our vision contrasts existing climate governance and associated lock-ins that signify the institutional resistance to change. To effectively address climate change, climate governance itself needs to be transformed to foster sustainability transitions under climate change.

The book brings together a collection of case studies to investigate how capacities for transformative climate governance are developing at multiple scales and how they can be strengthened vis-à-vis existing governance regimes. Specifically, it sheds light on the following questions: What are key overarching conditions, actors and activities that facilitate governance for transformation under climate change? Given persistent climate governance lock-ins, what needs to happen in research and policy to build-up the capacities that transform climate governance and ensure effective climate action?