Advocating Urban Transition: A Qualitative Review of Institutional and Grassroots Initiatives in Shaping Climate-Aware Cities

Abstract

Climate change and its challenges have long been incorporated into the policy-making process. Advocacy actions urge to strengthen the socio-ecological resilience through engagement with stakeholders, feedback recollection, and testing of solutions. Several initiatives have been born to boost cities’ actions toward climate change mitigation and adaptation. Institutional coordinated actions such as transnational municipal networks (TMNs) and non-institutional, grassroots movements for climate action, are among them. The study focuses on four TMNs and two grassroots movements, which have an impact on the European and/or worldwide contexts. They are investigated qualitatively, reflecting on the roles and contributions to climate change that they provide both alone and together. The research questions focus on the instruments/elements/factors that they put in place to support the transition, the key messages, and how these are conferred to their key targets. The initiatives have been investigated in both the grey and scientific literature. The main results show that grassroots movements for climate action and TMNs have the potential to better support cities in their climate transition. However, local governments are urged to take advantage of both initiatives’ ability to develop networks of support, innovation and a sense of belonging. In conclusion, the research states that the two initiatives should be effectively connected and integrated with a complementary role concerning planning actions.