Incremental, reformistic or transformational: what kind of change do C40 cities advocate to deal with climate change?

In light of the relatively modest achievements of international climate change governance, high hopes are being placed on global city networks as an essential solution to problems in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, in particular, promotes itself as a network that enables cities to learn from each other in their efforts to confront climate change. Very little is known, however, about what kind of change the network promotes and how transformative the proposed solutions are. We assess the degree of (anticipated) change based on a stratified sample of twelve cities participating in the C40 network, signalled by adaptation and mitigation actions described in their policy documents. Our findings indicate that most proposed measures support the status quo, with the majority of actions focusing on infrastructure and technology, and only a few transformational climate measures are envisaged by the cities.