Enablers, Barriers and Systems for Organizational Change for Adopting and Implementing Local Governments’ Climate Mitigation Strategies: A Systematic Literature Review

By 2050, the global population will be predominantly living in urban areas, and climate change mitigation planning will be crucial for addressing the climate emergency. Local governments are well-positioned to lead in adopting effective climate mitigation strategies. This systematic literature review examines the barriers, enablers, and systems that local governments will need to consider when implementing climate mitigation and strategies. A search across Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest databases yielded 411 results, from which 28 articles were selected for detailed analysis. Using Covidence and NVivo 14 software, the study employed a combination of deductive and inductive coding to identify key themes. The study identified themes specific to enablers, such as technology, collaboration, leadership, and management culture, as well as barrier themes, including short-term thinking, uncertainty avoidance, lack of knowledge among decision-makers, resource shortages, and organizational challenges. The findings underscore the importance of addressing organizational issues and allocating appropriate resources to bolster local-level systems change in support of climate change mitigation efforts.