What effect does the projectification of local governance have on the transformative capacity of urban net-zero policies? A French case study

How does post-democratic urban governance affect the capacity for climate action? What effect does the projectification of local governance have on politics and the political under climate action, and consequently on the transformative capacity of net-zero policies? To address these questions, this article draws on an in-depth case study of a French city that aims to become the first carbon-neutral coastal city. It concludes that projectification has ambivalent effects on climate action. On one hand, because depoliticises climate issues, projectification facilitates both ambitious climate pledges and incremental change. On other hand, like other forms of depoliticisation, projectification doesn’t allow the legitimation of such policies and thus undermines their transformative capacity.