Institutionalizing the urban governance of climate change adaptation: Results of an international survey

Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate Change Governance Survey (UCGS). Conducted at MIT in partnership with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the UCGS provides a first of its kind look at the governance networks that municipalities are creating to address climate change. Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an integration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government’s are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts. Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.