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Acknowledging no political or administrative borders, the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) has to be handled on different scales through multilevel governance. The Kyoto Protocol and subsequent international agreements constitute a general framework of commitment for the signing states. National policies based on this agreement are crucial in terms of enacting legally binding codes with regard to energy, transport, and other relevant sectors. However, an adequate response to climate change must also include innovative action taken by governments, private companies, voluntary organizations, and individuals at the regional and local levels of society. Representing sites of high consumption of energy and high production of waste, towns and cities are crucial study objects when it comes to mitigating climate change (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007; Low et al, 2000). The control of local authorities over these processes varies with national circumstances but may include energy supply and management, transport supply and demand, land-use planning, building requirements, waste management, and advice to the local community. Local authorities cannot undertake these activities in isolation. Rather, the capacity to address GHG emissions within cities is shaped through public and private actors, and through different levels of governance. Thus, across the world many cities have developed initiatives to reduce emissions of GHGs, either on their own or as members of city networks. Although the exploding worldwide worries about climate change in the last few years have mainly triggered research on national and global scales, there has also been a growing research interest in urban initiatives and programmes to address climate change, their progress, and the problems they have encountered (see, for example,

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The purpose of the article is to discuss the democratic implications of climate change and whether or not it is possible to harmonize basic democratic values with the challenges raised by global warming. Highlighting three central democratic mechanisms it is argued that even if participation and deliberation are crucial for addressing the challenge of climate change this must be done within a system of democratic representation. To become both efficient and democratic, climate governance has to include different spheres and levels of authority. As there is no blueprint for a new institutional order of this kind we have to build upon and better utilize the patchwork of multi-level governance at hand. The growing number of trans-national networks, including a great variety of coalitions between actors from formal as well as informal institutions, has a great potential as an arena for deliberation of the challenge of climate change. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Urban governance in general and partnerships in particular are commonly legitimised as being more efficient than traditional forms of government, whereas their relationship to democracy is only mentioned in passing or even neglected. In most of the literature a number of efficiency–related arguments in favour of the partnership approach are presented, although its alleged capacity to create synergetic effects for the partners normally ranks number one. Of course it is an empirical question, whether a partnership is efficient or not, but the point is that the efficiency rhetoric is strong enough to legitimise the creation of partnerships anyhow. Partnerships are more or less ascribed the function to solve any governance problem. Taking its point of departure in a theoretical discussion of partnerships and their role in urban governance, and using illustrations taken from recent empirical studies, the main aim of the paper is to develop a research strategy for cross–national/cross–country research on partnerships and urban governance. The paper concludes by discussing some policy implications of the growing role of partnerships in urban governance, high–lighting their so–far neglected relationship to democracy.