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Sustainable urban transitions promise high mitigation and adaptation potential to address the effects of anthropogenic climate change. The two coastal megacities studied in this paper, Shanghai and Istanbul, have the potential for low-carbon urban transitions that can destabilize existing regimes. The destabilization is brought about by the disruptive business model innovations of the sharing economy in Shanghai's mobility sector and by the energy-efficient practices developed alongside the intensification of the building sector through the process of urban renewal in Istanbul. However, the emergence of such urban transitions through the actions of agents relies on the existence of enabling environments for regime destabilization. In a comparative case study of Shanghai and Istanbul, we assess the challenges of realizing regime destabilization opportunities through an enabling environment framework. We find that without adequate enabling environments for regime destabilization, urban transitions to sustainability may fail to achieve effective low-carbon action and make progress towards meeting the sustainable development goals. We also show that while deliberate and collective efforts are underway from multiple agents within and beyond the two megacities, the environments for regime destabilization in the building and transport sectors considered remain insufficient primarily due to conflicting priorities among key agents in the underlying urban systems.

Green-Win is the proposal where that government, society, and business can all reap benefits while at the same time playing a vital role in the transition to sustainable development and lower carbon futures. We argue that, while the Green-Win proposition is central to many state and expert models of sustainability transitions, as a construction, it belies more complex tradeoffs and cognitive models of sustainability and societal transitions. Cultural models are cognitive representations shared by a community which provide both models of the world, which aid in interpreting what is in the world, how it works, what is possible (or not) and why, and models for the world, which suggest how to act in it to bring about desired outcomes (cf. Geertz 1973). We surveyed 225 respondents in Shanghai, China, Istanbul, Turkey, and Beirut, Lebanon to assess their basic beliefs about sustainability, specifically whether it is possible to implement concrete practices that realize environmental sustainability goals in conjunction with economic development-the Green-Win proposition. We found important similarities and differences among urban stakeholders' cultural models of sustainable development. For example, Chinese and Lebanese respondents displayed a strong belief that economic growth and environmental sustainability are compatible, while Turkish respondents showed significant disagreement with this proposition. We argue that such basic notions about the possibility of Green-Win opportunities between environmental sustainability and economic development are important to understand in the context of mitigating and adapting to climate change in critical urban environments. Cultural models of and for green development may either enable or inhibit transformations in urban systems according to local conditions. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of cultural models' research for targeting communications and engendering collaborations among diverse stakeholders in order to align perspectives and overcome barriers that may otherwise limit successful visioning, planning, and implementation for transformation towards sustainable development.

Research on norm domestication in multi‐level governance structures is overlooked in urban climate governance and policy literature. This paper conceptualizes multi‐scalar interactions of norm domestication for local climate actions. The city of Phoenix, which operates under the “purple” (blue cities and red legislatures) state of Arizona, is analyzed to illustrate how a local government can take up the climate actions left in the void at the state and federal levels. The empirical findings reveal important temporal politics at the state level that influenced the local government's climate norm domestication. The period of Democratic party leadership diffused climate norms at the state‐level and positioned the local government more as a climate policy‐taker, adopting decisions from the state legislature. Swings in the state‐level executive orders under the subsequent period of Republican leadership, however, forced the local government to seek some common ground for norm domestication, usually related to the nonpartisan goals of economic development. Consequently, local climate actions are subject to depoliticization of climate change from the higher‐level governance structures. Overall, decarbonization targets are not being directed in ways that lead to a broader shift in the socio‐technical system but would support short‐term emission reductions if multiple institutions, both at the state and sub‐state levels, created spaces for collaboration rather than competition.