Transnational Municipal Networks as a Mechanism for Marine Governance Toward Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation: Between Potential and Practice

Abstract

Many municipalities undertake actions individually and/or collectively, in cooperation with central administrations, regional authorities, the private sector, and other municipalities (both nationally and internationally). This paper aims to examine how they use transnational municipal networks (TMNs) as a tool for cooperation that supports marine governance in the context of climate change adaptation and mitigation. The analysis is carried out at two dimensions: spatial range (global or regional) and spatial identity (coastal or inland). Three case studies of TMNs are examined in detail: the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40); Connecting Delta Cities (CDC) and the Union of Baltic Cities (UBC). As research has shown, due to their organizational and normative limitations and a lack of maturity in ocean literacy, TMNs are not able to fully engage in all the activities related to climate change adaptation and mitigation as suggested by the UNEP. The TMNs implement both mitigation and adaptation measures, although ‘soft’ mitigation actions seem to be the most common. While the scale and innovativeness of a networks’ operation are determined by their specificity resulting from their spatial identity, the effectiveness of jointly developed strategies and actions depend heavily on the allocation of human resources and the level of commitment of the involved cities toward becoming leaders.

Coastal zone, key area for adaptation to sea level rise. The Gulf of Gdansk case

“…Coastal communities and their local, central as well as global authorities should notice the problem and take appropriate actions in order to mitigate the changes and to adapt to the new reality (Dumała et al, 2021). The scale of the problem is vast and thus it requires the involvement of all stakeholders on a local, national, regional and international levels (Dupuis and Biesbroek, 2013;Busch, Bendlin and Fenton, 2018;Donatti et al, 2020;Kotyńska-Zielińska et al, 2020).…”

A Blueprint for Ocean Literacy: EU4Ocean

“…Additionally, the ocean provides numerous benefits to communities worldwide, from natural aspects, such as mitigating climate changes and threats to food resources, to more civilization-related ones, including employment, transportation as well as recreation and cultural features [4]. All of these benefits strongly depend on the state of the ocean environment, biodiversity and related ecosystem services, and it is clear that the main threats to marine ecosystems come from a number of human activities, including pollution and the release of greenhouse gases [1- 3,5,6].…”

“…We now realize that, without firm and quick actions devoted to climate and ocean change processes, we will soon lose control over the environmental pressures and drivers (with very complex and often difficult-to-predict linkages) and thus processes which govern the climate [1- 3,6]. These actions require changes in lifestyles, including the rate of the global production of goods and thus the consumption levels, that directly apply pressures to the entire planet [5].…”