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How 3 cities are transforming to adapt to climate change

Systems change is needed to address the interconnected challenges facing cities, such as climate change, inequality, and environmental degradation. Image:  Pexels/Kaique Rocha

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Stay up to date:, cities and urbanization.

• Systems change is needed to address the interconnected challenges facing cities, such as climate change, inequality, and environmental degradation.
• Cities need to transform multiple components of their systems to achieve systemic change.
• Urban transformation is difficult to achieve in practice, but there are cities around the world that are rising to the challenge.
• The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities highlights cases of successful urban transformation to inspire other cities.

Cities occupy just 3 percent of the Earth’s land, but account for most of the global energy consumption and carbon emissions . Many cities are also more vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters due to their population densities and interconnected infrastructure. To avoid the most harmful impacts from climate change — including human, social and economic losses — we know building climate-ready cities is crucial. However, recent studies indicate that we are far from reaching global goals set out for making our cities more resilient.

A 2022 assessment released by the United Nations paints a stark picture of progress, describing a sense of “grave jeopardy.” So, what is the best way for cities to make the changes needed to meet global climate and development goals that would ensure a sustainable and inclusive future? The scale of this challenge calls for intense systems-level urban transformations .

This means moving beyond narrow approaches that only focus on a single issue, such as transportation or housing, and embracing bigger solutions that demonstrate life-changing impacts on people’s lives and have ripple effects on institutions and the wider city. Systems change in cities involves transforming multiple components of a particular urban system to create a holistic positive shift of the entire system.

Urban transformation is difficult to achieve in practice. There is often a distance between the kinds of solutions that are needed and how cities actually work. Limited resources and the difficulties of coordinating many stakeholders, among many other barriers, limit the ability to make meaningful systemic changes.

However, there are cities around the world rising to the challenge. Here, we highlight three innovative urban projects that are demonstrating how cross-sector solutions can achieve systemic change to make cities more sustainable and inclusive.

1) Rosario, Argentina: Transformation Through Urban Agriculture

Since 2001, Rosario, Argentina has evolved an urban and peri-urban agriculture program to become a key part of the city’s resilience to flooding and heat events.

The city was experiencing a major national economic crisis compounded by record-breaking rainfall and flooding. Thousands of people in Rosario faced food insecurity, unemployment, displacement and poverty.

Rosario’s initial interventions were launched in the early 2000s to equip people with the resources to grow produce on vacant and under-utilized land and sell it at local markets in response to the economic crisis. Following major floods in 2007, the city identified flood risk zones that could be developed into “Vegetable Garden Parks” for urban agriculture.

Since then, the city has worked to convert increasing amounts of land into green agricultural spaces. These spaces limit environmentally harmful urban sprawl, cool down the city, and absorb excess rainfall. Rosario brought the benefits of these land use changes to the population with additional initiatives on food markets, green jobs, composting and renewable energy. Urban agriculture now features prominently in the city’s regular 10-year strategic plans.

Rosario, which was the grand prize winner of the 2020-2021 WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities, took a holistic approach demonstrating a systems-level change to integrate urban agriculture into the city’s environmental and land use policies, while also instituting a set of beneficial social programs connected to agricultural programs. Rosario shows how a city can enact changes, growing them steadily over time, to transform food and land use systems to promote food security and climate resilience.

The Data for the City of Tomorrow report highlighted that in 2023, around 56% of the world is urbanized. Almost 65% of people use the internet. Soon, 75% of the world’s jobs will require digital skills.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Urban Transformation is at the forefront of advancing public-private collaboration in cities. It enables more resilient and future-ready communities and local economies through green initiatives and the ethical use of data.

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2) Guadalajara, Mexico: Public Space, Decarbonization and Activism

The experience of Guadalajara, Mexico , shows how a city’s transformation of roadways led to the development of new systems of activism and political engagement in the city.

The core physical intervention was Via RecreActiva, a major weekend road closure program where pedestrians and cyclists were invited to use major roads typically reserved for cars. Via RecreActiva was initially launched in 2003 by a coalition of business owners aiming to improve cleanliness and quality of life in the city center, modeled after a similar program in Bogota, Colombia. Via RecreActiva raised the importance of non-motorized mobility, showing the benefits of vibrant, car-free public spaces.

Over time, the success of the program helped seed the rise of new civil society coalitions focused on sustainability and cycling advocacy, which have since had a measurable impact on the city’s transportation policies. In 2009, a coalition of organizations advocated for a new master plan for nonmotorized mobility that was passed by the municipality, and in 2010 successfully opposed the construction of a major elevated expressway for motor traffic.

Since 2015 some veterans of this community organizing have formed a new progressive political party that has since won elections and today forms the city’s government, which has majorly increased spending on public transportation. This project exemplifies how one intervention of a major public space can create new constituencies focused on change for a more sustainable city.

3) Bangkok, Thailand: Secure and Inclusive Housing

Like many cities in the Global South, Bangkok, Thailand, faces the challenge of providing services and infrastructure to informal settlements . This problem is intensified by the increasing risk of flooding , which threatens to destroy the modest informal settlements at the edges of Bangkok’s vast network of canals and rivers. There is an urgent need to build flood prevention infrastructure in the city, without disrupting the lives of the urban poor.

Since 2003, Bangkok has benefited from Baan Mankong (“Secure Housing”), a national-level program that supports slum communities in the city by negotiating formal tenure and offering financing and subsidies to upgrade housing in line with citywide flood-resilience plans. The program’s work with local cooperatives of slum dwellers is key to instituting community-led processes. These collaborative measures contrast from traditional top-down approaches where the urban poor are forcibly resettled in housing that may not meet their needs.

Working through local community networks is also key to developing new systems of “ social infrastructures ” that have increased the city’s resilience to other crises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the networks established under the Baan Manong program were used to promote a range of initiatives and grants to support communities hit by the lockdown crisis.

The Baan Mankong program has spurred systemic change in the city’s urban development strategy and relationships between authorities and urban poor communities.

Have you read?

Why cities must redress injustice and embrace the climate displaced, what is 'bio-based' construction and how could it help cities get to net zero, how and why the g7 is looking to build sustainable and resilient cities , elevating sustainable urban transformations.

Highlighting cases of systems change in cities around the world is key to encouraging city-to-city learning and inspiration that is needed to seed new projects. That’s why WRI created the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities to celebrate urban transformation projects. Since 2019, the Prize has elevated 15 exemplary laureates from around the world that demonstrate how successful urban transformation works in practice.

Three projects have won the grand prize of $250,000, demonstrating impactful work on diverse focus areas ranging from innovative road safety programs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania , inclusive urban agriculture systems in Rosario, Argentina and citywide park upgrading and greening in Barranquilla, Colombia.

The Prize has launched its fourth cycle and will accept applications until Sept. 26, 2023, from projects responding to the theme of “accelerating momentum for climate-ready communities.” This theme recognizes, in this moment of global awareness, the magnitude of our climate change challenge and the need to accelerate the speed, scope and scale of action to create inclusive, climate-ready communities.

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Even as the international community coordinates global climate action through the Paris Agreement and the U.S. government makes strides through major bills such as the Inflation Reduction Act, there is plenty that cities must still do on their own to clean up their economies and built environments. One of the most frequent approaches are decarbonization plans, which are often nested within larger climate action plans. Decarbonization plans outline specific steps cities will take to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their electricity systems, buildings, transportation networks, and related sectors.   

Last September, we evaluated the implementation potential of decarbonization plans from 50 of the country’s largest cities. What we found was concerning: While most cities took some steps toward reducing GHG emissions, their plans often lacked the details necessary to meet aspirational goals. That was especially the case for funding and finance issues—meaning how cities plan to pay for needed infrastructure improvements and other actions to reduce GHG emissions. With larger cities requiring billions of dollars to retrofit their building stock, construct new transit lines, or modernize local electricity distribution systems, being realistic about how to fund all these investments is an essential step to decarbonization.  

Cities frequently fell short across four different criteria in our analysis. First, while every city should thoroughly spell out details on funding and financing, only 70% of cities integrated these concerns into their decarbonization strategies, and second, only 66% identified existing funding sources. Third, only 54% proposed specific, innovative, consistent, and/or long-term funding sources or financing mechanisms, and finally, just 34% estimated the financial impacts of each decarbonization strategy. Only eight cities—Cincinnati; Denver; Memphis, Tenn.; Nashville, Tenn.; New York City; Sacramento, Calif.; San Francisco; and San Jose, Calif.—satisfied all four of these funding and financing criteria in our original evaluation. Sound funding and financing strategies are the exception when it comes to decarbonization planning in American cities.  

Lackluster aggregate scores tell one part of the story, but they also obscure the experimentation and innovation currently taking place as cities work to fund ambitious decarbonization efforts. Based on our detailed scan of 50 large U.S. cities, we encountered a range of funding and financing policies that formally commit to investing real money to decarbonize their local built environments, including real estate, electricity systems, and transportation networks.  

This report summarizes specific funding and financing policies found in these 50 cities to provide a glimpse into the variety and scale of local climate finance innovations. Adopted before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), these strategies focus on locally driven efforts and innovations rather than new federal funding streams. Still, in the context of increased federal investment, strong local institutions and policies are even more important. For example, the IRA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund can directly fund local green banks and provide the technical and financial assistance necessary to establish new green banks or similar institutions. While not comprehensive, the examples in this piece offer a kind of early roadmap for any city looking to commit to genuine climate action and make the most of coming federal climate investments.  

Some cities, such as Portland, Ore. and Denver, have the kind of climate-friendly support among voters that lends itself toward sweeping actions like dedicating new taxes to fund climate action. Where enabling state and local legislation exists, financial tools such as property assessed clean energy programs are helping cities address specific climate challenges like retrofitting old buildings. Other cities have built off their relationship with local utilities or adapted existing funding streams to have a more explicit climate focus. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to paying for decarbonization efforts, these examples offer lessons for how political environments, staff knowledge, and complementary laws can influence decarbonization investments.  

Two cities’ efforts to raise dedicated climate funds through taxes  

Our analysis identified two cities as standout leaders in establishing long-term, flexible funding to address climate change: Portland, Ore. and Denver. Both cities passed ballot measures to establish dedicated climate funds by raising a large business tax and sales tax, respectively. In each case, grassroots efforts led the ballot measures to success, and the funds provide a landmark sustainable funding source. Accompanying innovations (e.g., the use of five-year fund planning cycles and the creation of new competitive award programs prioritizing underserved communities) transformed each city’s approach to action-oriented planning and equity-focused implementation.  

In November 2018, 65% of Portland voters passed the Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund Initiative (Ballot Measure 26-201). The measure requires large retailers to pay a 1% Clean Energy Surcharge on “gross revenues from retail sales in Portland, excluding basic groceries, medicines, and health care services.” The resulting funding—which the coalition supporting the ballot measure memorably referred to as “1% from the 1%”—is placed in the city’s new Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) and spent via competitive awards on climate action projects. While originally projected to raise between $44 million and $61 million annually, the fund has outperformed expectations, with new revenue projections reaching $90 million annually. As of October 2022, funded projects and actions totaled $130 million, including a range of workforce programs such as the Green Janitor Education Program ; agriculture and resilience projects such as NAYA Neerchokikoo Food Sovereignty Project ; and energy efficiency projects such as the Deep Energy Retrofit Project .  

Shaped by years of BIPOC-lead organizing and campaigning , the Portland measure included a bold commitment to environmental justice from its start, with city staff prioritizing awards that benefit people with low incomes, communities of color, and workers facing discrimination. In response to recommendations from the program’s recent audit, 2022 updates added a requirement that the city produce five-year Climate Investment Plans, which will then be used to ensure funds contribute to the city’s broader climate strategy. This shift toward investment-focused climate planning—wherein planned strategies are already funded, and thus much more likely to be implemented—will allow the city to continue its journey toward a more grounded, strategic approach to connecting climate planning to decarbonization action.  

Denver’s Climate Protection Fund follows a similar story. In 2019, local environmental advocates collected signatures for an energy use tax. While the local advocacy group Resilient Denver was unable to get the measure on the ballot in its original form, it caught the attention of the Denver City Council and the mayor, who created a citizen Climate Action Task Force to “[engage] Denver’s communities in defining goals, gaps, solutions, and investment opportunities.” The task force—with participants ranging from community members to Xcel Energy representatives—recommended a 0.25% sales tax increase to replace the energy use tax, and the city council put Measure 2A on the ballot for November 2020.   

Measure 2A passed with the support of 62% of Denver voters, and was projected to generate between $30 million and $40 million annually to fund climate action—50% of which would go toward equity-focused projects . One year later, the city’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency, which manages the fund, produced its first Climate Protection Fund Five-Year Plan . The plan set forth strategies to manage, spend, and track the fund’s impact and alignment with allowable funding routes (staff positions, agreements with other city agencies, and competitively awarded contracts with external partners), allowable uses (workforce development, renewable energy, buildings and homes, sustainable transportation, adaptation and resiliency, and environmental justice) and equity values. The fund’s 2021 annual report found actual revenues ($41 million) outperformed initial projections ($37 million) for the year. Within its first year, the fund committed nearly $57.7 million dollars to projects ranging from e-bike libraries for essential workers to workforce development for green jobs and community solar installations .  

These two ballot measures show the potential of strong grassroots organizing—combined with new institutional structures—as a strategy to raise sustainable, flexible capital for equity-centered climate action. The creation of Portland’s Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund and Denver’s Climate Protection Fund have not only provided each city with the ability to fund their existing decarbonization planning efforts, but have also introduced new levels of engagement, transparency, and oversight into local climate governance. Originating from resident-led coalitions, these funds also formalize monetary and procedural commitments to equity, whereas unfunded climate plans often offer only words.  

Property assessed clean energy: A popular tool for climate investments  

Passing a citywide tax increase to fund climate action is a rare achievement, so cities beyond Portland and Denver are coming up with other creative methods to fund their climate action priorities. One of the more common financial strategies is the use of property assessed clean energy (PACE) programs to incentivize building efficiency upgrades. PACE programs allow commercial (C-PACE) and sometimes residential (R-PACE) property owners to make energy efficiency improvements to their properties by fully financing all upfront costs. (See PACENation for a list of approved capital providers by state.) These costs are then attached to property tax assessments and paid off over an extended period, often up to 20 years. Over the course of repayment, property owners often save enough on energy efficiency to more than cover the cost of the improvements.  

Enabled by state-level legislation, PACE programs are currently allowed in 39 states. All but eight of these states have active PACE programs, meaning that at least one local government in the state has passed a municipal ordinance establishing a local PACE program. This strategy is growing in popularity; several plans analyzed in our original report cited the success of their local PACE programs, while others laid out strategies to bring new PACE programs to their city. These include:  

• Atlanta: Atlanta’s 2016 Climate Action Plan implicates PACE as a key financing strategy for its building energy efficiency goals. The city’s C-PACE program is managed by Ygrene Energy Fund. The local economic development authority, Invest Atlanta, authorized $500 million in bond issuances for the program.   
• Cincinnati: The 2018 Green Cincinnati Plan includes a goal to increase the number of PACE projects completed in the city. Ohio PACE , which manages the city’s Energy Special Improvement District’s PACE program, reports nearly $20.6 million in total principal.  
• Columbus, Ohio: The 2021 Columbus Climate Action Plan emphasizes the success of their PACE program to date, targets $250 million in annual PACE investments by 2030, and aims to pair those investments with the establishment of a green bank by 2025.  
• Dallas: The 2020 Dallas Comprehensive Environmental and Climate Action Plan commits to developing a landing page and “comprehensive educational program” for building owners and tenants to learn about energy efficiency programs, including the city’s PACE program. The program is available to commercial, industrial, and multifamily residential property owners in Dallas, and is administered by the Texas PACE Authority. As of August 2022 , the program invested over $73 million dollars and completed nine PACE projects.  
• Kansas City, Mo.: The 2022 Short-Term Implementation Plan for Kansas City’s Climate Protection and Resiliency Plan includes PACE as a planned financing strategy for grid stability, resilience, and residential energy efficiency.  
• Orlando, Fla.: The 2018 Community Action Plan celebrated $500 million in financing in the PACE program’s first two years. The plan also highlights Orlando’s utilization of $17.5 million in green bonds to improve energy efficiency in 55 municipal buildings.  

Our research found several other cities aspiring to bring PACE programs to their communities, either through the passage of enabling legislation, starting up a program in an area where it is already permitted, or increasing awareness and participation in existing programs. But despite its growing adoption, PACE programs are far from a financial panacea; they are limited to the building sector, and some critics are concerned about consumer protections, particularly around the potential for predatory practices and oversight challenges in residential PACE programs. The National Consumer Law Center has identified troubling cases of contractors pushing unneeded improvements (sometimes with little associated energy savings) on vulnerable homeowners who have not been properly screened for their ability to pay. In response to new requirements in the 2018 Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, in 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued advanced notice of a new rule requiring PACE programs to follow existing ability-to-repay regulations.  

Other emerging strategies for decarbonization financing  

Besides those listed above, cities are using a variety of other financial strategies to pay for decarbonization activities. Below are promising practices highlighted in other decarbonization plans we analyzed:  

Local financing authorities  

• Boston: The 2019 City of Boston Climate Action Plan cites Renew Boston Trust as the city’s current and future vehicle to “invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy generation in municipal buildings.” Originally established in 2017, the Trust has already invested $10 million in energy savings performance contracting —a process in which upgrades are financed through future energy savings. The plan commits to $35 million in additional investments through the Trust.  
• New York: New York City’s 2019 “A Livable Climate” plan commits to growing the Green Housing Preservation Program for low- and no-interest energy efficiency loans. The city also plays an important role in broader climate finance systems through strategic investment of its pension funds .  
• Washington, D.C.: The 2018 Sustainable DC 2.0 Plan committed to establishing a green bank by 2020—a goal that was met in less than a year. The DC Green Bank now serves as a central access point for several innovative local climate finance programs, including the District’s PACE program, an Affordable Housing Retrofit Accelerator, a Clean Energy Advantage Program, a Community Impact Initiative, a Commercial Loan for Energy Efficiency and Renewables program, a Navigator Pre-Development Loan program, and an open solicitation for innovative clean energy financing proposals. In 2022, the DC Green Bank committed over $26 million in capital.  

Funding partnerships  

• Los Angeles: The 2019 Green New Deal Sustainability City Plan proposes stormwater capture actions funded by the Safe Clean Water Program (Measure W, a 2018 ballot measure), which collects an estimated $300 million annually through a 2.5-cent tax per square foot of impervious surface on private parcels in the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.   
• San Diego: The 2022 City of San Diego Climate Action Plan celebrates the $4.8 million Climate Equity Fund, founded in 2021 and financed in part through the city’s energy franchise agreement with the electric utility SDG&E. Such franchise agreements are an emerging financial strategy for localities and energy providers to collaborate on cleaner energy and other climate outcomes.  

One-time investments  

• Chicago The city’s 2022 Climate Action Plan includes an analysis of climate-related Recovery Plan investments, which total $188 million .  
• Sacramento, Calif.: The 2022 City of Sacramento Preliminary Climate Action and Adaptation Plan begins by noting a one-time budget allocation of $4.5 million to fund the plan’s implementation. While not yet implemented, a diverse and comprehensive set of financing options are explored in Appendix D of the plan.  

Funding and financing are often the biggest barriers to local decarbonization efforts. That reality is borne out through the overall lack of detail and clarity we found when analyzing decarbonization plans from 50 of the country’s largest cities. But many cities have found creative strategies to address vexing problems such as the high upfront cost of building retrofits and the compounding environmental and social inequalities vulnerable neighborhoods face. As climate challenges mount, such strategies will be essential in securing the necessary investments for making our cities resilient and sustainable for decades to come.   

For more case studies on innovative local approaches to fund and finance decarbonization, see the Department of Energy’s State and Local Solution Center , the National Association of State Energy Officials’ energy financing resources , and the Atlas’ local government case studies .  

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Climate Change and Cities UCCRN Collaboration

Most of humanity now lives and works in cities that create wealth and generate the majority of global consumption demands for material and energy resources. As such, cities have a major role leading efficient and low-carbon strategies and science-based policies to mitigate climate change. Moreover, while the particular risks of climate change vary from place to place, every city will need to adapt in the years to come to rising seas, increasing wildfires, more frequent heat waves, and intensifying storms. All this is occurring simultaneously with growing housing and transit needs of urban citizens.

The Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) in collaboration with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and ESI aim to create and disseminate knowledge of climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities with the main objective of providing decision-makers at the city level with knowledge to inform climate science-based policy.

The Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) is a global consortium of more than 1,000 experts dedicated to the analysis of climate change mitigation and adaptation from an urban perspective. Based at Columbia University’s Earth Institute with Hubs in cities around the world, UCCRN produces the sustained, state-of- the-knowledge Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3), providing the science base for cities as they act to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Building on UCCRN’s first and second ARC3 report , the Case Study Docking Station is designed as a tool to inform research and practice by allowing cross comparisons of city case studies for a broad range of social, biophysical, cultural, economic, and political contexts. It includes over 100 city case studies covering a range of topics such as climate change vulnerability, hazards and impacts, mitigation and adaptation actions, and sector-specific themes such as wastewater and flood management. The case studies highlight climate change action, both mitigation and adaptation, by cities all over the world.

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• Published: 14 October 2020

Understanding how city networks are leveraging climate action: experimentation through C40

• Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3590-8695 1 ,
• Kathryn Davidson 1 &
• Lars Coenen 2 , 3  

Urban Transformations volume  2 , Article number:  12 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Climate change is one of the most challenging environmental and social problems for contemporary urban planning. In response to this phenomenon, city networks have emerged as new configurations of urban climate governance that encourage the implementation of experiments such as testing new solutions regarding sustainable transport. While city networks are gaining momentum and influence as effective platforms to transform and scale up pilot experiments into city-wide schemes, little is known regarding their role in conditioning and leveraging such urban experiments Our paper investigates the underexplored nature of urban experiments within city networks and provides a better understanding of how these networks condition urban experiments. To this end an analytical model has been developed and applied to the case of the C40 Climate Leadership Group (C40) and its Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide. Our findings suggest that the C40 encourages variation in local climate experiments and the generation of new and innovative climate solutions in member cities. In particular they reveal that the implementation of climate positive experiments has passed the ‘variation’ stage, is currently in the ‘selection’ stage, and likely to move towards the ‘retention’ stage in the near future. Potential experimentation outputs of the case are identified as built environment change, new citizen practices, policy change, infrastructural change and new technology. Noticeably, we consider that the C40 plays an important role in providing fundamental institutional support to implement and leverage climate projects within its member cities.

Policy and practice recommendations

Urban policymakers and practitioners should understand the role of city networks in conditioning and leveraging urban experiments to derive more benefits from engaging in networking activities.

‘Good-practice’ climate experiment programmes are often not set-up to test solutions in tightly controlled environments, but rather to encourage the generation of new and innovative solutions.

The analytical model we suggest can support urban climate governance regarding the role and nature of climate experiments driven by city networks.

Science highlights

The C40 network plays an important role in conditioning urban climate experiments.

The C40 network encourages variation in local climate experiments and the generation of new and innovative climate solutions in member cities.

Although C40’s climate positive experiments are not yet completed, various potential experimentation outputs have been identified.

Introduction

In the past 20 years, it has been widely recognised that humanity has entered the ‘urban age’ (Brenner and Schmid 2014 ). That is, cities and urban settlements currently accommodate more than 50% of the population around the world, which is a significant increase from only 2% in 1800 (United Nations [UN] 2016 ). Moreover, it is projected that approximately two-thirds of the world’s population (i.e., approximately 7 billion people) will reside in cities by 2050 (UN 2014 ). In this present context, cities and their related urban activities are considered primary sources of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that generate more than 70% of global emissions (UN-Habitat 2011 ).

Further, different studies have demonstrated that various urban challenges, including poverty, environmental pollution and climate change have concentrated risks within cities and urban areas, making them increasingly vulnerable to a wide range of threats and hazards (International Federation of Red Cross [IFRC] 2010 ; UN Environment Program [UNEP] and UN-Habitat 2009 ). For example, in 2018 Cape Town (South Africa) became the first major city to risk running out of potable water. Other cities that are currently in water crisis include Beijing (China) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) (Wright 2018 ; Leahy 2018 ). This vulnerability to risk means that cities play a critical role in enhancing the prospects of humanity through managing various global threats, including climate change.

As noted by Leffel and Acuto ( 2018 ), cities are also increasingly considered pivotal to different multilateral agendas that are designed to shape the world’s future. Bulkeley et al. ( 2014 ) note that climate politics is not limited to international and national forums, and that cities are an important force in pursuing climate governance in their own right. Since the establishment of Local Agenda 21, city governments worldwide have contributed to developing new institutional arrangements for sustainable urban development, and ‘continue to do so as [ …] evidenced by the recently established “Global Parliament of Mayors”’ (Raven et al. 2019 , p. 259). Additionally, the 21st Conference of the Parties [COP21] in Paris (2015) also witnessed the massive presence of over 400 city mayors and a significant number of side events specifically concentrating on cities (Tollin 2015 ). Such activities have demonstrated that cities can play a crucial role in developing and implementing innovative solutions to mitigate threats arising from climate change locally and globally (Hale 2016 ). Given that cities are ‘open, complex, dynamic systems with a global reach’ (Bai et al. 2018 , p. 25), their responses to climate change challenges vary. Cities not only experience climate threats in different ways, but also ‘have historically organised infrastructure provision that may differ and a variable capacity at an urban scale to respond to the emerging pressures’ (Hodson and Marvin 2010 , p. 481). Accordingly, the contextual realities of urban places may contribute to developing ‘a highly variegated “landscape” of supporting and hindering forces’ that affect their responses to climate change (Coenen et al. 2012 , p. 971).

Moreover, cities are considered particularly critical places for the emergence and unfolding of sustainability transitions and associated system innovations driven by experimentation (Loorbach and Shiroyama 2016 ; Fuenfschilling et al. 2019 ; Frantzeskaki et al. 2017 ; Moore et al. 2018 ). In this context, a new form of city leadership has developed that favours ‘experimentation’ as a new approach of city governance (Boyd and Ghosh 2013 , p. 926; Laakso et al. 2017 ;McGuirk et al. 2015 ; Bulkeley and Broto 2013 ). At a general level, it refers to a variety of responses occurring within metropolitan locations in the form of ‘purposive interventions designed to respond to the imperative for climate change responses in the city, and with more or less explicit attempts to innovate, learn or gain experience’ (Bulkeley and Broto 2013 , p. 362). In spite of its popularity, there is a lack of consensus and analytical precision on the definition of ‘experimentation’ giving way to considerable interpretative flexibility across different literature and disciplines (see below).

This paper is particularly concerned with the nature of these experiments becoming increasingly international given that more cities are formalising cross-boundary collaborations with different peers and global actors to accelerate their experimental approaches. International city networks such the C40 Climate Leadership Group (C40) have supported the implementation of approximately 14,000 pilot climate actions within cities since 2011. Such networks are currently considered fundamental platforms for addressing climate change at local levels and coordinating distributed actions around the world. Scholars have noted that the C40 is an efficient platform to ‘scale up’ pilot climate projects into city-wide schemes (Kronsell and Mukhtar-Landgren 2018 ; Heijden 2016 ). There has been mention in research of the networked character of many experiments (Evans et al. 2016 ). Existing studies have also highlighted the importance of city networks, such as C40, as venues for socialisation, policy learning and collaboration between member cities to support the delivery of experiments (Lee and van de Meene 2012 ; Lee 2019 ). However, there exists little research engaging with more fundamental questions of how city networks condition and leverage urban experimentation - beyond the aspect of facilitating mutual learning and collaboration between cities. A recent study by Heikkinen et al. ( 2019 ), which evaluates anticipated changes in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies of C40 cities, also questions the role that city networks can play in the implementation of climate experiments. While city networks are gaining momentum and influence, this lack of research on the more generalised role of city networks in experimentation constitutes a critical gap in the literature (Smeds and Acuto 2018 ).

To address this research gap, this paper investigates the following two research questions: (1) What is the nature of urban experiments in city networks? (2) What is the role of city networks in conditioning and leveraging urban experiments? Based on research on sustainability transitions, this paper derives an analytical model to illustrate the nature of urban experiments and the role of city networks in leveraging such experiments. The analytical model will then be piloted to assess the case study of C40’s Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide. Our review of this guide as the first step in the case-study investigation provides critical insights of experiments driven by city networks.

Experimentation in the context of sustainability transitions and city networks

The concept of experimentation is one of the central concepts examined in the literature on sustainability transitions, which ‘investigates transformations towards sustainable socio-technical systems’ (Sengers et al. 2019 , p. 153). Based on the existing body of sustainability transitions literature, the following sub-section 2.1 discusses the background of urban experimentation regarding its varieties, potential outputs and looking ‘beyond experimentation’. Next, sub-section 2.2 reviews the literature on experimentation and city networks. This section concludes by outlining an analytical framework that helps to understand experimentation within city networks for sustainability transitions.

Experimentation in sustainability transitions

Varieties of experimentation.

Previous research has revealed that experimentation can provide new discourses and knowledge, and increase momentum for wider alternatives for policy, technology and institutions (Laakso et al. 2017 ; Berkhout et al. 2010 ; Brown and Vergragt 2008 ). Thus, experimentation can accelerate transformative change within sociotechnical systems through organised processes such as networking and forging alliances, as well as through progressing shared visions and various forms of learning, innovation and collaboration (Berkhout et al. 2010 ; Nevens et al. 2013 ). Within the sustainability transitions literature, experimentation is considered to exist in different forms, including niche experiments (Smith and Raven 2012 ; Hoogma et al. 2002 ; Weber et al. 1999 ); bounded sociotechnical experiments (Vergragt and Brown 2007 ; Brown et al. 2003 ); transition experiments (Bosch and Rotmans 2008 ; Bosch 2010 ); grassroots experiments (Seyfang and Smith 2007 ; Hopkins 2008 ); and sustainability experiments (Berkhout et al. 2009 ; Wieczorek et al. 2015 ). Each type of experimentation departs from a different theoretical foundation, definition, normative orientation, and analytical emphasis, and considers different key actors (see Sengers et al. 2019 ) adding to considerable interpretative variety. A recent review by Ansell and Bartenberger ( 2016 ) across a range of disciplines arrives at a pragmatic typology of experimentalism.

Given that the ‘type of experiment deployed depends on the particular purpose, which in turn often depends on what is problematic and on pre-analytic values and visions’ (Ansell and Bartenberger 2016 , p. 65), it is critical to understand the key values, attitudes and purposes of experimentation, and these three factors can be summarised as the ‘logics of experimentation’: controlled experimentation, Darwinian experimentation and generative experimentation. Controlled experimentation endeavours to understand causality, and thus focuses on carefully controlling different factors that may affect experimental outcomes. Darwinian experimentation aims to enhance systemic innovation through increasing variation. Generative experimentation seeks to create new solution concepts by iteratively and adaptively refining these concepts. These three experimental logics have different uses within different contexts based on their specific characteristics. Given that environmental problem solving frequently has multiple objectives, it is possible to combine these three experimental logics to enrich the strategy of experimentation. In addition, it is critical to understand that these three experimental logics ‘imply the intention to learn from some intervention’ (Ansell and Bartenberger 2016 , p. 70). In this sense, learning processes within experimentation can be either epistemic or political or a combination of these two learning types. Ansell and Bartenberger ( 2016 , p. 70) explain epistemic and political learning as follows: epistemic learning is ‘learning that expands or refines our scientific knowledge of the world—both of the natural world and the social world’, and ‘political learning is learning that leads stakeholders to alter their preferences, goals, frames, and commitments’. Table  1 outlines the key attributes of the three logics of experimentation following Ansell and Bartenberger ( 2016 ):

Further, it is apparent that there is a strong link between Darwinian and generative logics of experimentation and evolutionary processes of change (Sotarauta and Srinivas 2006 ). That is, Darwinian experimentation is closely linked with the processes of variation and selection. Ansell and Bartenberger ( 2016 , p. 67) note that the principal value of Darwinian experimentation derives from the idea that ‘successful new traits and adaptation to new environments may arise from many trials’. Accordingly, via the production of variation through different trials and the examination which of these trials are successful based on certain specific criteria (which relate to the selection process), there will be more chances to produce new and innovative ideas and efficiently filter out trials that are unsuccessful (Ansell and Bartenberger 2016 ). Additionally, generative experimentation is linked to the processes of selection and retention. That is, generative experimentation selects to design and re-design only one experiment at a time through accumulated experience and knowledge until that experiment works successfully (Stoker and John 2009 ). Therefore, it is recognised that generative experimentation ‘envisions a continuous iterative process of refinement’ to retain the best practice and achieve the most successful outcome (Ansell and Bartenberger 2016 , p. 70).

Outputs of experimentation

Experimentation can contribute in critical approaches to governance, either through discovering interventions for resolving problems and progressing new practices or through discovering ways for learning about the effects of (small-scale) interventions for developing (larger-scale) interventions (Kivimaa et al. 2017 ). To better understand the contribution of experimentation to governance, it is essential to investigate the potential outputs of experimentation. Outputs are generated directly from experiments, and these outputs can come in the form of the introduction of a new service or technology (Brown and Vergragt 2008 ) or in the form of new knowledge about how things work in the real world (Kivimaa et al. 2017 , p. 18).

Based on a systematic review of the literature on experiments in climate governance, Kivimaa et al. ( 2017 ) recently identified six types of potential outputs from experimentation related to climate governance. First, they identified changed discourse, which refers to new visions or the integration of formerly isolated perspectives. Second, they identified new technology, such as solar water heating or biogas and ceiling insulation. Third, they identified change to the built environment or infrastructure, which refers to change in land-use planning or new low-carbon infrastructure. Fourth, they identify policy and institutional change, which refers to the implementation of new planning practices for improving energy-efficient and eco-efficient construction and the existence of new actors in policymaking at different levels of governance, including the local, municipal and regional. Fifth, they identified new business practices that encourage the development of renewable energy or transport. Sixth, they identified new customer/citizen practices, that enhance citizen engagement and the emergence of alternative communities (Kivimaa et al. 2017 , p. 22). Given these potential outputs, Kivimaa et al. ( 2017 ) argue that experiments in climate governance could enable system transitions, including changes related to governance, politics and policy.

Beyond experimentation

Despite the burgeoning literature on experimentation and urban sustainability transitions, ‘little is known [about] how the direct outputs of experiments can be reproduced and embedded to achieve significant impact’ (Turnheim et al. 2018 , p. 5). Recent scholarship also suggests that if ‘experimenting is a new means of conceiving of and doing climate governance, then we also expect it to have outcomes beyond the moment of experimentation’ (Turnheim et al. 2018 , p. 216). Thus, research is required to ‘better engage with and understand processes of post-experimentation as existing notions of ‘scaling experiments and innovation’ are too unidirectional and poorly aligned with the network ontology of contemporary urbanism’ (Davidson et al. 2019 , p. 12).

Turnheim et al. ( 2018 ) argue that to investigate the ‘beyond’ of experimentation, which refers to the potential influence and embeddedness of experimentation, there are three key dimensions to consider: the temporal dimension, the spatial dimension and the evaluative dimension. In relation to the temporal dimension, city experiments should have a long-term life and create deep alterations or broader implications; for example, the creation of new hypotheses, learning or concepts; the progression of new development paths; the formation of new networks and alliances (Turnheim et al. 2018 ). Regarding the spatial dimension, there is a need to sustain experiments and their outputs across various spaces and scales. This means that the expectations and nature of experiments should be generic, their outputs should be mobile and transferrable to ensure they will contribute to the creation of transformative change (Turnheim et al. 2018 ). For the evaluative dimension, it is critical to assess an experiment’s value proposition and metrics (e.g. in relation to its relevance, effectiveness or efficiency) and whether the experiment can be scaled up or whether its outputs can be transformed to outcomes that will contribute to long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation (Turnheim et al. 2018 ).

The debate on ‘beyond experimentation’ has also drawn attention to the relationship between experimentation and institutional change. As sustainability transitions are generally considered to refer to the processes of institutional change (Geels 2004 ; Fuenfschilling and Binz 2018 ), many transition researchers (e.g., Kemp et al. 1998 ; Hoogma et al. 2002 ; Seyfang and Smith 2007 ; Smith and Raven 2012 ) claim that experimentation is a means of inducing change that can potentially lead to a system’s fundamental transformation. Previous research highlights that ‘experimentation and institutions are closely interlinked’ (Fuenfschilling et al. 2019 , p. 225). That is, institutional settings determine the form and degree of experimentation, which in turn influence the potential space for change and innovation. For example, Raven et al. ( 2019 ) evaluate smart-city initiatives of three cities, one in Germany, one in the Netherlands and one in China to understand how the respective cognitive, normative and regulative institutional arrangements influence these experiments. Their results indicate that the institutional context of each city is unique, and hence generates discrepant versions of smart-city developments. Notably, these researchers also highlight that national policy programmes and governance approaches have a strong effect on smart-city initiative is designed at the city level.

Conversely, experimentation also affect institutions. As suggested by Fuenfschilling et al. ( 2019 ), experimentation can serve as a pathway for establishing the pertinent institutional environment for new actors, new narratives and new practices. Experimentation can ‘shift informal institutions into the direction of risk-rich spaces for trialling new solutions and altering practice and design elements of dominant solutions’ (Fuenfschilling et al. 2019 , p. 225), and thus can contribute significantly to facilitating change and innovation. An interesting example is found in Parks ( 2019 ), who analyses smart-city experiments in the field of building-energy utilisation in Malmo, Sweden. The study’s findings indicate that smart-city technologies have the potential to reshape urban governance, particularly through restructuring the relationship between different actors involved in these technologies, including developers, energy utilities and city authorities.

While previous studies have suggested that experimentation has the potential to become a mode of governance enabling urban sustainability transitions, Fuenfschilling et al. ( 2019 , p. 225) argue that it is critical to ‘position urban experimentalism and governance experimentation in a multi-level governance context’ that supports the monitoring, evaluation and translation of new learnings generated from local experiments beyond its jurisdictional contexts. Networked or supra-urban governance structures support the (de-)institutionalisation of experiments and act as a backbone that orchestrates and monitors local experimentation. Consequently, further research is needed to gain better understanding of the role of city networks such as the C40 and 100RC and whether they can fulfil a similar role as supra-national bodies such as the European Union in monitoring and institutionalising experimentation (Fuenfschilling et al. 2019 ).

Experimentation and city networks

Why experimentation has evolved in urban climate governance.

Also beyond the sustainability transitions field, existing literature on polycentric governance (Jordan et al. 2015 ) and urban climate governance (Bulkeley et al. 2014 ) has demonstrated the limited capacity of conventional national and transnational governance structures to resolve complex global problems such as climate change, even after important international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement acknowledging there are no given ready-made policy solutions for addressing climate change (Conklin 2006 ; Bulkeley and Betsill 2005 ; Partzsch 2017 ). Instead, ‘governing by experiment’ has emerged as a potential approach for tackling climate change threats (Bulkeley and Broto 2013 ). It advocates the idea that small-scale trials of policies, technologies or participatory techniques that are subject to real-world contextual conditions can generate useful information and innovative ways of policy learning (Heilmann 2008 ; Bruijne et al. 2010 ; Bos and Brown 2012 ; Sabel and Zeitlin 2012 ; Laakso et al. 2017 ). Simultaneously, it favours the scaling up of successful bottom-up ideas, initiatives and actions (Ceschin 2014 ; Laakso et al. 2017 ). Notably, it highlights the increasing importance of citizen participation and processes of democratic engagement and involvement, and the considerable contribution of social media and new digital tools to enabling prompt bottom-up change (Laakso et al. 2017 ).

Networked city experimentation

Specifically, Hoffmann ( 2011 ) has proposed to conceive networked urban climate action as a form of governance experimentation. Similarly, Smeds and Acuto ( 2018 , p. 551) argue that city networks are crucial to urban climate action because these networks ‘have facilitated experimentation and raised the level of ambition among cities learning from and competing with each other with regard to the deployment of low-carbon technologies and policies’. In the context of urban climate governance, sociotechnical experiments and governance experiments are identified as two major conceptual strands of experimentation (Smeds and Acuto 2018 ). While the strand of sociotechnical experiments aims to test new material interventions within urban sociotechnical systems, the strand of governance experiments focuses on developing new approaches for governing these systems (Bulkeley and Broto 2013 ; Sengers et al. 2019 ; Bos and Brown 2012 ). For example, in the transport sector, a sociotechnical experiment can be highly practical (e.g., a bike-sharing scheme), and a governance experiment can potentially empower a city’s mayor to initiate new modes of transport.

Moreover, a city network provides a critical context for facilitating and scaling up pilot climate experiments into city-wide schemes (Kronsell and Mukhtar-Landgren 2018 ; Heijden 2016 ). Broto and Bulkeley ( 2013 ) surveyed 100 cities worldwide, finding that city network membership is a more significant determinant of the number of climate experiments being conducted in a city than are other attributes such as gross domestic product per capita or population. Despite this interesting finding, research on the role of city networks in urban experimentation is relatively absent in the contemporary literature.

Given that city networks place great emphasis on the significance of transnational alliances and strategic implementation, municipalities have engaged in new entrepreneurial and public–private partnerships with non-municipal actors, including the World Bank, the UN and the EU (Haselmayer 2018 ; Acuto 2016 ). While city networks grow stably in relation to number and variety, Acuto and Rayner ( 2016 ) and Smeds and Acuto ( 2018 ) report that the diversity of networked actors involved in experimentation extends well outside city chambers.

The practice of orchestration in city networks

To understand the nature and geographies of networked urban governance and global city networks, increased research attention has been directed towards investigating orchestration. This refers to an ungoverned set of relationships working around a common goal (Gordon and Johnson 2017 ). That is, as suggested by Abbott et al. ( 2015 ), orchestration is a form of indirect governance defined by the weakened relationship between governor and governed—the orchestrator works via an intermediary for governing a target audience. This is a mode of indirect governance that is well tailored to the field of global urban climate governance because it ‘helps to capture the different frequencies of power that operate as actors of various sorts seek to produce transnationally coordinated urban climate governance activities and efforts’ (Gordon and Johnson 2017 , p. 695; Bulkeley and Kern 2009 ; Allen 2010 ; Bulkeley 2012 ).

Gordon and Johnson ( 2017 ) identify three distinct modes of orchestration within the field of urban climate governance (specifically city networks): complementary, coordinating and emergent. Complementary orchestration advocates a politics of inclusion, representation and conformity that occurs within formal practices and rules of nation states in a multilateral regime. Coordinating orchestration refers to a politics of authority, contestation and legitimation occurring alongside or outside the multilateral regime. Emergent orchestration refers to subterranean politics of social expectation, structural domination and identity formation. Emergent orchestration illustrates itself within practices, norms and metrics which render cities comparable, observable and governable (Gordon and Johnson 2017 ). Table  2 presents Gordon and Johnson’s ( 2017 , p. 703) example of how the three modes of orchestration work in practice.

This typology provides a useful starting point to critically assessing the engagement of cities and different actors in global climate governance. In detail, different kinds of orchestration that rely on different logics of acquiescence will be oriented towards different audiences, and will thus deliver different types of governance outcomes. Accordingly, orchestration is situated ‘at the intersection of experimentation and systemic effects’ (Gordon and Johnson 2017 , p. 707), and potential platforms identified with different orchestrators, intermediaries and targets can facilitate the upscale of urban experiments. However, it is crucial to further progress the research around orchestration to identify whether different orchestrators and intermediaries can create new means of power and political control (Gordon and Johnson 2017 ).

Understanding experimentation within city networks for sustainability transitions

Our analytical model, which synthesises the above perspectives, is structured with three key steps as illustrated in Fig.  1 .

An analytical model for understanding experimentation within city networks

The following section explains the application of the three steps of the proposed model.

Step 1: city experiments

Step 1 investigates the logics of the experimentation employed in city networks through controlled experimentation, Darwinian experimentation and generative experimentation, and then identifies their links to different processes of the evolution of experimentation, which are variation, selection and retention (Sotarauta and Srinivas 2006 ).

Step 2: how city networks relate to experiments?

Step 2 focuses on investigating whether city networks facilitate the process of selection and retention of experimentation via potential platforms identified through the conceptual lens of orchestration as presented in sub-section 3.3.

Step 3: leveraging of a local action into a global network

Step 3 elicits an understanding of potential outputs from experimentation in city networks. These outputs are changed discourse, new technology, built-environment change, policy and institutional change, new business practices, and new consumer/citizen practices (Kivimaa et al. 2017 ).

Methodology

With the aim of illustrating the nature of experiments driven by city networks, this study adopts a qualitative research methodology that employs the case-study approach. As noted by Baxter and Jack ( 2008 , p. 544), a case-study approach ‘facilitates exploration of a phenomenon within its context using a variety of data sources’. This methodology ensures that the researched subject is investigated through various lenses, thus providing a holistic approach to understanding different aspects of the case (Punch 2013 ; Bryman 2012 ).

In consideration of multiple forms of a case-study approach, a critical case study is selected for application in this paper. Given that a critical case study is designed to understand the strategic importance related to a general issue or problem (Yin 2014 ), this method is appropriate for exploring the experience of cities participating in city networks in relation to the design and implementation of urban experimentation. This research selected the case study of the Climate Positive Development Program of the C40 network because this network is considered one of the most significant global city climate networks worldwide (Davidson and Gleeson 2015 ).

The C40 was established in 2005 with the initial membership of 18 cities, and this network grew to 96 affiliated cities in 2019. Before the establishment of the C40, although cities had the ability to address climate change threats, their capacities were limited by poor knowledge exchange and coordination (Acuto 2013 , p. 840). With the formation of the C40, Acuto ( 2013 ) indicated that this network articulates climate change as an urban-driven question for the first time. The C40 ‘moved beyond traditional international relations and developed ‘network diplomacy’ to provide cities with the capacity to participate in global governance discourse (Heine 2008 ; Davidson and Gleeson 2015 , p. 235). The network contributes significantly to facilitating ‘the exchange of governance-related knowledge and resources among members to solve governance-related problems’, and thus allow city members to learn, collaborate and socialise (Leffel and Acuto 2018 , p. 2; see also Lee 2013 ). The C40 is also considered as central to the design and implementation of different climate experiments in cities around the world (Smeds and Acuto 2018 ).

To complement and deepen the efficiency of the network, the C40 has designed a range of programmes to ensure that cities can access to diverse range of support services to more effectively deliver city climate action. Currently, the C40 has 16 programmes with different experiments, ranging from ‘localized direct support, to improved access to data, to broad-based partnered efforts around finance, city diplomacy, and inclusive climate action’ (C40 2020 , p. 1). The Climate Positive Development Program, which is an initiative launched by C40 cities in partnership with the US Green Building Council and the Clinton Climate Initiative in 2009 supports the development of low-carbon projects for addressing the operational (versus embodied) carbon emissions associated with transportation, energy and waste (C40 2016 ). Currently, the program has 18 projects, 13 of which are operating in C40 cities. Together, these projects are expected to reduce the emissions impact for approximately one million residents (C40 2013 ). Moreover, the 18 projects on six continents, ‘supported by local governments and property developers, will demonstrate Climate Positive strategies, setting a compelling environmental and economic example for cities to follow’ (US Green Building Council 2020 , p. 1). With this scope and ambition, the Climate Positive Development Program (and its associated experiments) is considered as ‘a groundbreaking global’ initiative of the C40, and thus is worth investigating for the purpose of this research (C40 2013 , p. 1).

To investigate the nature of experiments under the Climate Positive Development Program and the role of C40 to these experiments, this study conducts a document analysis in which empirical data are obtained from C40 documents that are publicly accessible for research purposes. Given that this research is illustrative, and aims to apply the developed analytical model, documentary data derived from C40’s publications is deemed as the most relevant, valuable and stable sources of evidence to address the study’s purposes.

This research focuses on reviewing the Good Practice Guide that reports the progress of the Climate Positive Development Program. In detail, the C40 has published a series of Good Practice Guides that outline the critical benefits of a specific climate action, and successful approaches and strategies for cities to implement or efficiently scale up that action (C40 2016 ). These Good Practice Guides are developed on the basis of experience of C40 cities, and are considered valid and important sources of knowledge not only for C40 members but also for other cities around the world (C40 2016 ). With the release of the Good Practice Guides, the C40 has identified 100 practical and successful climate solutions implemented within member cities worldwide of different geography, size and stage of development (C40 2019 ). In the C40’s guides, a ‘good practice’ is considered an effective climate action ‘leading to better economic, social, and environmental outcomes for cities’ (C40 2016 , p. 9).

The Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide has selected and showcased the success stories of four most ambitious low-carbon projects under the program, which include the projects of Royal Seaport (Stockholm), Elephant & Castle (London), Barangaroo South (Sydney), Mahindra World City (Jaipur) (C40 2016 ) . These four projects were selected by the C40 as good practices as they met the following criteria: set ambitious goals and utilise holistic planning; create policy and regulatory frameworks to stimulate Climate Positive development in regeneration projects; utilise procurement powers to promote Climate Positive transformation of industrial areas; create sector plans to guide Climate Positive development of mixed-use areas; and maximise the potential of Climate Positive private-public partnerships (C40 2016 ).

Thus, reviewing these selected cases is likely to generate understandings of how these climate experiments are contributing to emissions reduction and climate change mitigation, as well as how potential outputs of experiments driven by city networks might look like in reality. Further, in the Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide, the information about the four best model projects is structured under the following four key subheadings: ‘Summary’, ‘Results’, ‘Reasons for success’ and ‘When/why might a city adopt an approach like this’.

Given that the data are collected via desk research, document analysis is adopted as the principal technique for analysing data in this study (Bowen 2009 ). This method is generally considered as a highly applicable approach for qualitative case study research (Bowen 2009 ). In detail, document analysis involves the iterative process of ‘skimming (superficial examination), reading (thorough examination), and interpretation’ of relevant documents (Bowen 2009 , p. 32), from that the researcher can ‘uncover meaning, develop understanding, and discover insights relevant to the research problem’ (Merriam 2009 , p. 118).

As our proposed analytical model comprises three key steps as ‘Step 1: City experiment’, ‘Step 2: How city networks relate to experiments?’, ‘Step 3: Leveraging of a local action into a global network’, we searched for exact key words or close synonyms that represent key components of each step, as illustrated in the following Table  3 .

Subsequently, we performed a careful read of four projects’ descriptions, their good practice approaches, the Climate Development Program background discussion and other sections that have content aligned with or demonstrated obvious grasp of the definition of key components of each step proposed within our analytical model. Finally, we have synthesised all findings drawn from the process of content analysis to identify similarities and differences between four projects presented in the Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide and address the proposed research questions. Our case study analysis is exploratory as it aims to illustrate the developed analytical model and to reveal early insights into the nature of experiments driven by city networks. The approach is based on document analyses, which necessarily has limitations regarding the scope and depth of the case study. Due to practical constraints and limited resources we were not in a position to carry out in-depth investigations into the four case cities distributed across four countries. Therefore, future research would benefit from on-site observations and interviews with key stakeholders – in public, private and civic sectors - to incorporate contextual and tacit insights on the reviewed experiments.

Review of Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide against proposed model for understanding experimentation in city networks

Royal seaport (stockholm, sweden).

This project, which began in 2010, aims to transform the old industrial port area of Stockholm into a modern city environment for businesses and residents. The project demonstrates the commitment of Stockholm to sustainability, with a target to become fossil-fuel free by 2030, and is expected to accommodate 35,000 workplaces and 12,000 apartments with recreational spaces by completion.

The local governance context of Stockholm is characterised by three tiers of government: the Stockholm County Council (the regional government), the City Council (which governs the municipality City of Stockholm) and 14 district councils. While the regional government (the Stockholm County Council) oversees common-interest matters such as healthcare, public transport and regional development, the City Council is responsible for decision making, and the provision of various municipal services (including schools, housing or leisure activities) in the City of Stockholm, and the 14 district councils govern their own respective geographic areas and deal with local regulation matters. Notably, a decentralised decision-making model is employed in Stockholm to ensure that the development of the city is aligned with the needs and desires of its residents. This means that Stockholm citizens can participate in, and contribute their opinions to, the decision-making process in relation to new policies or new infrastructure and services (City of Stockholm 2014 ).

Elephant & Castle (London, United Kingdom)

The regeneration of the Elephant & Castle site in London began in 2007, and took a significant step forward in 2013 when the Elephant Park Masterplan, which was prepared by Lendlease, received outline-planning permission. The project has attained the second stage of recognition within its progress to become climate positive with a reduction of approximately 10,000 tCO2e annually.

In the unitary country of the United Kingdom, the city governance of London is composed of two tiers: The Greater London Authority (the city-wide metropolitan government) and 33 local authorities. While the Greater London Authority is responsible for governing London and providing strategic plans and policies, 33 smaller authorities play a critical role in delivering local services, including local roads, planning regulation and social services (Nguyen et al. 2018 ).

Barangaroo south (Sydney, Australia)

With the aim of transforming the western edge of Sydney’s central business district into a modern financial-services hub, the Barangaroo South project will accommodate more than 500,000 m 2 of residential and commercial space. This development endeavours to implement energy-efficient design through the utilisation of renewable and low-carbon energy and precinct-wide infrastructure for water, cooling, power and waste management to deliver greater economies and efficiencies of scale. To date, 99% of construction waste of this development is being recycled and the Green Building Council of Australia has awarded all three commercial office towers in Barangaroo South with a 6 Star Green Star Office Design rating.

In the federation model of government of Australia, there are two tiers of governance in Sydney: the Government of New South Wales (the state government) and the City of Sydney (the local council). While the state government is responsible for metropolitan planning, public housing and services such as transport and healthcare, the local government is in charge of local policies and planning regulations, as well as local services, including road maintenance and drainage (City of Sydney 2017 ).

Mahindra World City (Jaipur, India)

This project, which is a public–private partnership between the Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation and the Mahindra Group, aims to deliver a modern business city that will be a workplace and home to more than 300,000 people. The project is expected to have a net impact of cutting more than 60,000 tCO2e annually. Additionally, the plans for the Mahindra World City endeavour to implement energy-efficiency strategies via the utilisation of renewable energy (e.g., solar) and sustainable transport strategies with the promotion of public and non-motorised modes of transport.

India is a federal republic, and the governance of Jaipur is composed of two tier: the State Government of Rajasthan (the state government) and the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (the municipal government). While the state government oversees key matters for the Indian state of Rajasthan (including Jaipur) such as healthcare, lands and taxation, the Jaipur Municipal Corporation is responsible for implementing administrative duties and maintaining the civic infrastructure of Jaipur. Additionally, under the Jaipur Municipal Corporation, the Jaipur Development Authority is established as a fundamental government agency that manages the planning and development of Jaipur (Jaipur Municipal Corporation 2008 ).

Analysis of four best model projects in relation to experimentation

In relation to experimentation logics, neither of the four selected experiments implement controlled experimentation logics because these projects are not set-up to investigate causality and are not implemented in tightly controlled environments .

Notably, under the Climate Positive Development Program, there are 18 projects simultaneously implemented across six continents to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of innovative initiatives (e.g., constructing highly efficient buildings, promoting renewable energy and the use of waste as a resource, and providing low-carbon mass transit solutions and more green spaces). In this sense, the implementation of collective, distributed yet parallel experimentation of those 18 projects under the Climate Positive Development Program in different countries demonstrates the emphasis on variation of climate experiments within the programme. From these 18 projects, via the Good Practice Guides, the C40 network generates a portfolio for its member cities of fit-for-purpose best practices using the four model projects discussed above. The variation of climate experiment projects and the selection of best practices substantiate the employment of a Darwinian experimentation logics in the Climate Positive Development Program.

In addition, it is acknowledged that all four best practice projects (Royal Seaport, Elephant & Castle, Bangaroo South and Mahindra World City) are single design experiments aiming to elaborate new and innovative solutions to existing problems with a goal of success . For example, with the aim of successfully achieving energy efficiency, the solution for Elephant & Castle is particularly innovative because it will construct a highly efficient on-site combined heat and power system to connect all buildings to heat networks, and the project will also use ‘grid-injected biomethane as carbon offset’ (C40 2016 , p. 12). In addition, with the similar goal as the Elephant & Castle, in the Barangaroo South project, ‘innovative green leases are being utilised with commercial tenants to encourage and reward more sustainable operation of their buildings’ (C40 2016 , p. 13). The logic of experimentation applied by these four selected best practices is best described as generative experimentation. Thus, the C40 network is implementing a combination of Darwinian and generative experimentation through its city members under the Climate Positive Development Program.

Moreover, in consideration of different evolution processes of urban experimentation, through the implementation of the 18 projects discussed above, it is clear that experiments in the Climate Positive Development Program have already passed the variation stage. The development of these projects is guided by the Climate Positive Framework in which development partners earn climate positive credits when reducing emissions within the local community or capturing carbon on-site through the following four different stages of recognition: (1) Stage 1—Candidate: Project application accepted; (2) Stage 2—Participant: Detailed plans approved; (3) Stage 3—Progress site: Development following roadmap; (4) Stage 4—Climate positive: Project completion (C40 2016 ). All these 18 projects are fully supported through four stages by the C40 network. In addition, among these 18 projects, the C40 conducted a survey of best practices that produce better social, economic and environmental outcomes for cities, and in the Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide , identified four key components for successfully delivering the programme, and the following four best model projects that can become scalable and replicable models (on the basis of a performance-based framework) for other cities around the world (C40 2016 , p. 3):

set ambitious goals and implement holistic planning (this point will be illustrated through the example of Royal Seaport, Stockholm)

create policy and regulatory frameworks to stimulate climate positive development in regeneration projects (this point will be illustrated through the example of Elephant & Castle, London)

employ procurement powers to promote climate positive transformation of industrial areas (this point will be illustrated through the example of Barangaroo South, Sydney)

maximise the potential of climate positive public–private partnerships (this point will be illustrated through the example of Mahindra World City, Jaipur).

Therefore, with the influence of a combination of Darwinian and generative logics of experimentation, in the three different processes of evolution of urban experimentation [variation, selection and retention], it is clear that the experiments of Climate Positive Development Program are currently in the second stage (i.e., selection). Further, in each case study, the Good Practice Guides presents a section on ‘why/when might a city adopt an approach like this’, which provides useful information for transition to the implementation of these experiments, from the selection of best practices to the retention (and application) of these projects in other cities within the network (C40 2016 ).

In relation to orchestration, under the Climate Positive Development Program, participating cities (with their associated projects) have come to converge around the common goals of becoming climate positive and delivering low-carbon developments. Such convergence has been generated in the C40 via the process of political contestation among different actors, that is, cities such as London, Stockholm, Jaipur; philanthropic organisations including Bloomberg Philanthropies; or nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) such as the US Green Building Council and the Clinton Foundation, which have attempted to orchestrate cities towards specific climate positive actions and joint objectives (Gordon 2013 ; Gordon and Johnson 2017 ; Gordon and Acuto 2015 ). With reference to Gordon and Johnson ( 2017 ), it can be considered that for all four best model projects situated in four of the C40 cities, the orchestration mode is ‘coordinating’, by which the C40 network is intermediary and the Bloomberg Philanthropies and individual cities are considered orchestrators.

In the Climate Positive Development Program, the support of US Green Building Council and the Clinton Foundation is critical to the implementation and leverage of the climate experiment projects of the C40 city members. The C40 facilitates access to the support of such organisations and also provides the fundamental institutional context for supporting the delivery of climate positive experiments and projects within the network. It is also important to note that as an intermediary, the C40 network plays an important role in the processes of selecting (and potentially retaining) best practices for participating cities in the Climate Positive Development Program through production and dissemination of the Good Practice Guides. However, there is no publicly available information showing whether the four best model projects have been leveraged elsewhere within (or outside) the network.

Further, within each best practice of the Climate Positive Development Program, a variety of actors from different domains and organisations are actively engaged, including government, NGOs, private actors, partners and citizens. For example, in the case of the Royal Seaport, the City of Stockholm, citizens and developers have been involved in the project’s implementation from beginning. Additionally, the project of Mahindra World City is a public–private partnership between the Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation and the Mahindra Group (along with the support of State Government of Rajasthan as a partner) (C40 2016 ). Likewise, the local governments have collaborated with developers during the design and implementation of the Elephant & Castle and Barangaroo South projects (C40 2016 ). The involvement of different actors in these projects demonstrates the complex contingencies occurring around urban experimentations in city networks.

In relation to the outputs of experimentation, while the four selected projects are not completed, there are several expected outputs listed in the Good Practice Guides. For example, the Royal Seaport project seeks to transform an old industrial port into a new modern city with 12,000 apartments, 35,000 workplaces and spaces for recreation to deliver a vibrant and dynamic living and workspace for both residents and businesses (C40 2016 ). The project will potentially create significant changes in the built environment and infrastructure surrounding the project’s area. In addition, the project encourages a high degree of citizen participation and engagement, and the Royal Seaport is ‘already an important part of city life’ that demonstrates Stockholm’s commitment to sustainability (C40 2016 , p. 10). Thus, the outputs from experimentation in the Royal Seaport project are identified as built-environment change and new citizen practices.

For the Elephant & Castle, its Masterplan’s Energy Reduction Strategy for this project provides new planning practices that include the most sustainable solutions to accommodate future developments, for example: (1)‘doubling density with zero growth in emissions’; (2)‘ensuring efficient building design and technology to improve insulation and air circulation—leading to significant energy savings for residents’; (3)‘building all homes with 100% controlled, responsibly-sourced FSC [Forest Stewardship Council] timber’ or (4)‘implementing an extensive biodiversity strategy, which will seek to restore nature on-site and help improve air quality’ (C40 2016 , p. 12). Additionally, the project also constructs ‘a highly efficient on-site Combined Heat and Power system’ to connect buildings to heat networks, which contributes to delivering infrastructural change in the area (C40 2016 , p. 12). Therefore, outputs from experimentation in Elephant & Castle project are dedicated to policy change and infrastructural change.

The Barangaroo South project constructs ‘precinct-wide infrastructure for power, cooling, water and waste management’ to provide ‘greater efficiencies and economies of scale’ (C40 2016 , p. 13). Thus, the output of experimentation is identified as infrastructural change. The Mahindra World City project encourages the utilisation of renewable energy and requires ‘at least 50% of rooftops dedicated to solar’ (C40 2016 , p. 14), which contributes to promoting the application of new energy technology. Moreover, this project promotes new planning practices to achieve sustainable transport—demonstrating the application of the ‘Avoid, Shift and Improve’ approach, which refers to the improvement of the transport system’s efficiency through trip efficiency as well as vehicle and fuel efficiency—and the promotion of public and non-motorised modes of transport to reduce ‘the overall CO 2 impact from transport on-site’ (C40 2016 , p. 14). Consequently, outputs from experimentation in the Mahindra World City project are dedicated to new technology and policy change.

Discussion and conclusion

Urban climate governance has emerged in response to the significant and alarming phenomenon of global climate change. This new form of governance encourages urban experimentation, and this is increasingly international as cities become more connected to different peers and international actors, including city networks. Scholars observe that global city networks such as the C40 are effective platforms for transforming and scaling up pilot experiments into city-wide schemes (Kronsell and Mukhtar-Landgren 2018 ). While these networks are gaining influence, little research is engaged with more fundamental questions of how city networks condition and leverage urban experimentation - beyond the aspect of facilitating mutual learning and collaboration between cities (i.e. Lee and van de Meene 2012 ; Lee 2019 ). Our paper has contributed to investigate urban experimentation within city networks, and how these networks are in turn conditioning and leveraging urban experiments. A review of the Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide of the C40 network has provided preliminary yet interesting insights in this regard. We have identified similarities and differences of four selected good practices and summarised these findings in Table 4 .

On a more general level, the review of the Climate Positive Development Good Practice Guide yielded the following answers and insights vis-à-vis the stated research questions. First, the review has provided a more specific understanding of the nature of experiments in the C40 network. That is, we have demonstrated that the C40 network is infusing a combination of Darwinian and generative experimentation logics into its city members, which encourages variation in local climate actions and the generation of new and innovative climate solutions. In addition, we have found that the implementation of the four best model projects has passed the stage of ‘variation’, is currently in the ‘selection’ stage, and is moving towards the ‘retention’ phase in the foreseeable future.

Second, our empirical work has also elucidated the role of city networks in conditioning urban experiments. That is, under the mode of ‘coordinating’ orchestration, in the Climate Positive Development Program, the C40 network as an intermediary has connected participating cities (such as London, Stockholm or Jaipur) and different actors (e.g., philanthropic organisations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies and NGOs such as the US Green Building Council and the Clinton Foundation) to work together to achieve the common goals of becoming climate positive and delivering low-carbon developments. In the Climate Positive Development Program, the support of the US Green Building Council (in relation to technical knowledge) and the Clinton Foundation (in relation to financial and business expertise) is considered critical to the implementation and leverage of climate experiment projects in the C40 city members.

Third, we have acknowledged that the C40 network also provides fundamental support for the delivery of climate experiments such as the production of the Climate Positive Framework, which provides guidelines for development partners to achieve climate positive credits, including those within the process of planning or design, and have a positive influence on the surrounding community (C40 2016 ).

Fourth, it is apparent that via the publication of the Good Practice Guides, the C40 plays a critical role in selecting best practices, and then providing useful information (including a project summary, results, reasons for success, and particularly information on why and when a city might adopt an approach like this) to cities worldwide in relation to applying, transforming and scaling up these projects. However, there is no publicly available material showing whether these experiments have been leveraged elsewhere within (or outside) the network, and thus, further interviews with key policy makers or professional experts in the field are required to obtain more information about potential leverage.

Fifth, although the four selected projects are not completed, we have identified potential experimentation outputs listed in the Good Practice Guides as built-environment change, new citizen practices, policy change, infrastructural change and new technology. Our review was limited to only one report, and thus we consider that there is a need for further studies that empirically evaluate these projects to better elucidate the outputs of experiments, not only during the projects’ implementation but also after the projects’ completion.

In conclusion, we provide two key recommendations for further research that we think will expand our initial investigation on urban experimentation in city networks. First, as our review on the Climate Positive Development Program has focused on a very small sub-segment of climate programmes in the C40, and was limited to document analysis using secondary materials, we recommend to conduct wider studies that will ideally conduct interviews with key architects of climate experiments and projects to gain insights and information that are not publicly available.

Second, there is potential to further refine the model formulated in this research. Future study can consider new debates around post-experimentation and different sets of relevant literature, emerging around themes like urban living labs (Marvin et al. 2018 ) and the projectification of local governments (Fred 2015 ). Future research could concentrate on investigating the potential implications of experiments in city networks for traditional institutions and planning practice. That is, it is worth investigating whether urban experiments initiated via city networks can create new path dependencies illustrated through the design and implementation of better metropolitan policies to build greener, fairer and more resilient, prosperous cities. Further, the notion of how new learnings generated from experimentation in city networks are translated into conventional planning and urban management processes is relatively absent in the contemporary literature, and thus constitutes a critical gap need to be filled by future research. This might also involve the evaluation of more case studies from different experiments and projects in different networks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role of city networks in facilitating urban experiments.

Availability of data and materials

All data was publicly available through websites.

Abbreviations

C40 Climate Leadership Group

United Nations

International Federation of Red Cross

United Nations Environment Program

21st Conference of the Parties

Forest Stewardship Council

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Acknowledgements

A small part of the literature review in this paper is adapted from the original publication written by Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen and Kathryn Davidson as proceedings for the 9th State of Australian National Cities Conference, 30 November – 5 December 2019, Perth, Western Australia.

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Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen, Lars Coenen, Kathryn Davidson conceived and designed the project report; Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen wrote a significant proportion of the paper with Kathryn Davidson and Lars Coenen contributing by writing in sections of the paper. The authors' read and approved the final manuscript.

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Can coastal cities turn the tide on rising flood risk?

Climate change is increasing the destructive power of flooding from extreme rain and rising seas and rivers. Many cities around the world are exposed. Strong winds during storms and hurricanes can drive coastal flooding through storm surge. As hurricanes and storms become more severe, surge height increases. Changing hurricane paths may shift risk to new areas. Sea-level rise amplifies storm surge and brings in additional chronic threats of tidal flooding. Pluvial and riverine flooding becomes more severe with increases in heavy precipitation. Floods of different types can combine to create more severe events known as compound flooding. With warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius , 11 percent of the global land area is projected to experience a significant increase in flooding, while warming of 2.0 degrees almost doubles the area at risk.

When cities flood, in addition to often devastating human costs, real estate is destroyed, infrastructure systems fail, and entire populations can be left without critical services such as power, transportation, and communications. In this case study we simulate floods at the most granular level (up to two-by-two-meter resolution) and explore how flood risk may evolve for Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Bristol (See sidebar, “An overview of the case study analysis”). Our aim is to illustrate the changing extent of flooding, the landscape of human exposure, and the magnitude of societal and economic impacts.

An overview of the case study analysis

In Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts , we measured the impact of climate change by the extent to which it could affect human beings, human-made physical assets, and the natural world. We explored risks today and over the next three decades and examined specific cases to understand the mechanisms through which climate change leads to increased socioeconomic risk.

In order to link physical climate risk to socioeconomic impact, we investigated cases that illustrated exposure to climate change extremes and proximity to physical thresholds. These cover a range of sectors and geographies and provide the basis of a “micro-to-macro” approach that is a characteristic of McKinsey Global Institute research. To inform our selection of cases, we considered over 30 potential combinations of climate hazards, sectors, and geographies based on a review of the literature and expert interviews on the potential direct impacts of physical climate hazards. We found these hazards affect five different key socioeconomic systems: livability and workability, food systems, physical assets, infrastructure services, and natural capital.

We ultimately chose nine cases to reflect these systems and to represent leading-edge examples of climate change risk. Each case is specific to a geography and an exposed system, and thus is not representative of an “average” environment or level of risk across the world. Our cases show that the direct risk from climate hazards is determined by the severity of the hazard and its likelihood, the exposure of various “stocks” of capital (people, physical capital, and natural capital) to these hazards, and the resilience of these stocks to the hazards (for example, the ability of physical assets to withstand flooding). We typically define the climate state today as the average conditions between 1998 and 2017, in 2030 as the average between 2021 and 2040, and in 2050 between 2041 and 2060. Through our case studies, we also assess the knock-on effects that could occur, for example to downstream sectors or consumers. We primarily rely on past examples and empirical estimates for this assessment of knock-on effects, which is likely not exhaustive given the complexities associated with socioeconomic systems. Through this “micro” approach, we offer decision makers a methodology by which to assess direct physical climate risk, its characteristics, and its potential knock-on impacts.

Climate science makes extensive use of scenarios ranging from lower (Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6) to higher (RCP 8.5) CO 2 concentrations. We have chosen to focus on RCP 8.5, because the higher-emission scenario it portrays enables us to assess physical risk in the absence of further decarbonization. (We also choose a sea-level rise scenario for one of our cases that is consistent with the RCP 8.5 trajectory). Such an "inherent risk" assessment allows us to understand the magnitude of the challenge and highlight the case for action. For a detailed description of the reason for this choice see the technical appendix of the full report.

Our case studies cover each of the five systems we assess to be directly affected by physical climate risk, across geographies and sectors. While climate change will have an economic impact across many sectors, our cases highlight the impact on construction, agriculture, finance, fishing, tourism, manufacturing, real estate, and a range of infrastructure-based sectors. The cases include the following:

• For livability and workability, we look at the risk of exposure to extreme heat and humidity in India and what that could mean for that country’s urban population and outdoor-based sectors, as well as at the changing Mediterranean climate and how that could affect sectors such as wine and tourism.
• For food systems, we focus on the likelihood of a multiple-breadbasket failure affecting wheat, corn, rice, and soy, as well as, specifically in Africa, the impact on wheat and coffee production in Ethiopia and cotton and corn production in Mozambique.
• For physical assets, we look at the potential impact of storm surge and tidal flooding on Florida real estate and the extent to which global supply chains, including for semiconductors and rare earths, could be vulnerable to the changing climate.
• For infrastructure services, we examine 17 types of infrastructure assets, including the potential impact on coastal cities such as Bristol in England and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
• Finally, for natural capital, we examine the potential impacts of glacial melt and runoff in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalayas; what ocean warming and acidification could mean for global fishing and the people whose livelihoods depend on it; as well as potential disturbance to forests, which cover nearly one-third of the world’s land and are key to the way of life for 2.4 billion people.

We chose these cities for the contrasting perspectives they offer: Ho Chi Minh City in an emerging economy, Bristol in a mature economy; Ho Chi Minh City in a regular flood area, Bristol in an area developing a significant flood risk for the first time in a generation.

We find the metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City can survive its flood risk today, but its plans for rapid infrastructure  expansion and continued economic growth could be incompatible with an increase in risk. The city has a wide range of adaptation options at its disposal but no silver bullet.

In the much smaller city of Bristol, we find a risk of flood damages growing from the millions to the billions, driven by high levels of exposure. The city has fewer adaptation options at its disposal, and its biggest challenge may be building political and financial support for change.

How significant are the flood risks facing Ho Chi Minh City and what can the city do?

Flooding is a common part of life in Ho Chi Minh City. This includes flooding from monsoonal rains, which account for about 90 percent of annual rainfall, tidal floods and storm surge from typhoons and other weather events. Of the city’s 322 communes and wards, about half have a history of regular flooding with 40 to 45 percent of land in the city less than one meter above sea level.

In our analysis, we quantify the possible impact on the city as floods hit real estate and infrastructure assets. 1 Flood modeling and expert guidance were provided by an academic consortium of Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Center of Water Management and Climate Change, Vietnam National University. Infrastructure assets covered include both those currently available and those under construction, planned, or speculated. Knock-on effects are adjusted for estimates of economic and population growth. We simulate possible 1 percent probability flooding scenarios for the city for three periods: today, 2050, and a longer-term scenario of 180 centimeters of sea-level rise, which some infrastructure assets built by 2050 may experience as a worse-case in their lifetime (Exhibit 1).

• Today: We estimate that 23 percent of the city could flood, and a range of existing assets would be taken offline; infrastructure damage may total $200 million to $300 million. Knock-on effects would be significant, and we estimate could total a further $100 million to $400 million. Real estate damage may total $1.5 billion.
• 2050: A flood with the same probability in 30 years’ time would likely do three times the physical damage and deliver 20 times the knock-on effects. We estimate that 36 percent of the city becomes flooded. In addition, many of the 200 new infrastructure assets are planned to be built in flooded areas. As a result, the damage bill would grow, totaling $500 million to $1 billion. Increased economic reliance on assets would amplify knock-on effects, leading to an estimated $1.5 billion to $8.5 billion in losses. An additional $8.5 billion in real estate damages could occur.
• A 180 centimeters sea-level rise scenario: A 1 percent probability flood in this scenario may bring three times the extent of flood area. About 66 percent of the city would be underwater, driven by a large western area that suddenly pass an elevation threshold. Under this scenario, damage is critical and widespread, totaling an estimated $3.8 billion to $7.3 billion. Much of the city’s functionality may be shut down, with knock-on effects costing $6.4 billion to $45.1 billion. Real estate damage could total $18 billion.

While “tail” events may suddenly break systems and cause extraordinary impact, extreme floods will be infrequent. Intensifying chronic events are more likely to have a greater effect on the economy, with a mounting annual burden over time. We estimate that intensifying regular floods may rise from about 2 percent today to about 3 percent of Ho Chi Minh City’s GDP annually by 2050 (Exhibit 2).

Ho Chi Minh City has time to adapt, and the city has many options to avert impacts because it is relatively early in its development journey. As less than half of the city’s major infrastructure needed for 2050 exists today, many of the potential adaptation options could be highly effective. We outline three key steps:

• Better planning to reduce exposure and risk
• Investing in adaptation through hardening and resilience
• Financial mobilization to mitigate impacts on lower-income populations

For additional details on these actions, download the case study, Can coastal cities turn the tide on rising flood risk? (PDF–4MB).

Could Bristol’s flood risk grow from a problem to a crisis by 2065?

Bristol is facing a new flood risk. The river Avon, which runs through the city, has the second largest tidal range in the world, yet it has not caused a major flood since 1968, when sea levels were lower, and the city was smaller and less developed. During very high tides, the Avon becomes “tide locked” and limits/restricts land drainage in the lower reaches of river catchment area. As a result, the city is vulnerable to combined tidal and pluvial floods, which are sensitive to both sea-level rise and precipitation increase. Both are expected to climb with climate change . While Bristol is generally hilly and most of the urban area is far from the river, the most economically valuable areas of the city center and port regions are on comparatively low-lying land.

With the city’s support, we have modeled the socioeconomic impacts of 200-year (0.5 percent probability) combined tidal and fluvial flood risk, for today and for 2065. This considers the flood defenses in existence today; some of these were built after the 1968 flood, and many assumed a static climate would exist for their lifetime (Exhibit 3).

• Today: The consequences of a major flood today in Bristol would be small but are still material. We find that the flood area would be relatively minor, with small overflows on the edges of the port area and isolated floods in the center of the city. Our model estimates that damage to the city’s infrastructure could amount to $10 million to $25 million, real estate damage to $15 million to $20 million, and knock-on effects of $20 million to $150 million.
• 2065: In contrast, by 2065, an extreme flood event could be devastating. Water would exceed the city’s flood defenses at multiple locations, hitting some of its most expensive real estate, damaging arterial transportation infrastructure, and destroying sensitive critical energy assets. Our model estimates that damages to the city’s infrastructure could amount to between $180 million and $390 million. It may also cause $160 million to $240 million of property damage. Overall, considering economic growth, knock-on effects could total $500 million to $2.8 billion, and disruptions could last weeks or months (Exhibit 4).

Unlike many small and medium-size cities, Bristol has invested in understanding this risk. It has undertaken a detailed review of how the scale of flooding in the city will change in the future under different climate scenarios. This improved understanding of the risks is an example that other cities could learn from.

However, adaptation is unlikely to be straightforward. It is difficult to imagine Bristol’s infrastructure assets being in a position more exposed to the city’s flood risk. Yet the center of the city, formed in the 1400s, cannot be shifted overnight, nor would its leafy reputation be the same today if the city had not oriented the growth of the past 20 years to harness its existing Edwardian and Victorian architecture. Unlike in Ho Chi Minh City, most of the infrastructure the city plans to have in place in 2065 has already been built.

In the immediate future, Bristol’s hands are likely largely tied, and hard adaptation may be the most viable short-term solution. In the medium term, however, Bristol may be able to act to improve resilience through measures such as investing in sustainable urban drainage that may reduce the depth and duration of an extreme flood event.

Bristol is already taking a proactive approach to adaptation. A $130 million floodwall for the defense of Avonmouth was planned to begin in late 2019. The city is still scoping out a range of options to protect the city. As an outside-in estimate, based on scaling costs to build the Thames Barrier in 1982, plus additional localized measures that might be needed, protecting the city to 2065 may cost $250 million to $500 million (roughly 0.5 to 1.5 percent of Bristol’s GVA today compared to the possible flood impact we calculate of between 2 to 9 percent of the city’s GVA in 2065). However, the actual costs will largely depend on the final approach. 

Bristol has gotten ahead of the game by improving its own understanding of risk. Many other small cities are at risk of entering unawares into a new climatic band for which they and their urban areas are ill prepared. While global flood risk is concentrated in major coastal metropolises, a long tail of other cities may be equally exposed, less prepared, and less likely to bounce back.

For additional details, download the case study, Can coastal cities turn the tide on rising flood risk? (PDF–4MB).

About this case study:

In January 2020, the McKinsey Global Institute published Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts . In that report, we measured the impact of climate change by the extent to which it could affect human beings, human-made physical assets, and the natural world over the next three decades. In order to link physical climate risk to socioeconomic impact, we investigated nine specific cases that illustrated exposure to climate change extremes and proximity to physical thresholds.

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• Published: 30 September 2022

US cities increasingly integrate justice into climate planning and create policy tools for climate justice

• Claudia V. Diezmartínez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2340-4628 1 &
• Anne G. Short Gianotti 1  

Nature Communications volume  13 , Article number:  5763 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Climate change is one of the most important ethical issues of our time. Urban scholars and policymakers now recognise the need to address justice concerns associated with cities’ responses to climate change. However, little empirical research has examined whether and how cities have integrated justice into climate mitigation planning. Here, we show that large cities in the US are increasingly attending to justice in their climate action plans and that the recognition of structural and historical injustices is becoming more common. We demonstrate that justice is articulated differently across mitigation sectors, uncover local characteristics that may impact cities’ level of engagement with justice, and introduce four policy tools that pioneer cities have developed to operationalise just climate policies on the ground. More attention to justice in policy implementation and evaluation is needed as cities continue to move toward just urban transitions.

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Introduction

Climate change is increasingly understood as intertwined with concerns about justice and equity 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 . It is widely known that climate change is disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable populations worldwide, even as many of these groups have contributed the least to global greenhouse gas emissions 5 , 6 , 7 . More recently, the linkages between equity and climate responses, including both actions taken to mitigate and to adapt to climate change, have been recognized. Climate efforts produce benefits and burdens, distribute resources, reorganize space, and impact infrastructure with uneven consequences across communities and populations. Climate action thus has the potential to exacerbate or redress existing social inequities and vulnerabilities 4 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 .

The nexus of climate action and justice is particularly pronounced in cities. Most of the world’s population lives in cities and urban areas generate more than 70% of global CO 2 emissions 11 . Cities have been important sites of climate action for more than two decades 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 and recent efforts such as the United Nations Race to Zero and the Race to Resilience aim to spur a transition to net-zero cities and catalyse urban climate projects. The actions cities take to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change will produce benefits as well as unintended consequences that are likely to be distributed unevenly within and beyond city boundaries 4 , 5 , 10 , 16 .

In light of the growing attention to climate justice at the global, national, and local scales, many city governments, advocates, and scholars have made bold calls for “just urban transitions” 8 , 17 , 18 or a “green and just recovery” 19 following COVID-19. Informing and evaluating progress on this agenda requires a deep understanding of urban climate planning and action. While previous research suggests few cities have meaningfully incorporated equity or justice goals into their climate strategies 4 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , most analyses of urban climate plans focus primarily on climate adaptation and resilience 18 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 or sustainability more broadly 30 , 31 . The few studies that examine climate mitigation plans have been limited to a relatively small number of cities 20 , 22 , 25 or a few specific mitigation sectors 32 . We thus lack a comprehensive picture of how justice concerns have been integrated and institutionalised into urban climate action planning, and this has translated into a paucity of policy guidance on how cities can pursue more just urban transitions 8 , 28 .

Addressing this gap in knowledge is critical. Cities’ policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions intersect with many aspects of urban life and redistribute resources with direct and indirect consequences for vulnerable populations. There is growing evidence that urban climate actions can lead to disparities in energy access and pricing 9 , 33 , 34 , inequitable access to clean technologies 9 , 34 , 35 and low-carbon transportation 36 , 37 , unequally distributed employment opportunities 9 , 20 , 38 and green gentrification 36 , 39 . Urban scholars and decision-makers could therefore benefit from understanding how different cities conceptualize the justice implications of climate mitigation policies and identifying the policy tools that have been developed to address these complex issues in urban areas.

Here, we show that large cities across the US are increasingly incorporating justice into their climate action plans and developing policy tools to integrate justice and equity concerns into their climate mitigation policies, particularly in the last five years. We conduct a content analysis of the most recent climate mitigation plans developed by the 100 largest cities in the US and provide a comprehensive assessment of the degree to which cities are attentive to justice in climate action planning. We find that the recognition of cities’ historical patterns of racial segregation, disinvestment, environmental injustice, and exclusion is becoming more common in recent plans, although attention to justice is not equally distributed across mitigation sectors. We highlight local factors that may influence cities’ level of engagement with justice in their climate action plans and uncover four concrete policy tools cities are using to implement and evaluate work toward “just urban transitions”.

Results and discussion

Engagement with justice in urban climate action plans.

Fifty-eight of the 100 largest US cities had an approved climate action plan as of June 2021 (Supplementary Table  1 ). For each of these cities, we conducted a content analysis of their most recent plan to evaluate if and how justice and equity are addressed in their climate mitigation policies. We coded climate plans across six main themes: (1) distributive justice; (2) procedural justice; (3) justice as recognition; (4) justice in climate mitigation sectors; (5) key definitions; and (6) key sections where justice is articulated (Supplementary Table  2 ).

We found a range of engagement with justice in urban climate action plans (Table  1 ). Forty cities (69%) are attentive to justice in their climate action plans, either by aspiring for justice (20 cities, 34.5%) or by explicitly planning for justice (20 cities, 34.5%). The 20 cities that aspire for justice articulate justice and/or equity as a goal, vision, guiding principle, or core value of their plan but do not explicitly describe policy actions or systematic strategies to implement or evaluate progress toward just climate mitigation. The 20 cities that are planning for justice systematically embed justice into the design of their climate policies by using justice and/or equity as a criterion to select policy interventions and/or by using justice focused policy tools to develop and operationalise climate action policies. Eighteen cities (31%) do not articulate justice as a core feature of climate action . These cities do not describe justice or equity as an objective of their plan and lack policy measures explicitly aimed at addressing justice concerns (Supplementary Table  3 ).

Justice has become a more common feature of climate action plans in recent years. Thirty-one of the 40 plans (78%) that incorporate justice were published between 2017 and 2021 (Fig.  1 ). Of the 22 plans published before 2017, only 22.7 % articulated justice as an aspiration and 18.2% explicitly planned for justice. In contrast, of the 36 plans that were adopted between 2017 and 2021, 41.7% articulated justice as an aspiration and 44.4% explicitly planned for justice.

Number of cities in our sample that adopted or updated a climate action plan between 2007 and 2020. Cities are categorised according to their level of engagement with justice in policy action: cities that do not articulate justice as a core feature of climate action (grey), cities articulating justice as an aspiration (yellow), and cities explicitly planning for justice (red) (left axis). The blue line indicates the cumulative percentage of plans incorporating justice in any way (right axis). By 2020, 69% of all plans published between 2007 and 2020 include justice.

Using ordinal logistic regression, we confirm that the time of publication of the climate action plans is a significant determinant of cities’ level of engagement with justice, even after accounting for cities’ sociodemographic, economic, and political characteristics (Table  2 ). Although previous studies have found limited evidence of clear relationships between city characteristics and their degree of focus on justice in climate mitigation and adaptation planning 20 , 27 , we find that several local factors may increase the likelihood of cities incorporating justice into their climate action plans. First, cities with a higher median household income and cities with higher levels of poverty have increased odds of incorporating justice into their climate plans. This suggests that cities with more economic inequities (i.e., high incomes and high poverty rates) are paying more attention to justice. Similar to Hess and Mckane 32 , we find no evidence that higher population diversity positively impacts cities’ level of engagement with justice. However, our model supports the finding by Liao et al. 40 that public engagement in climate planning is associated with greater attention to justice. We also find that cities with larger populations are more likely to have higher levels of engagement with justice. This may be due to the higher capacities of large cities to undertake more complex planning efforts 28 , 40 , but it might also reflect broader trends of big cities increasingly creating climate action plans in general 15 , 17 . Finally, we find that coastal cities have increased odds of engaging with justice, while legacy cities (i.e., post-industrial cities) have decreased odds. This could be explained by cities’ differential levels of vulnerability to climate change and governance capacities. Case studies in these different types of geographies could help understand and disentangle the complex dynamics of climate action and justice planning in these contexts.

Articulations of justice and equity

Cities tend to use the language of “equity”, rather than “environmental justice” or “climate justice”. We find that when cities provide a definition for these concepts, they generally define “justice” as prioritising historically vulnerable communities and those disproportionately affected by climate change, while “equity” tends to be more broadly defined as ensuring equitable access and distribution of the benefits of climate policies. Cities’ articulation of “equity” in lieu of “justice” aligns with previous analyses of climate adaptation plans that found that discourses around the distribution of benefits and burdens of climate efforts dominate over deeper accounts of structural injustice 18 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 28 . Nonetheless, we also find that 15 cities (26%) recognise and articulate their histories of racial segregation, disinvestment, environmental injustice, and exclusion. For instance, the climate plans of Portland (2015), Dallas (2020), and Washington D.C. (2018) incorporate narratives of their own institutional discriminatory practices and identify the specific neighbourhoods or census tracts that have been historically disadvantaged within their boundaries. This attention to the history of structural injustice is recent, with 12 of the 15 plans (80%) that articulate narratives of structural injustice published in or after 2018.

Cities that recognise historical and current injustices are primarily focused on racial and income inequalities, with less consistent attention to vulnerabilities and injustices associated with gender, age, or disability. This emphasis on racial and economic justice has also been identified in climate adaptation plans 18 , 21 , 28 , 41 , perhaps reflecting US cities’ long history of racial discrimination, segregation, and income inequalities, as well as the rise of grassroots movements demanding city governments to address these structural issues 18 , 28 , 42 . The deficit of narratives connecting gender and disability with climate mitigation is noteworthy, but it is not unique to cities. Research has found that, from local to international spheres, few mitigation policies and regulations refer to gender, suggesting that the role of women is better recognised in adaptation than in mitigation 6 , 43 . Similarly, scholars have identified a dearth of policy actions that are inclusive of people with disabilities in both climate mitigation and adaptation 44 , 45 , 46 .

While most plans analysed here were published before the outset of COVID-19, the City of Oakland’s climate plan (2020) incorporates a narrative of how the pandemic has served to highlight the pervasive inequalities and disproportionate burdens experienced by “people of colour, small business owners, and income-insecure workers”, and to further underscore the need for climate action “underpinned by climate equity and environmental justice”. We can conjecture that new climate plans developed amid or after the COVID-19 pandemic will articulate similar narratives and include deeper accounts of structural injustice, particularly with respect to racial and economic inequities.

Attention to justice across mitigation sectors

We identified nine major mitigation sectors that US cities have included in their climate action plans: (1) energy efficiency ( n  = 57); (2) clean energy ( n  = 57); (3) land use and transport ( n  = 54); (4) waste ( n  = 50); (5) electric vehicles ( n  = 48); (6) urban greening ( n  = 29); (7) food ( n  = 18); (8) water ( n  = 21); and (9) air quality ( n  = 5). While equity concerns intersect multiple sectors 32 , 47 , we find that cities’ attention to justice is not distributed uniformly across policy areas (Fig.  2a ). The most common sectors where cities connect mitigation to justice concerns are energy efficiency (47 out 57 plans addressing this sector incorporate justice), clean energy (36 out of 57), and land use and transport (34 out of 54). In contrast, less than half of the cities we analysed link justice to policies related to waste (21 out of 50), electric vehicles (17 out of 48), water (4 out of 21), and air quality (2 out of 5). Although relatively few cities address urban greening and food as part of their mitigation strategies, more than half of these cities connect these policy areas to justice (15 out of 29 and 12 out of 18, respectively).

a Number of cities that articulate justice in each mitigation sector. The dotted pattern represents the total number of cities that address each sector as a mitigation strategy within their climate action plan. Solid colours represent cities that articulate justice in each sector. b Main themes and policies discussed with respect to justice within each mitigation sector.

Figure  2b presents the main themes and policies that cities articulate with respect to justice for each mitigation sector. Cities primarily focus on addressing the direct justice impacts of climate action policies (e.g., energy burdens, access to technologies and services, etc.). Explicit attention to indirect impacts such as displacement and gentrification have received less attention overall ( n  = 10) and these discourses are most often connected to energy efficiency and land use and transport interventions.

Several cities have also developed programs directed at targeted workforce development and outreach efforts. Fourteen cities (24%) include green jobs training programs for vulnerable populations such as people of colour, low-income residents, individuals with barriers to employment, women, youth, veterans, and workers affected by the energy transition. For example, the City of Madison’s (2018) GreenPower Program hires under- and unemployed individuals and provides them with training for solar installation jobs. Eighteen cities (31%) also plan to undertake targeted outreach efforts aimed at informing historically vulnerable populations about available climate programs. For instance, the City of Dallas’ plan (2020) includes the development of special engagement programs to reach low-income residents, the senior community, and non-native English speakers, and provide them with information about new weatherization programs. Through this “focused engagement”, the city expects to address common barriers to program participation and ensure that the benefits of weatherization reach those who need them the most.

Operationalising just climate policies

Several cities have already developed policy tools to implement and evaluate just climate policies. This finding is important, as scholars and practitioners involved in both climate adaptation and mitigation have repeatedly called out the lack of concrete tools and metrics to operationalise just climate policies on the ground 5 , 8 , 17 , 20 , 28 , 32 , 48 . We categorise the policy tools we identified into four types: justice partnerships, equity advisory boards, equity tools , and justice indicators . Cities may use these instruments at one or more stages of the policymaking process, and they often involve the engagement of multiple community actors (Fig.  3 ).

Equity tools and equity advisory boards can be implemented throughout the policy process. Justice partnerships are mainly focused on policy design and implementation. Justice indicators are used during policy evaluation. All policy tools and strategies may involve community engagement.

Seventeen of the 20 cities that are explicitly planning for justice describe leveraging justice partnerships to implement just climate policies. Community partnerships are a common strategy to operationalise climate policies overall. In fact, 40 cities in our sample (69%) mention the need to cooperate with local actors to reach their climate mitigation goals. In the context of justice, community partnerships are seen not only as practical necessity, but also as a tool to promote participation among historically underrepresented communities and to provide legitimacy to policies and programs. Justice partnerships are thus mainly focused on engaging with vulnerable groups, either directly or through environmental and social justice advocacy groups that represent them.

A second strategy to incorporate justice concerns into the operationalisation of climate policies is to create equity advisory boards (Table  3 ). These are groups of community members convened by city governments to facilitate the planning, implementation, and/or evaluation of just climate policies. Equity advisory boards are usually organised into one or more committees, subcommittees, or working groups and are granted varying levels of involvement throughout the policy process. In general, however, these boards are tasked with representing and engaging vulnerable populations, proposing justice centred policy objectives and actions, and reviewing policies and programs to ensure they are aligned with justice goals. In some cases, equity advisory boards are also responsible for developing equity tools themselves. Although the members of these boards are not explicitly listed in all climate action plans, we found that these groups are commonly comprised by residents, advocates, academics, representatives from the private sector, and government officials.

Six of the cities that are explicitly planning for justice have also developed or are in the process of developing an equity tool (Table  4 ). We define equity tools as decision-making frameworks that guide city governments to recognise and systematically incorporate justice and equity concerns throughout the policy process. Even though the scope of these instruments varies across cities, equity tools usually consist of a set of guiding questions or checklists that provide the basis for creating justice centred policies, identifying and engaging local community actors, developing implementation strategies, and/or analysing the justice and equity impacts of programs. Equity tools are one of the most novel strategies primarily geared toward the operationalisation of just climate policies. A recent example is the city of San Antonio’s “Climate Equity Screening Tool”, which includes over 30 guiding questions designed to identify the benefits and unintended consequences that policies may produce for local vulnerable groups. This tool will be used by key community actors to evaluate each strategy outlined in the climate action plan prior to implementation.

Finally, eight cities have created or are planning to create justice indicators . These are comprehensive metrics to monitor and evaluate the justice and equity impacts of climate plans and policies (Supplementary Table  4 ). Unlike equity tools that provide broad guidelines to assess the consequences of climate programs, justice indicators enable cities to quantitatively measure the benefits and costs that climate policies bring to vulnerable populations and to track their progress toward their justice goals. For instance, the city of San Diego developed a “Climate Equity Index” to identify vulnerable communities across the city and measure the equity impacts of its climate policies over time. The index integrates over 30 standardised indicators covering multiple environmental, housing, mobility, socioeconomic, and health factors that are used to calculate a climate equity score for each of the census tracks within the city.

Moving toward just urban transitions

Our systematic analysis of climate action plans reveals that a transition toward urban climate justice governance is emerging in the US. This research complements insights from recent studies focused on climate adaptation planning and builds a comprehensive and nuanced picture of urban climate justice efforts across large cities in the US. Over the past two decades, cities engaged in climate planning have not only paid attention to justice with respect to climate adaptation. Justice and equity concerns have also played an increasingly important role in the design of urban climate action plans, progressively pushing cities to articulate more just and inclusive mitigation actions and to develop policy tools to implement and evaluate climate justice efforts.

While the increasing attention to justice is promising, we highlight three important caveats in this optimistic result. First, 42 out the 100 largest US cities have yet to adopt a city-wide climate action plan. Although urban climate plans have often been found to lack implementation guidance 48 and planning practice itself has led to mixed results in advancing climate action in the past 15 , 28 , 49 , the development of climate plans is still considered a critical step to systematise urban responses to climate change, provide engagement opportunities to local actors, and legitimise climate policies 25 , 28 , 32 , 48 . Previous research shows that when municipalities report equity as a priority or goal in a formal planning document, they are more likely to adopt more actions related to social equity 40 . Furthermore, climate plans provide a unique avenue to institutionalise justice-focused goals that can mobilise multiple community actors towards this collective purpose 50 . Our findings regarding the increasing attention to climate justice and the recognition of structural injustice in cities suggest that urban policymakers and activists should regard local climate plans as a key tool to advance just urban transitions in their communities.

The second caveat emerging from our analysis is that there is a need for more comprehensive approaches to justice across and beyond climate mitigation sectors. Local climate actions plans are commonly organised by sector-specific chapters that reflect city government’s own divisions across departments 32 . Our results indicate that this practice has translated into sector-specific articulations of justice, an uneven attention to justice and equity across mitigation sectors, and little emphasis on the indirect impacts of policies (Fig.  2 ). The articulation of sector-specific justice concerns is also present in climate adaptation planning 23 , 28 . Previous analyses of climate adaptation plans have found that cities commonly articulate justice within the context of public health, affordable housing, transit, green infrastructure, and economic opportunities 23 , 27 . This aligns with cities’ attention to the burdens that energy efficiency, clean energy, transportation, and urban greening policies may impose on low-income households, as well as their focus on the equitable distribution of employment opportunities created by climate mitigation. However, we find that cities devote less consistent attention to public health in climate mitigation plans, which may explain the relatively few references to justice issues related to the food, water, and air quality sectors. These sectoral approaches across climate mitigation and adaptation plans are not always adequate to address the justice implications of climate change and climate policy because issues may arise at the intersection of two or more sectors or due to aggregation of multiple climate interventions 17 , 28 , 32 , 47 . For example, the combination of low-carbon and adaptation policies such as urban greening, transit-oriented developments, and energy-efficient housing, may cause the displacement of low-income residents out of improved neighborhoods 17 , 36 . Just urban transitions require shifting away from narrow sector-by-sector approaches and pursuing systemic efforts to transform local economies and urban life itself 17 , 47 . This calls for urban decisionmakers and scholars to look beyond the direct consequences of specific types of policies and address the broader, cross-sectoral implications of climate action. Investigating why cities devote unequal attention to justice across sectors and the implications of these sectoral differences are important open questions for future research.

A final caveat is that most climate plans in our sample have not yet articulated specific strategies to operationalise just climate policies on the ground. Moving towards just urban transitions entails the development and implementation of tools that can guide urban decisionmakers on how to allocate climate efforts and resources, how to recognise who should be prioritised, who needs to be included and informed about climate efforts, and what trade-offs are necessary to build a just low-carbon society 8 , 18 , 23 . Our analysis identified a group of pioneer cities and four concrete implementation tools (i.e., justice partnerships, equity advisory boards, equity tools, and justice indicators) that can serve as models for other cities involved in climate action planning. Because most climate plans and policy tools examined here have been developed only in the past few years, our analysis cannot assess whether and how these tools have been successful at addressing historical and structural injustices, engaging and empowering vulnerable populations, and ultimately enabling socially just outcomes. However, our findings provide a baseline to inform and guide future research focused on just implementation efforts. Case studies in cities such as Oakland, Cleveland, Baltimore, or San Antonio, where just implementation and evaluation tools are being developed, can help address these open questions.

At the same time that cities have evolved into essential sites for global climate policy 8 , 13 , 51 , 52 , climate governance itself has become a strategic priority of urban politics 17 , 53 . As questions of justice and equity in the city rise on the agenda, we can expect that climate justice will also become a fundamental component of urban governance over the next decade 17 . New opportunities arise as the COVID-19 pandemic and recent social movements such as Black Lives Matter increase the salience of systemic injustices and reignite collective calls for justice and social transformation 51 . At this critical time, this research can help urban decisionmakers and other key actors in cities to identify how climate justice can be embedded within local climate action efforts, recognise potential benchmarks and learning opportunities from other cities, and reflect upon the ways in which local policies may or may not be aligned to pursue just urban transitions.

Our study presents a comprehensive picture of how large cities in the US have integrated justice into climate mitigation planning and provides an important step towards understanding how new policy tools can support the implementation of justice focused urban climate policies. As urban climate justice becomes more prevalent in the US and globally, scholars and urban decisionmakers need to ask new questions about climate governance and identify the best pathways and policy tools that facilitate the implementation and evaluation of just climate policies. Understanding the emerging dynamics of climate justice governance and analysing how innovative policy instruments such as justice partnerships, equity bodies, equity tools, and justice indicators operate on the ground are crucial next steps to support and inform future efforts towards just urban transitions.

To examine the emergence of climate justice in urban climate mitigation planning, we analysed local climate action plans adopted by the 100 largest cities in the US. The list of cities included in our study was defined according to the US Census Bureau 2019 population estimates. We focus on large cities because (a) these urban areas are more likely to have more diverse populations that experience relatively pronounced poverty and income disparities 20 , 27 and (b) their governments are more likely to have more resources and capacities to undergo complex climate planning processes that incorporate justice and equity 28 , 54 . Moreover, focusing on large cities enables us to compare our findings across previous studies, most of which examine climate planning in large cities 18 , 20 , 21 , 27 , 28 , 32 .

Sampling of climate action plans

We built our sample by collecting the most recent climate action plan available for each of the 100 largest cities in the US. We define climate action plan as any formal local planning document adopted by a city government that explicitly addresses multiple sectors of climate mitigation. This definition includes climate plans exclusively focused on mitigation, climate plans integrating mitigation and adaptation or resilience, as well as sustainability and energy plans with chapters or sections explicitly dedicated to climate mitigation. We excluded city plans that are only focused on climate adaptation or resilience, plans that are written by state or regional entities, and plans that are written by local entities (e.g., local non-profits, universities) but not formally adopted by city governments. Our definition of climate action plan enabled us to capture a comprehensive and nuanced picture of cities’ discursive representations of climate justice with respect to climate mitigation, while also maintaining a relatively consistent and comparable sample.

We collected plans through targeted internet searches in Google (e.g., “city name” + “climate action plan”), city government websites, and the Local Government Climate and Energy Goals database developed by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. For each city, we selected the most recently adopted climate action plan that fit our definition as of June 2021. Several cities in our sample had published multiple plans over the past decade. In cases where the most recent plan updated or superseded earlier plans, we reviewed only the most recent plan. However, in cases where the most recent plan complemented an earlier plan, we reviewed both the most recent and previous versions of the plan. In total, we found that 58 out the 100 largest US city had an eligible climate action plan to include in our analysis (Supplementary Table  1 ).

Coding protocol and procedures

We coded the selected climate action plans following a two-stage qualitative coding process. In stage 1, we defined a preliminary protocol of coding themes and categories according to common topics discussed in the literature 4 , 5 , 10 , 55 , 56 . These included the three dimensions of climate justice (distributive justice, procedural justice, and justice as recognition), as well as other key concepts related to justice and equity, mitigation sectors, and policy strategies. We define distributive justice as the fair allocation of the benefits and burdens of climate change and climate policy 10 ; procedural justice refers to inclusive participation and engagement in decision-making processes 18 , 21 ; and justice as recognition refers to the respect and valuing of all people in climate governance and requires the acknowledgement of historic and ongoing inequities as well as the pursuit of efforts to reconcile these inequities 9 , 10 , 18 .

The preliminary protocol was pre-tested independently by each author on five climate action plans. This pre-testing enabled us to assess the robustness and clarity of the protocol and to refine coding categories before proceeding to the next stage. In stage 2, we began by using the preliminary protocol designed to code all plans within our sample. Here, we moved beyond a purely deductive coding approach and allowed new themes and categories to emerge and be redefined inductively from the data. All emerging categories were continuously discussed and agreed upon by both authors. As we adapted the protocol, we conducted iterative rounds of focused coding to homogenise our analysis across all plans. The final protocol included 98 sub-categories and 18 main categories organized across six general themes: (1) distributional justice; (2) procedural justice; (3) justice as recognition; (4) justice in climate mitigation sectors; (5) key definitions; and (6) key sections where justice is articulated (Supplementary Table  2 ). We used NVivo 12 Pro software for all coding procedures.

Since our goal was to understand how cities are articulating climate justice with respect to climate mitigation, we only coded the sections and excerpts explicitly related to climate action in each plan. This means that in all plans not exclusively focused on mitigation, we did not code any chapters dedicated to climate adaptation, resilience, or any other sectors that were not explicitly recognised as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These restrictions helped us narrow our analysis to the climate justice discourses more directly associated with climate mitigation.

Logistic regression analysis

We use ordinal logistic regression to identify local sociodemographic, economic, and political characteristics that may influence cities’ level of engagement with justice in their climate action plans and to determine whether cities’ attention to climate justice has increased over time.

Our dependent variable is an ordinal variable that measures cities’ engagement with justice according to the city categories found through our analysis (i.e., Category 1: cities that do not articulate justice as a core feature of their climate plan; Category 2: cities that articulate justice as an aspiration; and Category 3: cities that are explicitly planning for justice). Our predictor variables are comprised of a set of cities’ local sociodemographic, economic, and political factors. This data was obtained from the 2019 US Census estimates and the 2015–2019 American Community Survey. We also control for important characteristics of the climate plans themselves, including the year of publication, which was used to determine whether attention to justice has increased over time. All predictor variables were pre-selected through a literature review of previous research on urban climate action and climate justice 20 , 27 , 40 , 54 , 57 . Supplementary Table  5 presents the descriptive statistics and description of the dependent variable and all predictor variables considered for analysis.

The specification of our model was selected through forward and backward stepwise regression using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) 53 . We first fit a baseline model that included all predictor variables included in Supplementary Table  5 and applied the stepAIC function from R’s MASS package with “both” as the direction of the selection technique. This command uses forward and backward stepwise regression to select the model specification that minimizes the AIC. We also performed ANOVA to test whether the final model selected through stepAIC is better at capturing that data than the baseline model. This enabled us to verify that the additional variables present in the baseline model do not significantly improve the fit of the model. We tested the assumption of no multicollinearity through the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) test, using the general rule that if the VIF for all parameters is less than 5, there is no evidence of multicollinearity. We also tested for the proportional odds assumption using the Brant test, which assesses whether the observed deviations from the ordinal logistic model are larger than what could be attributed to chance alone. Although there is no single agreed upon measure of goodness-of-fit for logistic regression 58 , we decided to include the McFadden Pseudo-R 2 to assess the fit of our model 59 . Higher values of McFadden Pseudo-R 2 indicate a better model fit, and values between 20% and 40% are usually considered highly satisfactory.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The data used and generated in this study (city climate action plans, qualitative content analysis, socio-demographic data, logistic regression analysis) have been deposited in an open repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7008298 .

Code availability

Codes used to produce this work are available in the open repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7008298 .

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Boston University Initiative on Cities Early Stage Urban Research Grant (ASG) and a National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) grant to Boston University (DGE 1735087, CVD). We thank Jessica Bajada Silva for her assistance with preliminary research.

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Diezmartínez, C.V., Short Gianotti, A.G. US cities increasingly integrate justice into climate planning and create policy tools for climate justice. Nat Commun 13 , 5763 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33392-9

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Financing Climate-Smart Agriculture: a case study from the Indo-Gangetic Plains

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 03 April 2024
• Volume 29 , article number  33 , ( 2024 )

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• Roberto Villalba   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8676-1761 1 ,
• Garima Joshi 1 , 2 ,
• Thomas Daum 2 , 4 &
• Terese E. Venus 3  

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The Indo-Gangetic Plains represents one of South Asia’s most productive agricultural regions, yet it is highly vulnerable to climate change and requires the widespread adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture. Although farmers understand the benefits of such technologies, financial constraints often undermine adoption. Using a case study from Haryana, we assess the opportunities and challenges aligned with the different pathways available for farmers to adopt and finance two capital-intensive technologies: laser land levelers and happy seeders. Our analysis uses unique data from Karnal, where stakeholders have partnered in Climate-Smart-Villages, and combines a household survey from 120 farmers, interviews, and focus group discussions with banks and cooperatives. Our results indicate adoption rates of 77% for laser land levelers and 52% for happy seeders, with only 7% and 21% of farmers owning the technologies, respectively. Hiring is highly preferred over purchase, mainly due to the flourishing of Custom-Hiring Centers, which are vital in driving large-scale implementation. We find that farmers prefer funding from family, savings, and moneylenders (indirect pathways) rather than from commercial banks (direct pathways) to get immediate access to credit and avoid bureaucratic procedures. Our study offers broader insights into the state of agricultural finance in India and adaptation to climate change and reveals that institutional innovations can enhance the financing of CSA technologies for smallholder farmers. Our findings have important implications for decision-makers seeking to streamline credit access for CSA machinery rental. Future research should focus on the efficacy of different finance channels and their causal impact on pathways for technology adoption.

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1 Introduction

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) encompasses a variety of agricultural technologies and practices designed to deal with climate change and address the triple goal of promoting sustainable food production, enhancing resilience, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (Jatoi et al. 2022 ; Lipper et al. 2018 ). CSA technologies are particularly important in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, one of India’s most productive regions, which will be heavily affected by climate change (Birthal et al. 2014 ; Sapkota et al. 2015 ). Previous studies project that by 2100, without any actions, climate change will generate significant fluctuations in temperature and rainfall in this region, dropping rice yield by 15% and wheat yield by 22% (Birthal et al. 2014 ). The adoption of CSA practices has the potential to offset some of these effects, allowing farmers to increase water productivity by 66% and reduce production costs by 23% (Sapkota et al. 2015 ).

Farmers in the region are already experiencing some environmental effects of climate change, including the depletion of water tables, soil health deterioration, air pollution from in situ burning, and the loss of crucial plant nutrients (Phogat et al. 2020 ). For example, due to intensive rice production in Haryana, the government has encouraged farmers to replace water-guzzling rice varieties with maize and pulses to reduce the stress on natural resources (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ). Moreover, more than 70% of soils in India are affected by soil acidity or soil alkalinity, and about 29% of the total geographical area is under land degradation (Das et al. 2022 ). Further, in 2018, crop burning from rice, wheat, maize, and sugarcane accounted for 90% of the country’s 10 mm of particulate matter in the air (Sahu et al. 2021 ).

Among India’s most promising CSA technologies are the Laser Land Leveler and the Happy Seeder. Both types of machinery belong to a new group of technologies promoted by national and international organizations to contribute to smallholder farmers’ adaptation and climate change mitigation (Aryal et al. 2018 , 2020b ; Taneja et al. 2019 ). The Happy Seeder is a zero-tillage drilling equipment intended for maize and wheat. It has proven to effectively increase farm profitability by 20% compared to conventional seeders, reduce emissions by 78% compared to residue-burning, and consistently reduce the environmental footprint of farming (Kaushal and Prashar 2021 ; Shyamsundar et al. 2019 ). The Laser Land Leveler is a water-smart CSA technology with improved precision that increases water and land productivity. It is mainly used for rice production, generating yield increases of up to 342 kg per hectare and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 163,600 MT of CO2 (Aryal et al. 2018 ; Gill 2014 ).

Despite the climate change adaptation benefits attributed to CSA technologies, CSA adoption in the Indo-Gangetic Plains is varied and relatively limited (Palanisami et al. 2015 ). Previous research has found that farmers are more likely to adopt CSA technologies if the financial benefits outweigh the initial investment (Branca et al. 2021 ; Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2017 , 2019 ; Taneja et al. 2019 ). However, as many of these technologies are capital-intensive and require high upfront equipment, finance is a significant barrier to adopting CSA technologies (FAO 2010 ). Farmers realize benefits cumulatively and weighted in the short and long run but must pay current period costs. Moreover, widespread implementation of CSA requires not only technological support but also accounting for the socio-demographic, institutional, and resource-endowment challenges faced by farmers (Li et al. 2024 ), which are particularly higher for smallholder and marginal farmers (Azadi et al. 2021 ; Ruben et al. 2019 ; Vishnoi and Goel 2024 ). This segment of producers plays a crucial role in Indian agriculture, representing more than 80% of the workforce and more than half of the total agricultural produce (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 2022 ). While adequate access to financial services is critical to increasing crop efficiency, technology adoption, and market opportunities (Christen and Anderson 2013 ; Mattern and Ramirez 2017 ), smallholders struggle to access useful and affordable financial products that meet their needs (e.g., transactions, savings, credits, and insurance) (Adegbite and Machethe 2020 ; Azadi et al. 2021 ; Vishnoi and Goel 2024 ). As a result, this limits their ability to acquire formal financial mechanisms and adopt capital-intensive technologies. Moreover, smallholders not only have limited access to credit but also suffer scale limitations, higher transaction costs, and higher price risks (Villalba et al. 2023 ), which pose additional barriers to financing CSA technology adoption.

Nevertheless, even if credit is needed, not all farmers need or desire to own farm machinery. In 2010, large farmers owned 38% of all tractors in India, while small farmers owned only 1% (Bhattarai et al. 2018 ). Rental markets are increasingly making tractors accessible to smallholders, and even though 85% of all landholdings are smaller than 2 ha, up to 90% of farmland is prepared by tractors (Bhattarai et al. 2017 , 2018 ). The farm machinery rental market is estimated at US$ 5 billion yearly (Singh 2017 ), and the map of business models for mechanization provision is constantly evolving. Private business models aim to reduce transaction costs to access effective mechanization for smallholders, even using digital tools (Daum et al. 2021 ), while Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), private contractors, and government-subsidized Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) have also emerged to address the needs of smallholders (Bhattarai et al. 2017 ).

Thus, CSA technologies, such as the Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler, show great potential to ensure that agricultural systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains adapt to the new realities of climate change. However, their widespread implementation depends on adoption by many smallholder farmers who face significant challenges in financing such technologies, even if they foresee their benefits (Branca et al. 2021 ; Mizik 2021 ). Shedding light on inclusive financing mechanisms that foster access and adapt to smallholders’ needs is crucial for policymakers to design programs that ensure CSA adoption.

Against this backdrop, this study aims to identify the opportunities and challenges aligned with the different pathways available for farmers to adopt and finance CSA technologies in the study area. To this end, we first map farmers’ adoption mechanisms of both technologies; then, we explore the drivers associated with each mechanism and link those with financial preferences. Finally, we explore the role of different stakeholders in designing and enhancing CSA finance and its implementation. Drawing on the findings from Haryana, the study offers three key contributions to current discussions on CSA adoption: first, it provides a framework to map and classify financing pathways for CSA technologies; second, it explores the factors that motivate farmers to own or hire CSA technologies, and third, it offers insights into institutional innovations that could enhance the financing of CSA technologies for smallholder farmers.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section  2 provides a literature background about Climate-Smart Agriculture in India and current financing mechanisms to promote its adoption. In Section  3 , we describe the study area, data collection, and data analysis. Section  4 presents our key findings regarding farmers’ adoption and financing mechanisms to implement CSA technologies. In Section  5 , we discuss our results, and in Section  6 , we present our conclusion and policy recommendations.

2 Theoretical background

2.1 climate-smart agriculture in india.

The concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture has been actively promoted in India through related policies and interventions by the government and by international and national research institutions (Dinesh et al. 2017 ). Among them is the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, one of the eight Missions outlined under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), which supports adopting CSA practices and technologies in India. Similarly, the government launched the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) to conduct strategic research on adaptation and mitigation and increase awareness through field demonstration plots and training programs (Dinesh et al. 2017 ).

Various technologies and practices have been prioritized in India to enhance the adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture. Table  1 summarizes the major CSA technologies and practices, their potential for achieving CSA’s triple goal, and their estimated costs for adoption based on previous studies. Many technologies and practices have positively impacted farm profitability, climate resilience, and emissions. Notably, the Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler come with many benefits but are the most capital-intensive technologies.

The Happy Seeder is an advanced seeder machine and zero-tillage drilling equipment that can plant wheat seeds directly into the rice crop residue (Jat et al. 2019 ). It is a tractor-mounted implement that combines a zero-tillage seeder with a straw management unit (Keil et al. 2021 ). In addition to no-residue burning, the use of a Happy Seeder can yield several benefits, such as a reduction in labor requirements of 80%, a decrease in irrigation needs between 20 and 25%, and a cut in herbicide use by 50% (Keil et al. 2021 ). The retention of rice residue on soil acts as mulch and adds to soil organic matter, improving the soil’s seedbed quality and water retention ability (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ). The cost of Happy Seeder is reported at INR 150,000 (US$ 1,800) (Kaushal and Prashar 2021 ).

The Laser Land Leveler is a tractor-towed, water-smart CSA technology with improved precision that focuses on improving water and land productivity. By leveling the field, it ensures even-handed reach and distribution of water (NAFCC 2016 ). The estimated volume of irrigation water that can be saved in Haryana using a Laser Land Leveler is 933 million cubic meters per year (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ). Further, the technology holds the potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change by reducing irrigation requirements and fuel consumption. It is estimated that it can contribute towards reducing the annual GHG emissions by 163,600 MT of CO2 equivalent (Gill 2014 ). However, the technology is costly, with a market price of INR 355,299 (US$ 4,285) (Aryal et al. 2018 ).

2.2 Financing of CSA technologies

Financing is crucial to support farmers in adopting CSA technologies. However, developing adequate financing mechanisms requires technological innovations and socioeconomic and institutional changes (Ruben et al. 2019 ). A wide range of financial instruments exist, such as in-kind investments, profit reinvestments, productive safety nets, debt and equity finance, grants, and subsidies, which can be availed to meet the diverse agricultural needs at the farm level (Branca et al. 2011 ). The World Bank ( 2017 ) recognizes the importance of long-term investments in CSA and the need to couple them with short-term risk management interventions. Further, FAO ( 2010 ) suggests that CSA can be financed through the public and private sectors and public-private partnerships.

Previous studies suggest three pathways are key for financing CSA in rural areas (Ruben et al. 2019 ). First, direct pathways refer to enhancing direct investments in CSA technologies. For example, short-term loans can be helpful to finance CSA practices, such as fertility management and crop diversification, as these financing mechanisms are mainly disbursed for seasonal agricultural production (Islam 2020 ). Medium- and long-term loans can be appropriate for more expensive technologies, given high prices and long periods of depreciation (Daum and Birner 2017 ), and they could be matched with CSA technologies such as the Happy Seeder or Laser Land Leveler. Indirect pathways refer to financially incentivizing farm households, generating favorable expenditure effects for adopting CSA technologies. The financial instruments under this category are savings, income from off-farm employment, insurance transfers, and remittances (Ruben et al. 2019 ). This pathway can be the most efficient option for resource-poor farmers as direct pathways are subject to market failures such as the absence of collateral, moral hazard, and risk covariance (Binswanger and Rosenzweig 1986 ). Custom hiring services, for example, reduce farmers’ need for farm machinery purchase and ownership as they are no longer essential for adoption (Aryal et al. 2019 ; Daum et al. 2021 ). Further, previous experience shows that many farmers in countries from the Global South tend to finance mechanization with personal savings and loans from friends and relatives who work outside agriculture (Daum and Birner 2017 ). Lastly, behavioral pathways aim to strengthen the resilience of revenue streams generated by CSA technologies, for example, by using insurance or any other risk-mitigating measures. Given the relationship between risk perceptions and CSA investments, this pathway emphasizes that CSA adoption can increase if farmers have access to insurance services or mobile-based input advisory or delivery services (Ruben et al. 2019 ).

The financial support and services in the region strongly guide the implementation of CSA interventions in a specific area. Therefore, it is crucial to establish site-specific financial resources to ensure farmers adopt desired CSA technologies (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2017 ). Sustainable financial interventions must focus on the farmers and the ecosystem around them and provide all relevant actors with incentives to deliver financial services (Villalba et al. 2023 ). Further, for upscaling CSA practices, local stakeholders must be involved in designing, delivering, and financing interventions (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019 ; Nazirul et al. 2019 ; Neufeldt et al. 2015 ). Thus, financing of CSA can differ between countries and might need to be custom-made as per the socioeconomic conditions of the farming communities. In India, various financial alternatives specifically designed to cater to the credit needs for applying CSA practices and technologies have been developed in recent years.

In Table  2 , we present a compilation of the different interventions for smallholder farmers by sector (public, private, public-private) and pathway (direct, indirect, behavioral) for adopting CSA technologies in India. In the context of capital-intensive CSA technologies, one also needs to distinguish between financing the availability of the technology (e.g., helping a Customer Hire Center to buy a Happy Seeder) and financing the accessibility of the technology (e.g., allowing a farmer to hire the respective Happy Seeder). These financial programs and interventions require complementarity, coherence, and synergies between instruments and practices to ensure adequate financing for CSA models, particularly for smallholders. Further, programs should also factor in different combinations of CSA adoption and move beyond a single technology focus (Asante et al. 2024 ).

To explore the financing mechanisms used by farmers and other stakeholders to finance CSA technologies, we used a mixed-method approach that combined unique data collected from interviews, focus groups, and a farmers’ survey. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the data and identify the underlying pathways for financing the adoption of the Happy Seeder and the Laser Land Leveler in Haryana.

3.1 Case study area

Our case study focuses on the financing of CSA technologies in the district of Karnal in Haryana. The district lies in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and faces high agricultural vulnerability to climate variability and environmental challenges. In recent years, farmers in the region have experienced depletion of water tables, reductions in water use efficiency, and soil health deterioration due to the decline in micronutrient levels in the soil (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ; Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2016 ; Phogat et al. 2020 ). Additionally, the region struggles to address residue burning, as growers in the area engage in the paddy residue burning in situ. This generates severe negative externalities such as air pollution, loss of crucial plant nutrients, and destruction of soil organic matter, and adds to GHG emissions associated with agricultural production (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT 2014 ; Phogat et al. 2020 ).

Agricultural production in Karnal focuses on rice and wheat and is dominated by small and marginal farmers, who represent 68% of all farming households (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 2022 ). To address the challenges faced by changing climatic events and natural resources, Karnal has been selected as a Climate-Smart hub in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, hosting national agricultural research programs, government run-pilot programs, and 27 Climate-Smart Villages (CSV) spread across four blocks. In this district, the CSV model was implemented in a joint partnership between CCAFS-CIMMYT, under the support of the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) and involved other key institutions such as the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), and the Regional Station of CCS Haryana Agricultural University (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ).

As Climate-Smart Agriculture technologies must be customized to specific agroecological and socioeconomic conditions to ensure locally viable and extensive solutions (Lipper et al. 2014 ), we study CSA technology adoption within a Climate-Smart Village setting in Karnal. CSVs are community approaches to sustainable agriculture where farmers, researchers, and policymakers work together to develop local solutions that serve as a model for upscaling Climate-Smart Agriculture (Ghosh 2019 ). In turn, good practices are utilized by policymakers and practitioners for drawing lessons and synthesizing plans to scale up successful models. The concept of CSV was first piloted in 2011 by CCAFS in the Karnal district of Haryana state and the Vaishali district of Bihar state (Aryal et al. 2020 ). In Karnal, stakeholders have prioritized and implemented a mix of CSA interventions based on their perceived contributions to food security, climate risk management, adaptation, and mitigation potential (CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ). Among the CSA technologies available in the area, the Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler have been prioritized for their high potential for impact and adoption.

3.2 Data collection

The data were collected between July and September 2022 from four blocks in Karnal in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The four blocks were Gharaunda, Indri, Nissing, and Nilokheri, which are part of the Karnal districts where CSA Villages have been promoted and where farmers have already been exposed to the Happy Seeder and the Laser Land Leveler (Fig.  1 ). In Karnal, the pilot started with four villages in 2012, and by 2015, it was scaled to 27 villages in Nilokheri, Indri, Gharaunda, and Nissing blocks (Aryal et al. 2020 ; CGIAR, CCAFS, CIMMYT  2014 ). As farmers were familiar with both technologies and some had adopted them, this allowed us to explore the pathways they followed to finance them.

Study blocks in Karnal district in Haryana, India

We used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to gather data from key stakeholders and farmers in the four blocks in Karnal (Table  3 ). First, we conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with representatives from the State Agriculture Department, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Banks, research institutions, and private money lenders. We also used snowball sampling to interview additional stakeholders via referrals from the first group of participants. This allowed us to identify influential stakeholders from Farmer Producer Organizations, Government machinery dealers, and Custom Hiring Centers. The latter refers to machinery owners who offer mechanization services customized to the needs of farmers who cannot afford their machinery. Custom Hiring Centers usually dispose of essential equipment for land preparation, sowing, and harvesting and represent a popular alternative for smallholders to access machinery in India, in particular for high-cost farm machinery, such as combine harvesters, Laser Land Levelers, rotavator, and paddy transplanter (Daum et al. 2021 ). We also conducted 2 Focus Group Discussions with farmers to discuss the impact of CSA technologies at the community level and understand the drivers and barriers to the financial alternatives employed by them.

Finally, we surveyed wheat and rice producers to collect information about their adoption of CSA technologies and the mechanisms they use to finance them. We selected these two crops as the rice-wheat production system is used by approximately 65% of the farmers in Haryana (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 2022 ). We designed a standardized questionnaire using the World Bank’s software Survey Solutions and collected the data using Android-based smartphones. The survey included questions on household demographics, agricultural production, farmers’ perceptions of climate change, availability of financial services, and access to CSA technologies and mechanisms to finance them Footnote 1 . To analyze the quantitative data, we used Stata MP17. All farmers were located in the Karnal district, in the four different blocks, and the sampling was performed as follows: (1) within each block, we purposefully selected three villages based on the criteria that farmers belonged to one of the CSV and had been exposed to information about CSA technologies; and (2) in each village, a total of 10 farmers were randomly selected based on lists provided by CIMMYT. A total of 30 households were surveyed in each block, generating 120 households surveyed in the case study area.

3.3 Data analysis

The qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed using a case study approach. Case studies typically combine different data sources (e.g., interviews, surveys, and observations) and develop a novel, testable, and valid theory about new topics (Eisenhardt 1989 ). Moreover, as case study research aims to understand the nature of the research problem instead of quantifying observed characteristics (Glaser and Strauss 1967 ), we aim to gather a holistic view of the financing of climate-smart agriculture technologies. Within the GAO ( 1990 ) description of case study research, our study can be best categorized as illustrative with a single-case study design. It is noteworthy to mention that among the limitations of case studies are the overwhelming amount of data that can result in empirical evidence that is overly complex (Eisenhardt 1989 ), susceptibility to case selection (Fletcher and Plakoyiannaki 2011 ; Seawright and Gerring 2008 ), and risk of narrow theories that describe very idiosyncratic phenomena and from which it is difficult to raise any level of generality (Ton et al. 2010 ).

To evaluate the data that emerged during the stakeholder interviews and focus groups, we used different qualitative data analysis methods, which allowed us to explore the case in Haryana in-depth while permitting the emergence of new topics. Single-case designs allow for interpretive approaches using inductive and interactive processes and are optimal for developing a contextualized understanding of an empirical setting (Fletcher and Plakoyiannaki 2011 ). To ensure methodological rigor, we followed the grounded theory as applied by Gioia et al. ( 2013 ). In this methodological approach, data are divided into two rounds of analysis: in the first one, we followed an inductive approach by letting codes emerge as data collection progressed (Miles et al. 2014 ); and in the second one, we generated thematic statements based on commonality. Moreover, along with the qualitative analysis process, we followed the evaluation standards of qualitative research, which included data collection until a point of saturation (persistent observations), discussions with research peers (peer debriefing), and research participants and experts (member checks). Finally, the different data sources facilitated the triangulate of data, ensuring credibility and confirmability (Bitsch 2005 ).

In this section, we present the farmer’s characteristics and access to CSA technologies (4.1) and (4.2); the financing pathways farmers use to finance Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler (4.3); the role played by different stakeholders in financing CSA technologies (4.4); and the key drivers and barriers to accessing financing for these technologies in the study area (4.5).

4.1 Household characteristics

Table  4 presents an overview of the characteristics of agricultural households in the sample. Household heads were, on average, 45 years old and were male. The average household had 6.4 members, and 93% belonged to the General caste. In India, the caste system is one important social indicator that can directly influence access to information and technology (Rajam et al. 2021 ). Moreover, household heads had 10.5 years of education on average, indicating they completed secondary education, and 23% of the population obtained education beyond the secondary level. Membership at a community-based organization (e.g., FPO or cooperative) was reported at 47%.

Regarding the production and economic characteristics, 85% of the households reported having off-farm income. We also captured data about the households’ distance to the nearest market and to the closest financial institution, as these represent measures of farmer’s accessibility to inputs and knowledge and play a crucial role in the adoption of technologies. The village markets ( Mandi) were located at a mean distance of 6.75 km. Mandis are essential for financial transactions as private moneylenders usually operate in them. The formal financial institutions (mainly banks) were located in a radius of 1.99 km. Further, farmers cultivated 10.15 hectares on average, with 13% being marginal farmers.

Regarding access to finance, farmers in the region access formal credit services from different sources. First, the Kisan Credit Card (KCC), a short-term credit instrument, is extremely popular among farmers, with 73% reportedly using it. However, since it offers limited credit in terms of monetary value per season, it is often insufficient to meet all the financial needs of farmers. In the study area, 88% of the households reported having short-term loans from commercial banks and 12% from cooperatives. Access to informal credit services, which are used in parallel with formal financial services, was reported at 48% and came mainly from private money lenders. Lastly, access to savings accounts was nearly universal at 99%, while crop insurance was reported at 22%.

4.2 Factors associated with the adoption of CSA technologies

In what refers to the adoption pathways used by farmers to access Laser Land Leveler and the Happy Seeder, adoption rates were reported at 77% and 52%, respectively (Table  5 ). To adopt CSA technologies, farmers tend to opt for ownership or hiring. For Laser Land Leveler, farmers reported an ownership rate of 6.5%, among which 5.5% offer mechanization services to other farmers and 1% use it exclusively at their farms. Machinery hiring was preferred by 92.5% of the farmers, with Custom Hiring Centers being the predominant provider. Regarding the Happy Seeder, 21% of the households owned this machinery, with 16% providing mechanization services to fellow farmers. Similar to the Laser Land Leveler, 79% of households preferred hiring the Happy Seeder, primarily from Custom Hiring Centers (96%) and to a lesser extent from Cooperatives or FPOs (4%).

A probit model was conducted to explore the underlying factors influencing farmers’ decisions to own the Happy Seeder and the Laser Land Leveler (Table  6 ). The results suggest that older household heads have a significantly lower probability of adoption, whereas household size seems to increase the likelihood of ownership substantially. Other socio-demographic variables, such as gender of household head and caste, were omitted in the model as all households that reported machinery ownership had a male head and belonged to the General caste.

We find that group membership in local agricultural institutions, such as cooperatives or Farmer Producer Organizations, reduces the likelihood of ownership of both technologies. In line with previous literature about CSA technologies (Aryal et al. 2019 , 2020b ; Zhou et al. 2023 ), this may reflect that households that belong to farmer groups face lower transaction costs and prefer to hire mechanization services. Farm households with off-farm income show a higher probability of owning the Laser Land Leveler; however, this does not stand for the Happy Seeder. This might reflect that, due to the higher price of the Laser Land Leveler, only households with diversified sources of income can afford to buy this technology. Moreover, farm size and land ownership positively influence the likelihood of purchasing CSA technologies. This suggests that larger farms foresee the use of machinery to reduce manual labor, which allows them to ensure timeliness and agricultural operations and reduce vulnerability to labor shortages. Further, this might also show that farmers who own larger plots have higher collateral that can be used to finance technology adoption. As suggested in previous research, better-endowed households are often more likely to adopt technologies, particularly capital-intensive machinery (Aryal et al. 2019 ; Daum and Birner 2017 ).

While households far from markets tend to be less likely to adopt CSA technologies (Aryal et al. 2018 , 2019 , 2020b ), this variable did not influence ownership decisions in our sample. Similarly, distance from financial institutions did not impact household ownership decisions. Notably, we find that access to formal and informal sources of credit did not influence the households’ decisions for ownership of CSA technologies. This could suggest that the availability of custom hiring services for CSA technologies reduces the farmers’ necessity of ownership, but it increases the demand for immediate cash for hiring these services.

4.3 Financing pathways for CSA adoption

Based on the qualitative interviews and focus groups, we identified three primary alternatives to access CSA technologies: individual purchases, individual hiring, and group purchases. These are presented in light of the three financial pathways used to access CSA technologies.

4.3.1 Direct pathways

As the interviewees reported, individual purchases are challenging due to bureaucratic procedures, lack of collateral, and unsuitable subsidies for individual farmers. Moreover, as shown in Table  7 , the price after subsidy for individual purchase is INR 62,500 (USD 750) for the Happy Seeder and INR 420,000 (USD 5,090) for the Laser Land Leveler, which for some farmers can still be too high for acquiring CSA technology. Further, individual purchases can remain problematic because of the potential difficulty of complying with all the steps and transaction costs involved in the subsidy application process. For group purchases, access to finance was classified as moderately challenging. Group members can access higher governmental support than individual purchases and bring their share of money from their existing Kisan Credit Card (KCC) or borrow from personal networks. Nevertheless, as reported by the study participants, this purchase option also entails high transaction costs.

4.3.2 Indirect pathways

We identify several indirect pathways, including family lending, subsidies, and investments in capacity building. As part of the interviews and focus groups, Individual Hiring was considered easier to access finance due to the discounted prices, which makes it more affordable for farmers. Farmers can hire CSA technologies and pay the costs from their savings or existing KCC limits. Moreover, if hiring services are available in the area, they can avoid bureaucratic procedures, including applications to banks and government departments. The reported prices in Table  7 indicate that for individual hiring, farmers can access the Laser Land Leveler for INR 1,062 per hour and the Happy Seeder for INR 1,136 per acre.

4.3.3 Behavioral pathways

Farmers also use more innovative financial products, such as crop insurance and mobile money, which can improve access to finance for CSA technologies. Crop insurance, such as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), has the potential to provide farmers with a safety net against crop failures, helping them avoid financial losses and improve their financial stability. While the adoption of PMFBY is still evolving, and there is still a need to create much awareness about the coverage criteria and benefits, its introduction has been a significant step towards improving farmers’ financial security. Furthermore, mobile banking platforms are also becoming common, making it easier and more convenient for farmers, especially those in remote areas, to access financial services. This has helped to overcome the challenges associated with traditional banking, such as the need to visit a bank branch in person, and has made it easier for farmers to manage their finances. We summarize the existing financial instruments and their benefits and limitations in Table  8 .

4.4 The role of stakeholders in CSA financing and adoption

Based on the interviews and focus group discussions, we identified four key stakeholders in financing and adopting CSA technologies, who play different roles in knowledge dissemination and capacity building, financial service provision, and machinery supply. The roles of the key stakeholders include the following:

4.4.1 Governmental institutions

The government is critical in financing Climate-Smart Agriculture technologies by creating an enabling environment. Government policies and programs that provide subsidies, transfers, or incentives can facilitate farmers’ access to CSA technologies. Subsidies, in particular, have been an essential tool for promoting technology adoption. Custom Hiring Centers (CHCs) are one example of successful government interventions that have played a critical role in securing farmers’ access to CSA while ensuring financial support. CHCs, typically composed of 8–10 farmers, are independent or part of a farmer-producer organization. The primary goal of CHCs is to provide a range of expensive machinery, including a tractor and operator, to farmers at subsidized rates, facilitating access to hiring services for various agricultural implements such as Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler. Subsidizing CHCs proves advantageous as it allows small farmers to rent CSA equipment rather than own it, thus alleviating the financial burden on those lacking the resources to purchase them. Following the purchase and setup, CHCs establish fixed rental charges per implement, extending rental services to other small and marginal farmers in the vicinity.

4.4.2 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO)

FPOs, groups of smallholder farmers who pool resources and gain access to service, play a critical role. In our case study, one of the FPOs provides diverse services to 4–5 villages, including agriculture advisory, custom hiring services, a processing plant, and an agriculture input shop where farmers can purchase input on credit. Through the CHC, the FPO offers subsidized rental services for Happy Seeder to local member farmers. Further, when collateral is unavailable, the FPO can often leverage its higher bargaining power to reduce the interest rate. Thus, FPOs can serve as a platform for farmers to collaborate and access financing for CSA technologies.

4.4.3 Commercial banks

Commercial banks have emerged as the foremost source of finance for fulfilling the agricultural needs of farmers in the study area. This prevalence can be attributed to the relatively lower interest rates offered by commercial banks compared to private money lenders, the availability of a diverse range of financial services, and the presence of public sector banks close to villages. Further, the Kisan Credit Card (KCC), a short-term revolving credit offered to farmers for agriculture-related purposes, is extremely popular. The interest rate in Haryana under the KCC scheme is 7%, of which the government subsidizes 4%.

4.4.4 Private moneylenders

Private moneylenders or commission agents are also a popular source of credit for farmers. Surprisingly, despite the availability of formal financial institutions, farmers often prefer to take credit from private moneylenders. Moneylenders are usually well-known to the farmers, and the two parties have a sense of trust and familiarity. Moreover, getting credit from a private moneylender is easier and faster than from a formal financial institution, as no paperwork is involved. Additionally, many private moneylenders act as the sellers of agri-inputs and the buyers of agricultural produce, making it convenient for farmers to transact with them. Farmers reported that the principal amount of the loan varies and is determined mainly by their farm and family needs. In the blocks included in the study area, interest rates charged by private moneylenders range from 12% to as high as 70%, the most common being 24%. However, the interest rate may vary depending on the reputation and relationship of the farmer with the intermediary.

4.5 Drivers and barriers to accessing finance for CSA technologies

4.5.1 drivers for accessing finance for csa technologies.

Respondents claimed that government subsidies enhance access to finance for adopting CSA technologies. Based on discussions with agriculture experts and farmer groups, we found evidence that Karnal’s climate-smart villages result from a partnership between the government, private sector, and civil society. This partnership highlights how integrating resources and expertise can create an enabling environment for adopting sustainable agriculture practices. Local institutions such as Custom Hiring Centers (CHCs) and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are critical in supporting farmers’ access to CSA technologies and finance. CHCs provided farmers with access to mechanization services, allowing them to adopt CSA practices that require specialized machinery. Therefore, CHCs reduce the upfront costs of adopting CSA practices and make them more accessible to farmers. FPOs allow farmers to access credit, CHC services, technical assistance, training, and capacity building, which helps them to develop realistic business plans and manage their finances effectively. Finally, innovative financial products such as the Kisan Credit Card, mobile money, and insurance have partially helped overcome traditional banking challenges.

4.5.2 Barriers to accessing finance for CSA technologies

Our investigation revealed several noteworthy challenges in financing Climate-Smart Agriculture technologies in the study area. The results suggest that key challenges arise from five categories: (i) collateral and bureaucratic hurdles: a primary challenge is the lack of suitable collateral for securing loans. This is exacerbated by bureaucratic processes, which often create hurdles for farmers in accessing financing opportunities. (ii) Suboptimal subsidy framework: as reported by the stakeholders, the current subsidy design is still influenced by caste and land ownership, potentially excluding those who genuinely need support. Furthermore, while tractor-mounted equipment is a focal point, the absence of a subsidy for the tractors and fuel creates an imbalance in the support structure. (iii) Informal finance exploitation: despite its high rates, this source of finance often remains more accessible than formal options for many farmers. (iv) Immediate cash needs vs. complex bank processes: the need for immediate cash contrasts starkly with the complex and paperwork-intensive procedures associated with obtaining loans from banks. The protracted processing time can deter farmers from pursuing formal financing; (v) Insufficient financial documentation: the lack of proper financial records and documentation among farmers further complicates matters for formal financial institutions. The absence of tangible data to assess repayment capacity leaves banks with limited information, prompting them to impose stricter terms and collateral prerequisites.

5 Discussion

Linking drivers with barriers in the adoption of CSA technologies among smallholder farmers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains reveals a complex interplay shaping their decision-making processes. While farmers may be driven by the potential benefits of technologies like the Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler, several barriers hinder their widespread adoption. Farmers recognize CSA technologies’ environmental advantages, yet financial constraints pose a significant barrier to adopt them. In particular, smallholder farmers often lack the necessary funds to invest in CSA technologies. Given the capital-intensive nature of CSA technologies, it is crucial to understand the financial mechanisms for their adoption.

Using a case study of Haryana in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, we analyze current financing mechanisms, challenges, and opportunities for two CSA technologies, which differ in usage patterns and financing requirements. A unique feature of this case study was the setting of climate-smart-villages, which represents a partnership between various stakeholders. We find that in the study region, adoption rates for the Laser Land Leveler were 77% and for the Happy Seeder 52%. Adoption rates in our sample are higher than in previous CSA literature, where adoption was reported at 54.5% for Laser Land Leveler in Haryana (Aryal et al. 2020 ) and 38% for Happy Seeder in Punjab (Singh et al. 2021 ).

Our study presents insights into the case of Climate-Smart Villages in Haryana, where farmers, research institutions, financial institutions, and other stakeholders have partnered to enhance the adoption of CSA technologies. While the results shed light on how this case study operates, CSA practices are context and area-specific, and the findings might not be generalizable to all regions of India, particularly those with less governmental support. Each agricultural system has unique challenges; therefore, CSA practices should be tailored to meet each system’s needs and constraints (Lipper et al. 2014 ; Mizik 2021 ; NAFCC 2016 ). In addition, the successful adoption of CSA practices requires an enabling policy environment that supports the uptake of CSA practices (McCarthy et al. 2018 ; Neufeldt et al. 2015 ; Ruben et al. 2019 ).

The case study shows several findings that may serve as policy recommendations for decision-makers:

Governments play a critical role in promoting the adoption of CSA practices through developing and implementing policies that support the uptake of CSA practices, such as subsidies, tax incentives, and supportive regulatory frameworks. These programs address some of the critical challenges for farmers as they alleviate some collateral issues by pooling resources and expertise to facilitate access to finance. However, to ensure that all farmers can benefit from such programs, it is essential to adapt them to the financial constraints of farmers, which may again vary according to location (Birthal et al. 2017 ; Villalba et al. 2023 ).

The study shows that innovative financial products, such as the Kisan Credit Card and mobile money, partially address traditional banking challenges. As financially constrained farmers may struggle to access credit or other financing options to finance machinery and CSA technologies due to strict eligibility criteria or paperwork (Aryal et al. 2020 , 2020b ; Bhattarai et al. 2017 ; Daum et al. 2021 ; Daum and Birner 2017 ), the diversification in financial options helps farmers overcome immediate cash needs and navigate the complexities of formal banking processes. Nevertheless, as these instruments offer limited credit in terms of monetary value per season, they are insufficient to meet all the financial needs of farmers and need to be combined with loans from commercial banks, cooperatives, or moneylenders.

Custom Hiring Centers (CHCs) are vital in driving large-scale implementation and adoption of CSA practices at the community level. The results indicate that affordability is not always a significant challenge, as farmers are willing to use a mix of financial instruments to access CSA technologies through CHC. By pooling resources and sharing equipment and machinery, farmers can access the necessary CSA technologies without incurring the significant upfront costs of ownership. Notably, if rentals are not standardized, they may be more expensive in the long run, leading to declining adoption levels. It is also noteworthy that ownership provides farmers complete control over the technology and use when required, which may be more cost-effective in the long run but requires a significant upfront investment and may not be feasible for all farmers.

6 Conclusion

Given the capital-intensive nature of CSA technologies, it is essential to understand how finance can pose a barrier to their adoption. Considering this barrier, we analyze current financing mechanisms, challenges, and opportunities for two CSA technologies (Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler), which differ in usage patterns and financing requirements. Overall, we find that adoption rates are relatively high (77% and 52%, respectively) and that farmers primarily rent technologies from Custom-Hiring Centers. Our findings suggest opportunities for supporting CSA rental through government subsidies and cooperatives. As most of these CSA technologies are rented rather than owned, a large amount of credit and collateral is not necessary for farmers. However, they require immediate access to smaller amounts of credit to afford hiring CSA technologies. Hence, we recommend that governmental initiatives factor in this aspect.

Our findings highlight the need for more robust knowledge transfer and capacity building. In particular, there is a need to centralize information about banks and their financial products and policy instruments (e.g., subsidies). This can be disseminated through various channels: custom hiring centers, farmer groups, formal banks, research institutions, or jointly through partnerships. This can be achieved through awareness campaigns, training sessions, and creating training material (if possible in the local language) that specifically focuses on educating farmers about the financing options, their eligibility requirements, and in which activities they could be utilized. Training can also improve adaptive capacity and reduce climate risk, and policymakers should promote their expansion in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (Venus et al. 2022 ). In light of the high usage of mobile phones, stakeholders could jointly create a digital interface that collects the many financial mechanisms available for a specific CSA technology. Such a tool could give farmers a thorough perspective of their funding possibilities and enable them to make informed decisions. They can also consider a match-making option, in which farmers can select the technology they want to own/adopt, along with some customizable options (like want to hire/own, want subsidy or not, public or private sector bank), and receive a recommendation about the financial instruments that could be utilized, along with the description about interest rates, repayment terms, and eligibility conditions.

Finally, given the exploratory nature of our study, we recommend that future research focus on the efficacy of different finance channels and their causal impact on the adoption of technology.

Moreover, while there is strong evidence that CSA implementation enhances productivity (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2017 ; Vatsa et al. 2023 ), new findings suggest that associated changes in land use can substantially alter net climate effects (Lobell and Villoria 2023 ). Therefore, dealing with these scenarios will require innovation in financing and policy. Further, the trade-offs and synergies associated with CSA practices should be explored at the farm level (Antwi-Agyei et al. 2023 ) but also at the policy, governance, environment, and energy levels (Singh et al. 2024 ).

Data Availability

The data supporting this study’s findings are not publicly available to protect the privacy of the stakeholders surveyed and interviewed. Data are, however, available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Key questions on CSA technologies (Happy Seeder and Laser Land Leveler) availability and finance included the following:  (i) Which of the CSA technologies did you implement in the last year?; (ii) How did you access to the CSA technology?; (iii) If you own the CSA technology, how did you finance its purchase?; (iv) From whom did you receive the financial services/loans to purchase the CSA technology?; (v) In case you do not own the CSA technologies, what were your reasons for not purchasing them?

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank CIMMYT and ICRISAT for their contribution in the case study design and data collection in Haryana.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. The first and second authors of the manuscript received financial support from the project “Value Chain Finance for Climate Smart Agriculture” (VCFCSA), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education within the Bioeconomy International initiative (FKZ: 031B0844).

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Villalba, R., Joshi, G., Daum, T. et al. Financing Climate-Smart Agriculture: a case study from the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 29 , 33 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-024-10127-3

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Received : 31 August 2023

Accepted : 13 March 2024

Published : 03 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-024-10127-3

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