In this paper, we argue for an approach that goes beyond an institutional reading of urban climate governance to engage with the ways in which government is accomplished through social and technical practices. Central to the exercise of government in this manner, we argue, are ‘climate change experiments’– purposive interventions in urban socio‐technical systems designed to respond to the imperatives of mitigating and adapting to climate change in the city. Drawing on three different concepts – of governance experiments, socio‐technical experiments, and strategic experiments – we first develop a framework for understanding the nature and dynamics of urban climate change experiments. We use this conceptual analysis to frame a scoping study of the global dimensions of urban climate change experimentation in a database of 627 urban climate change experiments in 100 global cities. The analysis charts when and where these experiments occur, the relationship between the social and technical aspects of experimentation and the governance of urban climate change experimentation, including the actors involved in their governing and the extent to which new political spaces for experimentation are emerging in the contemporary city. We find that experiments serve to create new forms of political space within the city, as public and private authority blur, and are primarily enacted through forms of technical intervention in infrastructure networks, drawing attention to the importance of such sites in urban climate politics. These findings point to an emerging research agenda on urban climate change experiments that needs to engage with the diversity of experimentation in different urban contexts, how they are conducted in practice and their impacts and implications for urban governance and urban life.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development-including 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 Targets-is a global plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. SDG7 calls for action to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Here we characterise synergies and trade-offs between efforts to achieve SDG7, and delivery of the 2030 Agenda as a whole. We identify 113 Targets requiring actions to change energy systems, and published evidence of relationships between 143 Targets and efforts to achieve SDG7. Synergies and trade-offs exist in three key domains, where decisions about SDG7 affect humanity's ability to: (1) realise aspirations of greater welfare and wellbeing; (2) build physical and social infrastructures for sustainable development; and (3) achieve sustainable management of the natural environment. There is an urgent need to better organise, connect and extend this evidence, to help all actors work together to achieve sustainable development.

Highlights► A database analysis reveals urban climate change experimentation as a global trend. ► Experimentation is a recent trend not confined to specific world regions or cities. ► Although experimentation is heterogeneous, energy experiments predominate. ► Multiple actors, often through partnership, intervene in urban climate change governance. ► A characteristic trend of experimentation led by private actors emerges in Asia.

Summary The concept of urban metabolism, referring to the exchange processes that produce the urban environment, has inspired new ways of thinking about how cities can be made sustainable and has also raised criticisms about the specific social and economic arrangements in which some forms of flow are prioritized or marginalized within the city. This article explores how the concept of urban metabolism travels across disciplines, using a comparative analysis of different approaches to urban metabolism within industrial ecology, urban ecology, ecological economics, political economy and political ecology. The analysis reveals six main themes emerging within interdisciplinary boundaries in relation to urban metabolism, and how this concept enables new understandings of (1) the city as an ecosystem, (2) material and energy flows within the city, (3) economic–material relations within the city, (4) economic drivers of rural–urban relationships, (5) the reproduction of urban inequality, and (6) attempts at resignifying the city through new visions of socioecological relationships. The article suggests potential areas for cross‐disciplinary synergies around the concept of urban metabolism and opens up avenues for industrial ecology to engage with the politics and the governance of urban development by examining the city and its metabolism.

Citation for published item:fulkeleyD rrriet nd gst¡ n frotoD nes nd wssenD enne @PHIRA 9vowEron trnsitions nd the reon(gurtion of urn infrstrutureF9D rn studiesFD SI @UAF IRUIEIRVT F Further information on publisher's website:The nal denitive version of this article has been published in the journal Urban Studies, 51, 7, 2014 c SAGE Publications Ltd at the Urban Studies page: http://usj.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/ Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Low carbon transitions and the reconfiguration of urban infrastructure AbstractOver the past decade, a growing body of research has examined the role of cities in addressing climate change and the institutional and political challenges which they encounter. For the most part, in these accounts, the infrastructure networks, their material fabric, everyday practices and political economies, have remained unexamined. In this paper, we argue that this is a critical omission and develop an approach for understanding how urban responses to climate change both configure and are configured by infrastructure networks. Central to any such analysis is, we argue, the conception of how and why (urban) infrastructure networks undergo change. Focusing on urban energy networks and on the case of London, we argue for an analysis of the 'urban infrastructure regimes' and 'experiments' through which climate change is governed. We find that climate change experiments serve as a means through which dominant actors articulate and test new 'low carbon' logics for urban infrastructure development. We argue that experiments work by establishing new circuits, configuring actors in new sets of relations and through these means realizing the potential for addressing climate change in the city. At the same time, experiments become sites of conflict, a means through which new forms of urban circulation can be confined and marginalized, leaving dominant energy regimes (relatively) intact.

Citation for published item:fulkeleyD rFeF nd grminD toenn nd gst¡ n frotoD nes nd idwrdsD qreth eFF nd pullerD r @PHIQA 9glimte justie nd glol ities X mpping the emerging disoursesF9D qlol environmentl hngeFD PQ @SAF ppF WIREWPSF Further information on publisher's website: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Global Environmental Change. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in Global Environmental Change, 23, 5, 2013, 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.05.010. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

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