Transnational Support for Urban Climate Adaptation: Emerging Forms of Agency and Dependency

Abstract

Transnational actors are critical for financing programs and generating awareness around climate change adaptation in cities. However, it is unclear whether transnational support actually enables more authority over adaptation actions and whether outcomes address wide-ranging development needs. In this article, I compare experiences from three cities in India—Surat, Indore, and Bhubaneswar—and link local political agency over adaptation with their supporting transnational funders. I find that adaptation governance involves powers of agency over directing bureaucratic practices, public finance, spatial strategies, and institutional culture. A city’s ability to exert these powers then yields different patterns of adaptation. However, political agency is circumscribed by a combination of historical political economic constraints and emerging transnational resources that promote specific forms of political meaning and procedures. The presence of external support therefore paradoxically constrains the governance autonomy of cities. This opens up new opportunities for development dependency—that is, ones that mirror neoliberal critiques of foreign aid—within the global marketplace for climate finance.

Superimposition: How Indian city bureaucracies are responding to climate change

“…Political and governance arrangements have inertias and path dependencies due to the prevalence of existing bureaucratic practices, vested interests, and dominating coalitions (Knox-Hayes, 2015;Knox-Hayes and Hayes, 2014;Seto et al, 2016). City governments can often find it hard to wrestle away from existing arrangements and adopt new planning and bureaucratic processes aimed at addressing new issues like climate change (Aylett, 2013), even when provided "external" incentives from transnational actors or the global climate regime (Anguelovski and Carmin, 2011;Bellinson and Chu, 2019;Chu, 2018;Gordon, 2018). This has led scholars to investigate the "internal", "innate", "endogenous", or local political dynamics and configurations of cities, and how they determine climate action (Aylett, 2013;Bellinson and Chu, 2019;Hodson et al, 2017;McGuirk et al, 2016;Ryan, 2015;van der Heijden et al, 2019), alongside other scholarship aimed at understanding the role of domestic and endogenous institutions in managing global environmental and climate change (Andonova et al, 2017;Fragkias and Boone, 2016).…”

“…This has led scholars to investigate the "internal", "innate", "endogenous", or local political dynamics and configurations of cities, and how they determine climate action (Aylett, 2013;Bellinson and Chu, 2019;Hodson et al, 2017;McGuirk et al, 2016;Ryan, 2015;van der Heijden et al, 2019), alongside other scholarship aimed at understanding the role of domestic and endogenous institutions in managing global environmental and climate change (Andonova et al, 2017;Fragkias and Boone, 2016). Such scholarship has emphasized the administrative, legal, policy, financial, and bureaucratic practices that are "entrenched" in cities, and remain influential in determining actions even when addressing novel objectives such as climate mitigation and adaptation (Anguelovski and Carmin, 2011;Chu, 2018;Ryan, 2015). The features and characteristics of city climate responses are largely determined by the specific political economy, socio-material, and institutional contexts that the cities are already embedded in, as opposed to the establishment of new governance arrangements to respond to climate change (Broto, 2017;Rutherford and Coutard, 2014).…”

“…As case studies of climate action have shown, identifying 'win-wins' between development and climate change can motivate responses (Fisher, 2012;Khosla and Bhardwaj, 2018). However, actions to simultaneously address climate and existing objectives, with entrenched practices, need not always be win-win, and can create perverse incentives, or reinforce unjust planning, development, and decision-making practices (Chu, 2018;Harrison and Kostka, 2018).…”

“…A comparative study across Durban, Quito, and Surat uncovered a diversity of approaches dependent on who the core driver of the process was and whether local government was organized to have a strong independent climate department or mandated participation (Anguelovski et al, 2014). While many have emphasized the role of non-state and transnational actors in motivating climate action in Global South cities (Fisher, 2012(Fisher, , 2014Fisher et al, 2018;Fünfgeld, 2015;Goh, 2019;Gordon, 2016;Khosla and Bhardwaj, 2018;Silver, 2017), the role of a city government's own agency remains critical (Borie et al, 2019;Chu, 2018;Heinrichs et al, 2013).…”

From funding to financing: perspectives shaping a research agenda for investment in urban climate adaptation

“…These sources often seek to bypass the institutional requirements associated with public funds while allowing for flexibility and autonomy to more comprehensively address multi-sectoral climate and development priorities. At the same time, however, many non-state funding sources have been critiqued for unclear accountability mechanisms, opportunities for elite capture, and limited capacities to provide consistent and sustained funding flows over time (Chu 2018). Although the diversity of funding sources and financing arrangements have catalyzed numerous opportunities for cities, this has also created confusion due to differences in how different funders quantify adaptation needs, delineate financing mechanisms, regulate accountable schemes, and support long-term public service provision.…”