Knowledge Bank

Why do local governments become actively engaged in the issue of global climate change? How do global factors influence local governments' choices, policies, and interactions? These questions are puzzling in that local governments have been regarded as public service providers in the domestic arena; and studies on cities and climate change have primarily focused on domestic drivers to explain local governments' climate change policies. In this talk, I discuss translocal relations of cities that have made an international effort to collectively tackle climate change. Compared to state-centric terms, inter-national or trans-national relations, trans-local relations look at policies, politics, and interactions of local governments in the globalized world. Using the framework of translocal relations, I argue that the level of global cityness and local political attributes are primary driving factors for local governments' engagement in global climate governance in Asia as well as around the world.