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As cities worldwide increasingly adopt commitments towards climate justice, questions remain about the ways that city governments will be able to fund more just climate efforts. While the use of novel debt financing schemes has been examined in the literature for its justice implications, scholars have rarely interrogated how the more mundane tools and practices of municipal finance can be applied to enable more just urban transitions. Here, we use the USA as a case study to analyse the impacts of climate change and climate action on municipal budgets and to examine how cities are adapting their financial tools and practices to advance climate action and climate justice efforts. We employ a mixed-methods research design that combines 34 expert interviews with a systematic content analysis of municipal budgets from 15 US cities of different sizes. We find that both climate change and climate action can contribute to cities’ fiscal vulnerability by imposing additional expenditures and/or reducing municipal revenues. While most cities lack transparency about their investments in climate action and climate justice, some city governments are implementingordinary innovationsthat embed climate and justice criteria into budgetary practices and funding tools. These ordinary innovations reveal that cities are beginning to reimagine municipal finance in the service of more just climate futures.
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This content will become publicly available on March 1, 2026
Renewable energy transitions from the ground up: Building a framework for local action despite limited state support
This study explores the factors that enable cities to navigate renewable energy (RE) transitions despite limited state support, using a qualitative case study of 13 Florida cities committed to 100 % RE goals. Adapting the Transition Management framework to the U.S. federalist context, we find that local actors overcome state regime barriers through polycentric governance. Local governments leverage their policymaking autonomy and dedicated sustainability offices to institutionalize RE efforts and implement local policy changes to support RE. Nonprofits not only act as advocates and information providers, but also serve as consultants to shape local policies and lead regional collaboration to secure external funding for RE, filling the gap left by the absence of state support. Additionally, local governments, utilities and nonprofits utilize diverse financing mechanisms for RE projects and choose RE and complementary technologies based on local financial and technical capacities. Energy justice principles are embedded in local programs and policymaking processes to promote distributional and procedural justice, and some of these efforts are driven by federal policies or non-state actors. These findings offer valuable insights into sustainable and equitable RE transitions, demonstrating the potential for local action to drive substantial progress, even in the absence of state-level support.
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- PAR ID:
- 10572007
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Cities
- Volume:
- 158
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0264-2751
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 105737
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- 100 % clean and renewable Limited state support Transition management Just transition Polycentric governance
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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