TY - JOUR A1 - Bansard, Jennifer S. A1 - Pattberg, Philipp H. A1 - Widerberg, Oscar T1 - Cities to the rescue? Assessing the performance of transnational municipal networks in global climate governance JF - International environmental agreements: politics, law and economics N2 - Despite the proliferation and promise of subnational climate initiatives, the institutional architecture of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) is not well understood. With a view to close this research gap, the article empirically assesses the assumption that TMNs are a viable substitute for ambitious international action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It addresses the aggregate phenomenon in terms of geographical distribution, central players, mitigation ambition and monitoring provisions. Examining thirteen networks, it finds that membership in TMNs is skewed toward Europe and North America while countries from the Global South are underrepresented; that only a minority of networks commit to quantified emission reductions and that these are not more ambitious than Parties to the UNFCCC; and finally that the monitoring provisions are fairly limited. In sum, the article shows that transnational municipal networks are not (yet) the representative, ambitious and transparent player they are thought to be. KW - Climate change KW - Cities and regions KW - Urban politics KW - Transnational networks Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-016-9318-9 SN - 1567-9764 SN - 1573-1553 VL - 17 SP - 229 EP - 246 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER -