Public Sector Capacity for Climate Action in Asia: What Does City Governance Need?

About this event

City and provincial governments across Asia are where national climate ambitions become operational plans. What does city governance need to deliver on them? This session frames that question as one of institutional architecture: the human, knowledge, tools, relational, and financial layers that convert a policy commitment into delivery. Each layer draws on a mix of actors, government bodies, intergovernmental agencies, CSOs, and private partners, whose roles shift with what the layer requires. These layers hold when they are sustained and built into government practice, able to outlast any single office or funding cycle. How do these layers take shape and interact across geographies? Mapping these variations surfaces combinations that deliver and the gaps that recur across contexts. The session is organised by Monsoon Academy, the capacity-building arm of Transitions Research, in collaboration with C40 and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), drawing on their work with climate cells and city networks across South and Southeast Asia to ground this mapping in practice and bring city and provincial governance closer to the mechanisms that carry policy intent through to delivery