How cities and states can lead the shift to climate resilience

On June 24th, during London Climate Action Week, David Gunn chaired a timely discussion with three subnational leaders, Mayor Eileen Higgins of Miami, Secretary Wade Crowfoot of California, and Governor Prince Bassey Edet Otu of Cross River State Nigeria. This discussion examined how subnational leaders are taking decisive action to drive climate resilience as national and geopolitical contexts grow more volatile and uncertain.

Three key themes emerged from discussion, in particular subnational agency, national-scale incoherence, and nature-based innovations.

The context specific nature of climate impacts such as Miami’s “sunny day flooding”, California’s “millennial droughts” and Cross River State’s shifting rainy seasons often mean that subnational governments are the first responders in the face of climate disaster. Leaders at this level not only bear the brunt of climate impacts but also deploy vital resources that can help adaptation and resilience. Mayor Higgins detailed Miami’s plans to incentivize resilient building design, Crowfoot described California’s legacy of setting high independent air-quality standards, and Governor Otu highlighted how mini-grid and solar deployment are vital parts of Cross River State's climate plans. Local governments often have the kind of proximity-driven specificity in their approaches rather than abstract targets that national governments typically set. Leaders at this level can wield operational tools and tangible policy levers to have impact in ways that can be challenging at national scales.

All three panellists lamented the unsupportive and indifferent attitudes of their national and federal governments. A hostile US federal environment has driven leaders like Higgins and Crowfoot to take matters of climate into their own hands and find likeminded partners in the private sector, academic institutions, and civil society. In Governor Otu’s experience, leaning on horizontal and subnational networks like C40, the Under 2 Coalition, and the Governors’ Climate and Forest Taskforce allows for knowledge sharing, coordinated actions, and collective pressure on national governments to shift policy. In other instances, leaders like Mayor Higgins used her local authority to incentivise climate measures that state politics might otherwise not allow. It’s clear that leaders aren’t waiting for national coherence to arrive but instead creating lateral coherence and building local legitimacy that might eventually scale up to national support.

Embracing nature-based solutions was another key theme showing the ways in which sub-national agency drives resilience measures that are effective and responsive to the needs of local communities. Cross River State’s mangrove and reforestation programmes are key examples of adaptation measures that deliver climate resilience due to the proximity to communities and infrastructure. Others pointed to how collaboration with academic and philanthropic partners to explore innovations, like Miami’s partnership with the Nature Conservancy on coastal resilience planning, nature-based seawalls, and revitalising the Wagner Creek Basin. In a similar vein, California’s beaver restoration program has brought back the native species for the first time in 70 years to help manage water resources. While funding remains the primary constraint to subnational resilience efforts, leaders are leveraging nature-based solutions to balance immediate resilience needs with long-term transition goals.

The event was a hopeful reminder of what effective subnational governance looks like amid geopolitical fragmentation and fiscal pressure. To learn more about what panellists had to share, check out the link below to watch the full recording!