Better Together(?): A Textual Study of Coordination Between National Actors and C40 Cities

As the planet warms, the most immediate and severe consequences are often felt in the places where people live most densely: cities. From rising heat to flooding, urban areas face unique threats that require careful planning to manage. For decades, the responsibility for solving the climate crisis has largely been viewed as a job for national governments, who sign international treaties and set broad rules. However, a parallel effort has grown among cities themselves, which have begun creating their own detailed blueprints for survival and sustainability. These documents, known as climate action plans, outline how a specific city intends to reduce pollution and prepare for extreme weather. While these local plans are becoming more common, a critical question remains: do the cities and the nations they belong to actually talk to each other? Without coordination, a city might promise to build a new subway line to reduce emissions, only to find that the national government controls the funding and the tracks, leaving the local plan stranded. Understanding whether these two levels of government are working together, or if they are operating in isolation, is essential for knowing if the world can effectively tackle climate change.

A researcher at the University of Copenhagen set out to investigate this exact relationship by reading the official documents of dozens of major cities and their corresponding countries. The study focused on a specific group of cities known as C40, a network of nearly one hundred of the world's largest urban centers that have committed to aggressive climate goals. The researcher compared the climate action plans written by these sixty-five cities against the national climate commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, written by the thirty-nine countries where these cities are located. By carefully reading through thousands of pages of text, the researcher looked for evidence that the city planners were explicitly naming national governments as partners, and vice versa. The goal was not just to count mentions, but to understand the nature of the relationship: are cities asking for help, blaming national failures, or simply ignoring the national level entirely?

The findings reveal a significant gap in cooperation. Out of the sixty-five cities studied, only forty-one percent included national actors as collaborators in their local climate plans. This means that in more than half of the cases, the city's blueprint for the future was written without explicitly planning for a working relationship with the country's central government. The study suggests that this lack of coordination is not random; it varies depending on where the city is located. Cities in the Global South, which often face more severe climate impacts and have different economic structures, were more likely to include national actors in their plans than cities in the Global North. In fact, cities in the Global South were also more likely to be mentioned in their country's national climate documents. In contrast, cities within the European Union mentioned national partners much less frequently, often operating as if their climate goals were entirely separate from national policy.

When cities did choose to include national governments in their plans, the collaboration usually centered on four specific areas: money, communication, utilities, and public works. The most common request was for financial support, with cities asking for national grants to fund infrastructure or help vulnerable residents. Communication was another key area, where cities sought help from national agencies to gather data on weather patterns or emissions, information that a single city often cannot collect on its own. The plans also frequently discussed utilities, such as energy grids, acknowledging that a city cannot switch to renewable power without national-level changes to the energy system. Finally, public works like transportation, water management, and waste disposal were identified as areas where local and national efforts must align to be effective.

However, the study also uncovered that mentioning a national partner does not always mean a positive relationship. In many documents, cities included national actors only to criticize them. Some plans pointed out that national governments had failed to provide necessary laws, had cut funding, or had ignored the importance of cities in their own climate strategies. In these cases, the mention of the national government served as a highlight of a broken system rather than a blueprint for teamwork. The researcher noted that this pattern of criticism was particularly visible in plans written after 2015, a time when cities began to assert more independence on the global stage, sometimes positioning themselves as leaders while national governments lagged behind.

Ultimately, the research demonstrates that while cities are taking climate action seriously, the connection between local and national levels remains weak and inconsistent. The data suggests that for climate plans to succeed, there is a need for much stronger coordination between the two levels of government. The study does not claim that cities are failing on their own, but rather that the current system of governance is fragmented. By identifying where the gaps are—whether in funding, data sharing, or infrastructure—the research provides a clear map of where international and national actors need to focus their efforts to support the cities that are on the front lines of the climate crisis.