Multi-Level Governance of Climate Change: A case study of Istanbul

Sammanfattning: As climate change continues to threaten us more and more, different ways of governing climate change are considered. Multi-level governance approach is widely used in the literature to examine how global, national, and local actor interacts and influence each other. In this thesis I analyse how multi-level governance of climate change work in the case of Istanbul by adopting a powerbased approach. I conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, C40 network and Green Thought Association. Besides I qualitatively analysed documents from Turkish state, the municipality, and Green Thought Association. Findings suggest that the state holds regulatory power resources; therefore, the municipality has limited independence for implementing policies. Moreover, the laws that the municipality is subjected to does not address climate change adequately; thus, it prevents the municipality to access necessary financial resources. However, the collaborative relationship between the municipality and C40 increases the municipalities capacities through knowledge sharing. Enhanced interaction with civil society also increases the capacities of the municipality. I argue that, with the enhanced capacity, Istanbul could make effective advocacy towards the state to update the existing laws to be compatible with the climate change needs and put pressure on the state to do its share to contribute to global efforts to keep global warming at 2°C.