This book examines the potential for cities, states and regions to take decisive action on climate change at the local level. Local action constitutes an essential component of global efforts to keep temperatures below the 2°C Paris Agreement threshold. Focusing on three green municipal leaders - New York, Boston and Paris - this volume examines their multilevel interactions with higher governance echelons in the United States and France. Even though these countries are located on different continents, similar patterns emerge on both sides of the Atlantic. This book explores the key role of municipalities and sub-state entities in shaping the climate policy agenda vis-à-vis national governments in the US and France. It argues that inadequate articulation of multilevel governance may jeopardize efforts to limit global temperature increase below the 2°C threshold by the end of the century.

Arnault Barichella is a post-doctoral researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Energy at the Université Paris-Saclay, where he works on local climate policies and hybrid hydrogen engines. He received his PhD in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris, with a thesis comparing multilevel climate governance in the US and France; he is an affiliated researcher at Sciences Pos Center for European Studies. Arnault obtained his Masters degree from Sciences Po Paris, his BA degree from Oxford University, and was awarded a visiting fellowship at Harvard University.

Introduction.- Chapter 1: Multilevel climate governance from the national to the sub-state level in the US.- Chapter 2: Multilevel climate governance from the municipal to the state level in the US.- Chapter 3: Multilevel climate governance from the national to the sub-state level in France.- Chapter 4: Multilevel climate governance from the municipal to the regional level in France.- Conclusion.