75 Am. U. L. Rev. 565 (2026).

Abstract

City climate change networks complicate common narratives about the local role in environmental and climate change governance in the United States. These networks—organizations with three or more member cities or representative city staff that share information and resources—are crucial actors in supporting the increasing interest in local climate change mitigation. Building upon prior scholarship addressing mayor-led networks and municipal collaborations, this Article considers how city climate networks challenge notions of local parochialism and rebut some critiques of local climate action. The Article also evaluates the growing importance of these networks in light of changes in federal climate policy, including the Inflation Reduction Act and recent Trump Administration efforts to undermine climate change mitigation efforts.

Drawing on interviews with over fifty sustainability directors and key staff members of climate change networks, this Article argues that networks must be understood as a critical component of U.S. climate governance and that their work undermines critiques of local climate leadership. After exploring common narratives of local parochialism and powerlessness as well as the academic debates over local climate action, the Article describes city climate networks and how these groups add further nuance to assessments of local power and local mitigation efforts. These groups suggest that many of the concerns about piecemeal local climate action are overblown, particularly in a new era of federal retreat on climate change mitigation efforts.

* Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the Sally Shallenberger Brown EELU Fund in funding my position as Program Director of the Energy, Environment & Land Use Program at Vanderbilt Law School. I am grateful for feedback I received from the participants of Columbia Law School’s 2023 Sabin Colloquium on Innovative Environmental Law Scholarship on a project that eventually morphed into this Article. Thank you also to the participants in the 2024 Natural Resources Law Teacher’s Institute scholarship lightning round and the 2024 Early Environmental Law Scholars Conference for their encouragement and thoughtful feedback. I am indebted to Dave Owen, Melissa Powers, Leehi Yona, Heather Payne, and Martin Lockman for their thoughtful comments and advice as I wrote and refined this article. Thank you also to Michael Vandenbergh, JB Ruhl, Linda Breggin, and Rebecca Allensworth for their support of my research. I am especially grateful to the city sustainability staff and network staff that participated in interviews. I am amazed by their tireless work on climate change, and I’m deeply appreciative of the time they took out of their universally busy schedules to speak with me. Finally, thank you to the American University Law Review editors for their outstanding work on this article. All errors are my own.