In research on climate governance, increasing attention is given to the potential role of subnational governments as loci of bottom-up policy innovation. This article looks at the role that the Belgian subnational governments can play, from the perspective of the Belgian federal architecture. The findings point out that the Belgian subnational governments do not act as laboratories of experimentation. On the one hand, climate change touches upon political sensitivities that hijack the intergovernmental cooperative mechanisms. On the other hand, the policy-making opportunities of federalism are constrained by the low ambitions on climate change of political actors at all levels, and the system at the same time allows them to maintain those low ambitions. It is argued that the complexities of the Belgian system favour status quo policies for climate change, which makes this analysis a crucial case in the multi-level governance of climate change.

在气候治理研究中，人们越来越关注地方政府作为自下而上的政策创新场所的潜在作用。本文从比利时联邦架构的角度考察了比利时地方政府可以发挥的作用。调查结果指出，比利时地方政府不充当实验实验室。一方面，气候变化触及劫持政府间合作机制的政治敏感性。另一方面，联邦制的决策机会受到各级政治行为者对气候变化的雄心勃勃的野心的限制，同时该制度还使他们能够保持这些野心。