Around the world, cities have committed themselves to urban climate action strategies with targets that go beyond those of their national governments. To implement their strategies, cities have embraced a range of alternative governance instruments and approaches (‘governance alternatives’). While they have long been lauded by academics, policymakers, and practitioners for doing so, these ‘frontrunner’ cities are now being seen to struggle to achieve their ambitious targets when using governance alternatives. This article seeks to unpack and better understand this struggle by zooming in on the progress made in reducing (non-renewable) energy consumption in the built environment of three major cities in the United States (Chicago, New York, and San Francisco) over the last decade. Informed by interviews and supplementary data, the article uncovers a pattern across these three cities. In the early 2000s, they all set ambitious urban climate change targets, but lacked the power and capacity to achieve these. They all used a largely uncoordinated ‘scattergun approach’, embracing a broad set of (at best) modestly ambitious and (regularly) opportunistic governance alternatives to achieve the aims of their ambitious strategies. Whilst this approach allowed the cities to obtain quick initial results, the resulting fragmented configuration of traditional and alternative governance instruments and approaches now hinders them from meeting their targets.

中文翻译：

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当机会适得其反：探索在美国三个主要城市实施城市气候治理替代方案

在世界各地，城市都致力于城市气候行动战略，其目标超出了其国家政府的目标。为了实施他们的战略，城市采用了一系列替代治理工具和方法（“治理替代方案”）。虽然长期以来一直受到学者、政策制定者和从业者的称赞，但这些“领跑者”城市现在被视为在使用治理替代方案时难以实现其雄心勃勃的目标。本文旨在通过放大美国三个主要城市（芝加哥、纽约和旧金山）在减少（不可再生）建筑环境中的能源消耗方面取得的进展，来解开和更好地理解这场斗争。过去十年。根据访谈和补充数据，这篇文章揭示了这三个城市的模式。在 2000 年代初期，他们都制定了雄心勃勃的城市气候变化目标，但缺乏实现这些目标的力量和能力。他们都使用了一种很大程度上不协调的“散弹枪方法”，采用了广泛的（充其量）适度雄心勃勃和（经常）机会主义的治理替代方案，以实现其雄心勃勃的战略目标。虽然这种方法使城市能够快速获得初步结果，但由此产生的传统和替代治理工具和方法的分散配置现在阻碍了它们实现目标。采用一系列（充其量）适度雄心和（经常）机会主义的治理替代方案，以实现其雄心勃勃的战略目标。虽然这种方法使城市能够快速获得初步结果，但由此产生的传统和替代治理工具和方法的分散配置现在阻碍了它们实现目标。采用一系列（充其量）适度雄心和（经常）机会主义的治理替代方案，以实现其雄心勃勃的战略目标。虽然这种方法使城市能够快速获得初步结果，但由此产生的传统和替代治理工具和方法的分散配置现在阻碍了它们实现目标。