ABSTRACT The European Green Capital (EGC) award has become a familiar feature in a polycentric sustainability governance landscape increasingly characterized by fragmentation and voluntary initiatives. Unclear accountability for translocal connections renders these initiatives at risk of locking unsustainable practices into transitions. Seeking clarity, this paper examines accountability through the lenses of material dislocation and discursive construction in an assessment of Oslo’s (2019) and Lisbon’s (2020) winning EGC entries. How can the EGC distinction better enable substantive urban sustainability, situating claims within wider energy transitions in these capital regions? Within the award’s circumscribed focus on urban centres, do cities account for cognitive and material dislocation through their discursive emphases and telecoupling respectively? Does the EGC catalyse change, brand the capture of low-hanging fruit, or spatially dislocate rather than reduce emissions? We argue that it propagates a focus on optimizing local sustainability effects, while rarely accounting for larger translocal or cross-scalar repercussions. Hence, urban sustainability strategies risk spatially dislocating socio-ecologically unsustainable practices rather than decreasing emissions systemically. Cities need to institute accountability mechanisms that reshape the geographies of responsibility for the systemic and translocal impacts of urban sustainability initiatives, which the EGC could promote by, e.g. including emission indicators for consumption and aviation.

中文翻译：

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欧洲绿色首都：品牌塑造、空间错位还是变革催化剂？

摘要 欧洲绿色资本 (EGC) 奖已成为多中心可持续治理格局中的一个熟悉的特征，该格局日益以分散和自愿举措为特征。对跨本地连接的责任不明确，使这些举措面临将不可持续的做法锁定在转型中的风险。为求清晰，本文通过评估奥斯陆（2019 年）和里斯本（2020 年）的 EGC 获奖作品时，通过物质错位和话语建构的视角来检验问责制。EGC 的区别如何更好地实现实质性的城市可持续性，将索赔置于这些首都地区更广泛的能源转型中？在该奖项对城市中心的限定关注范围内，城市是否分别通过其话语重点和远程耦合来解释认知和物质错位？EGC 是否会催化变化、为捕获低垂的果实打上烙印，还是在空间上错位而不是减少排放？我们认为它宣传了对优化本地可持续性影响的关注，而很少考虑更大的跨本地或跨标量影响。因此，城市可持续性战略可能会在空间上错位社会生态不可持续的做法，而不是系统地减少排放。城市需要建立问责机制，重塑城市可持续性举措的系统性和跨地区影响的责任地域，EGC 可以通过例如包括消费和航空的排放指标来促进这一点。