Central government ambitions and local commitment: climate mitigation initiatives in four municipalities in Norway and Sweden

This comparison of the effects of national approaches to encouraging local climate mitigation initiatives in four municipalities in Norway and Sweden suggests that the development of such initiatives depend not only on the comprehensiveness and ambitions of central government efforts, but more crucially on characteristics of the targeted municipalities. We argue that local coalitions of committed individuals forming implementation structures of varying cohesiveness are important for understanding variations in the effects of government programmes on the development of local mitigation initiatives.

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