Adapting to climate change in different multilevel governance contexts: Governance and policy diffusion at the local level in two EU countries

Local actors are increasingly aware of climate change impacts and there is a demand for policy innovations that would help in coping with a range of new and in their scale often unprecedented challenges, such as heavy precipitation, drought, heat waves or floods. The local level plays a crucial role in climate change adaptation, as municipalities usually select, prepare, and implement adaptation policies. While municipalities have traditionally been strongly involved in managing risk and disaster response (e.g., through fire departments, health offices and so forth), significant additional efforts may be needed in order to govern climate change adaptation beyond business as usual. Particularly when impacts become more severe, the resources of individual municipalities may not suffice and fairness demands broader support. Therefore, actors at higher governance levels are increasing their efforts to engage municipalities in adapting to climate change and to scale up local solutions. However, we lack knowledge on how municipalities respond to these efforts. Are there systematic differences in responses based on local characteristics, e.g. local resources? Which multilevel governance architectures are best suited for spreading adaptation policies and to promote equitable and just outcomes? To answer these questions, the present article assesses the contributions of different governance levels for the diffusion of local adaptation policies in Finland and the State of Hessen, Germany. Finland and Hessen are of comparable size, but their municipalities are embedded in very different multilevel governance architectures. Above all, Hessian municipalities, in contrast to Finnish municipalities, are dealing with an additional active climate policy maker at the federal state level that is not present in the centralized Finnish governance architecture. The analysis builds on both qualitative and quantitative data from the evaluation of the Finnish National Adaptation plan and an original survey administered to all 443 municipalities and counties of the State of Hessen. The results advance our understanding of the potential of policy diffusion and the necessary relationships across governance levels to spread effective and just solutions to climate change impacts.