Explaining Variation in Local Heat Transition: Findings from a Survey of Municipal Heat Planning in Germany

Climate policy research has highlighted municipalities as key actors for advancing climate action. Yet they face significant regulatory, infrastructural, and financia constraints in decarbonising a technically demanding sector, such as building heating. Municipalities vary in their progress in addressing the heat transition, even under shared national frameworks. Existing studies demonstrated that variation arises from political, economic and institutional factors. Still, gaps in the literature remain in understanding what enables and impedes local climate mitigation, as studies focus predominantly on larger cities, offering little evidence of the challenges and capacities that small- and mid-sized municipalities face. Also, it remains unclear how multi-level governance structures shape municipalities' capacity to implement mandated policies. Focusing on heat planning in Germany, a cornerstone of the heat sector’s decarbonisation and a revealing indicator of local ambition in the energy transition, this paper asks: Why do some cities emerge as leaders while others lag in heat planning development? Drawing on an original nationwide survey of German municipalities, I examine how fiscal and administrative resources, political dynamics, higher-level governance frameworks and socio-economic conditions shape local trajectories. By linking debates on decentralisation, state-local relations and the political economy of the heat transition, the paper advances scholarship on urban and multi-level climate governance by highlighting the structural and institutional conditions that influenc varying local progress.