This paper will focus on climate governance in multi-level systems and compare the three main players in global climate governance. The paper starts from the assumption that multi-level systems can be governed by hierarchical, vertical, and horizontal coordination. In hierarchically coordinated systems top-down governance prevails, policies are downloaded from the EU or national level, and governance aims to harmonize policies. Instead of acting on their own initiative, member states and subnational governments primarily execute policies. This may lead to limited effectiveness and legitimacy. In vertically coordinated systems top-down governance is complemented by bottom-up governance. While the pioneers upload their policies to the upper level, the laggards need to download policies. Such political systems are characterized by interdependencies between levels, joint decision-making, formal and informal networks, and bypassing. Effectiveness and legitimacy depend on formal and informal participation by governmental and non-governmental actors at all levels of decision-making and implementation. Finally, multi-level systems can be dominated by horizontal coordination. EU member states and subnational governments in the USA and China may exchange experiences and learn from their peers. Policy innovations may spread among EU member states, the American states, or the Chinese provinces. Depending on the activity level and the form of initiative at EU or national level, horizontal coordination can both support and undermine governance by hierarchy and by vertical coordination. The paper will first discuss the three above mentioned types of climate governance in multi-level systems and then analyse and compare the EU, the USA, and China from this perspective. We can draw the preliminary conclusion that all three systems are changing and are influenced by all three types of coordination, but that Chinese climate governance is still dominated by hierarchical climate governance, the EU by vertical climate governance, and the USA by horizontal climate governance.
