Leadership and Climate Change Mitigation: A Systematic Literature Review

This systematic literature review (SLR) explores leadership and climate change mitigation in cities. In doing so, it investigates explicit meanings of leadership, enablers of leadership, and leadership similarities and differences across regions. The review utilized three databases on 8 March 2024—Scopus, ProQuest, and Web of Science—curating an initial 496 results, resulting in 30 studies in the final analysis, using a two-reviewer screening process to limit bias and ensure consistency of approach. Inclusion criteria included English-language peer-reviewed articles over a ten-year period. The timeframe used was limited to January 2014 to December 2023 (10 years) to focus on the lead up to and post-implementation of the Paris Agreement. Further, empirical and conceptual studies were included to provide readers of this review with a thorough understanding of leadership work completed since 2014. Exclusion criteria included any studies that focus on adaptation measures and forms of leadership where the focus is on the private business, state, or national level, including leadership and climate change mitigation outside the influence of the local government. The study highlights five distinct meanings of leadership using the Braun and Clarke method of thematic analysis. It found leadership themes related to people (e.g., mayors), policy (e.g., ambitious climate plans), ideas (e.g., new concepts), collective action (e.g., motivating others), and mobilizing power (e.g., through regulations). The enablers of leadership included polycentricity, social capital influences, co-creational and mayor leadership, climate governance, and multi-actor coordination. This review segments the studies based on the findings from the literature, which focus on three continents (North America, Europe, and Asia) with a distinct difference in the meaning and enablers of leadership based on region. The 30 articles shared similarities in content, such as strong mayoral influence, but also had some distinct differences, such as how leadership is enacted based on leveraging market mechanisms, policy, and horizontal and vertical coordination. Finally, research gaps were identified, such as the scant focus on leadership and climate change mitigation in the Global South, to enable future research. Limitations of this study include the utilization of three databases, a focus on only English-language peer-reviewed articles, and a strong climate change mitigation focus.