What functions for city networks in local climate governance? Conceptualising cross-site interactions as learning, moulding and steering

City networks have become important platforms in urban climate governance, widely recognised for facilitating collaboration and mutual learning among municipalities. A wide literature now recognises how governing climate change in cities depends on collaborations within and across different sites. Yet, as city collaboration through networks has expanded, there remains much ambiguity over the strategic value — or what we term the functions — of these networks for member cities. In this paper, we draw on insights from the literature on urban climate governance to scrutinise the interactions and roles taken in and by city networks. We review how their functions in local climate governance have been conceptualised and analyse how these are evolving. While effective climate governance requires coordination and cooperation to foster collective action, we argue that clarifying the distinct functions that networks perform also reveals important challenges for local climate action.