Implementation Readiness Across Heterogeneous Local Climate Plans: A Longitudinal Documentary Assessment of Gaziantep, Türkiye

Municipal climate plans differ in policy purpose and documentary coverage, complicating comparisons of their preparedness for implementation. This study examines how plan-based implementation readiness varies across four climate-planning episodes in Gaziantep, Türkiye, between 2016 and 2023. A two-axis framework distinguishes policy purpose, diagnostic foundations, and target architecture from 18 common delivery functions; it assesses documentary specification rather than institutional capacity or implementation performance. Criterion-level document analysis is supported by sensitivity analyses addressing unequal observability and evidence form. The 2016 Climate Change Action Plan already specified prioritisation, sequencing, responsibility, costing, and emissions monitoring. The 2023 Green City Action Plan systematically specified all assessed delivery functions, while the Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan combined explicit feasibility and participatory provisions with arrangements for monitoring and adaptive review. Nevertheless, later plans were not uniformly stronger: some functions remained stable, others were less systematically specified, and delivery arrangements took different forms. This interpretation remained consistent across sensitivity scenarios, although several adaptation-plan findings depended on executive-summary evidence. The study shows that implementation readiness in the analysed portfolio reflects differentiated continuity and reconfiguration rather than linear maturity, making function-level assessment more informative than an overall ranking. To strengthen documented preparedness for delivery, municipalities should specify responsibilities, financing, implementation schedules, and monitoring-to-revision links at action level and align these arrangements across coexisting plans.