Doing things differently? The promise and pitfalls of co-productive urban climate policy development in Greater Manchester, UK

Over the last three decades, cities have become an increasingly critical arena for climate action. Meanwhile, the scientific community has reached a consensus that the climate crisis has dramatically accelerated over this same period. Despite local government organisations increasingly raising their ambitions to address the challenge, these institutions have largely struggled to determine climate policy actions that match science's urgency. To achieve the scale of action required, some local government organisations have begun to explore new policy development approaches that might determine effective climate policies by engaging the diverse perspectives from society concerned with addressing the crisis.

This research contributes enhanced understanding of one innovative policy development approach that has recently been facilitated by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to produce a climate policy released in March 2019. The GMCA intended to create this climate policy using co-production as a policy development approach with the intention that it would foster engagement of the diverse range of perspectives from across the city-region to inclusively determine how best to accelerate climate action. The study used an embedded research approach to investigate how co-productive urban climate policy development was understood, applied and produced impact within an empirical context.

This research reached three conclusions through its analysis. First, co-productive climate policy development may be able to support new forms of enhanced public engagement, but in institutional settings, the theoretical promise of co-production should be perceived as an ambition to be aimed toward rather than attained. Second, co-productive policy development can build trust between the individuals involved in the process and strengthen policy negotiations yet ultimately produce non-transformative policy outcomes. Lastly, the procedural consequences and impacts of co-production climate policy development do not inherently support innovative climate policy actions. These conclusions highlight the immense challenges of co-productive climate policy development in local government settings, rendering the approach capable of supporting increased procedural effectiveness rather than systemic transformation.