Experimenting towards a low-carbon city: Policy evolution and nested structure of innovation

Cities can play a key role in the low-carbon transition, with an increasing number of cities engaging in carbon mitigation actions. The literature on urban low-carbon transition shows that low-carbon urban development is an inevitable trend of urban sustainable future; there is a great potential albeit with some limitations for cities to reduce its carbon footprints, and there are diverse pathways for cities to achieve low-carbon development. There is, however, a limited understanding in terms of the internal mechanism of urban low-carbon transition, especially in rapidly developing economies. This paper attempts to address this gap. We examine how low-carbon policies emerge and evolve, and what are the enabling mechanisms, taking Shanghai as a case study. We developed an analytical framework drawing on system innovation theory and sustainability experiments for this purpose. A total of 186 relevant policies were selected and analyzed, which is supplemented by the interviews with stakeholders in the government to gain a deeper insight into the policy contexts in Shanghai. We found that the city's low-carbon initiatives are embedded and integrated into its existing policy frameworks. A strong vertical linkage between the central and the local governments, and more importantly, a nested structure for innovative policy practices were identified, where a top-down design is met with bottom-up innovation and proactive adoption of enabling mechanism. The structure includes two layers of experiments that facilitate learning through policy experiments across scales. The uniqueness, effectiveness, applicability and limitations of these efforts are discussed. The findings provide new theoretical and empirical insights into the multilevel governance of low-carbon transition in cities.