Exploring the Governance of Naples, Italy, Through a Climate Responsive Approach

Abstract

Combating climate change is not among the priorities of public policies in Italy. Neither the adoption of the National Strategy for Climate Adaptation has led to implement a national policy. This is why the governance of climate change varies across regions depending on the environmental sensitivity, and attitudes by local institutions, the kind of activism by public administrators, their power or fragility, and the abilities in drawing from EU funds. This chapter points out that bringing climate to the center calls for multilevel governance not only by means of technical and political abilities, but also by sharing climate responsive narratives, and actions with people. This allows exploring climate effects on local contexts and even adding creativity to the governance model. Naples cannot consider climate change as a priority due to the perception of more urgent problems to be solved. Accordingly, the chapter discusses how narratives of climate change work for both the ongoing new urban plan and strategic metropolitan plan by promoting shared processes of socio-ecological regeneration. The chapter argues that the only way to put global environmental challenges into fragile cities’ agendas is to assume climate change as an opportunity to radically rethink social, ecological, and economic relations.