Climate change and metropolitan municipality practices: Mersin case

Climate change is a multidimensional phenomenon that directly affects the sustainable future of cities in economic, social and administrative terms. In the context of the impacts of climate change at the local level and the responses to these impacts, local governments are emerging as critical actors in the development and implementation of both adaptation and emission reduction policies. In this context, the financial and institutional capacities of local governments, their relationships with other actors, and their decision-making processes play a decisive role in the scope and effectiveness of climate policies. At the local level, policies to combat climate change and adapt to it are shaped by the network of relationships that local governments establish with public and non-public actors. Accordingly, the study adopts the urban regime approach as its theoretical framework, which allows for the simultaneous consideration of inter-actor relationships, power balances, and resource use in city governance. The thesis examines the climate change mitigation and adaptation policies of metropolitan and district municipalities in Mersin Province within the framework of administrative, institutional, financial, and political dynamics. Data obtained from in-depth interviews conducted as part of the qualitative research method were evaluated. The study found that Mersin Metropolitan Municipality was able to implement a comprehensive climate policy thanks to its strong institutional capacity, access to international funds, and multi-stakeholder collaborations; in contrast, district municipalities implemented more limited applications due to their constrained financial resources and technical capacity. Furthermore, it was found that the relationships established with the central government in local climate governance create dependency, which has a restrictive effect on local autonomy and policy sustainability. Consequently, it was concluded that climate change policies in Mersin involve multiple actors, but there is insufficient coordination among these actors, and therefore a comprehensive local climate regime has not yet been established.