Climate-Resilience Budgeting in Metropolitan Governments

Abstract

Background: Effective governance of climate resilience depends on more than formal authorization, especially where budgeting and institutional coordination are uneven.

Objective: The investigation focused on whether formal arrangements concerning climate resilience translated into consistent practice and how this intersected with budgeting.

Methods: Data consisted of 12,349 administrative, contractual, case-level, or transaction records across 9 public bodies. Measures covered process timing, procedural characteristics, institutional features, and outcomes; fixed-effects, multivariable, or time-to-event techniques were used where appropriate.

Results: Marked institutional variation was evident for climate resilience. Clearer procedures and stronger coordination were associated with an approximately 25% advantage on the primary measure, and administrative capacity explained about 38% of the observed between-unit variation. Fragmented oversight and incomplete information exchange were consistently linked to poorer outcomes.

Conclusion: Across the settings examined, stronger outcomes relating to climate resilience were tied to the institutional arrangements supporting day-to-day implementation. Accordingly, local climate governance needs clear mandates and administrative capacity if policy commitments are to produce timely, consistent action.

Study design: budget document panel study.

Publication history: Originally published in print on 15 June 2025, Volume 5, Article 7. Online abstract record added on 16 September 2026. Full-text PDF will be added when the digital galley is ready.