Joel Terwilliger

This dataset supports the Bristol case study (Chapters 4 and 5) of the doctoral thesis Towards More Participatory Net Zero Futures (NZF) (Terwilliger, University of Surrey, 2026). It contains two PDFs and a README. (1) The combined case study corpus (417 pages): anonymised transcripts of 16 semi-structured interviews with 18 experts, notes of informal meetings and observations, transcripts of public webinars and conference sessions, and secondary project documents, collected between November 2023 and September 2025. Each secondary source opens with a source sheet giving its citation or link; ten secondary sources are cited but not reproduced. (2) The 29 AI-assisted (Gemini Deep Research) thematic analysis outputs produced from that corpus (597 pages). They are working analytic material, reviewed and corrected by the researcher as described in thesis Section 2.4. The validated synthesis and coding frame details are published as the Net Zero Futures Project - Bristol Case Study: Insights Report (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18839569). Personal names, organisation names and faces have been permanently redacted. The files are restricted and not publicly available, because participants work in a small professional network and could be identified indirectly through their organisations, and because the digital materials used for triangulation contain third-party material that could also identify individuals. The README, also open on the University of Surrey Open Research record, describes the files, redaction and licence. See README file describing the data, file formats, software required/used, restrictions, funding information, etc. under files.

•Inconsistent framings and applications of co-benefits undermine comparability and create uncertainty over what should be prioritized.•A lack of shared definitions and methods limits the ability of cities to build integrated socio-economic cases for climate action.•Most co-benefits included in city strategies and reported on remain at the identified or consideration level and are not consistently defined and measured.•Persistent governance fragmentation and finance gaps risk narrowing climate action planning to what is most readily measurable, rather than what delivers the greatest systemic value.•While cities demonstrate innovation and recognize the critical role of co-benefits, weak institutional and methodological alignment and resource constraints prevent fully realizing their promise. Recent efforts to mainstream climate action in urban governance have focused on a co-benefits approach. Cities advocate low carbon place-based investments on the basis that they can deliver wider social and economic benefits, such as access to green spaces, cheaper energy, job creation, and cleaner air or water. In parallel, recently devised climate action planning tools share these features: integrating climate-related actions (master planning); outlining the co-benefits of actions across key high emitting sectors such as energy and transport (i.e., impact pathways); seeking to generate new forms of governance, actor mobilization, and finance; and, creating a local enabling environment by convening key stakeholders and citizens. Despite these developments, the monitoring and reporting systems and data platforms used by cities (e.g., CDP-ICLEI Track, Kausal, ClimateView, and MyCovenant) are primarily focused on measuring emissions reductions. Tracking co-benefits and reporting on them remain marginal activities. This, combined with a lack of a unified approach to co-benefits, methodological challenges, and city-level capacities and capabilities, has resulted in a diversity of co-benefit approaches, with cities picking which ones they can/want to measure. In this paper, we compare the designs of the C40 and NetZeroCities impact frameworks and critically reflect on their complexity, limitations, and implications for local policymaking in the context of the urban climate governance system. We conclude by highlighting the need for a more integrated view of co-benefits functions, ensuring a more “collective intelligence”-based approach marked by participatory feedback loops and decision-making processes rather than a narrow focus on the most readily quantifiable factors.

Despite the collective promise of integrating more open (broader-based, participatory) city-level governance into the global energy governance regime, little attention has been paid to the different impact logics and assumptions underpinning local procedural governance tools (PGTs) in circulation and the degree to which they address key good governance dimensions dominantly thought to be indicative of transformation. This review aims to fill this gap by mapping and analyzing key energy transition PGTs circulating across four climate action initiatives that mobilize and provide support to cities and local governments. A framework—REPAIR: Reflexivity, Enabling/Embedding, Participatory, Integrative, Adaptive, and Radicality—is proposed based on a synthesis of common governance innovation design features, and a representative sample of 25 PGTs are evaluated against these dimensions. The analysis reveals a need for (1) more differentiation and tailored capacity relating to governance monitoring, evaluating, and learning systems; (2) more attention to prioritization and design factors across different governance interventions in relation to local climate actions; and (3) more nuanced theories of change for operationalizing local power/coalition/mandate building (across different dimensions of governance). This article concludes that there are real gaps in how the collective advantages, opportunities, and promise of traveling “ideal types” of good governance will be fulfilled and outlines future research directions for informing more aligned governance innovation for low-carbon transitions in urban areas.