SCIENCE@home

Policy Learning for Local Decarbonization Through Transdisciplinary Dialogue: Insights from the Kyoto Roundtable

Eri Aoki,Kenshi Baba,Naoki Masuhara,Kazunori Nakajima,Makoto Taniguchi

Published 2026 in Climate

ABSTRACT

Local governments play a critical role in advancing climate change mitigation under national carbon neutrality strategies; however, practical mechanisms for policy learning and collaboration remain limited. This study analyzes the Kyoto Roundtable, a transdisciplinary dialogue platform designed to support municipalities toward decarbonization in Japan. Based on a policy-learning framework co-designed with frontrunner municipalities, we implemented five roundtable sessions involving municipal officers and researchers. Analysis of workshop discussions, action-planning sheets, and participant surveys illustrates how structured dialogue supports policy learning and coordination. The findings indicate that inter-municipal networks and sustained science–policy dialogue play a crucial role in motivating local climate policy development. Mutual learning and knowledge exchange within the roundtable enhanced participants’ engagement and capacity to adapt policies. The interaction between horizontal inter-municipal collaboration and vertical support from supramunicipal and national governments contributed to early-stage policy diffusion. These findings suggest that transdisciplinary dialogue platforms can function as critical infrastructure for scaling local decarbonization by sustaining policy learning and inter-municipal collaboration.

PUBLICATION RECORD

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-40 of 40 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

  • No citing papers are available for this paper.

Showing 0-0 of 0 citing papers · Page 1 of 1