M. Nocentini
Local governments are increasingly recognised as key actors in climate adaptation, yet the practical conditions under which they are expected to assume responsibility remain uneven and often ill-defined. Drawing on qualitative analysis of three European case studies (Milan, Stockholm, and Amsterdam), this article explores how municipal responsibility for local climate adaptation is enacted, negotiated, and constrained within multilevel governance systems and how mismatches between expectations, formal mandates, and available resources generate governance bottlenecks. The results show that while higher levels of government provide funding, data, and strategic frameworks, these forms of support do not always align with municipalities’ organisational capacity, time constraints, and legal authority. Smaller and mid-sized municipalities in particular face structural disadvantages in accessing and operationalising external support. At the same time, unclear divisions of responsibility across governance levels and between public and private actors leave municipalities to negotiate the scope of their role in practice.