Cities are at the center of efforts to address the current climate crisis. Whereas in previous decades cities were characterized as a primary source of global environmental degradation, today urban areas are seen as privileged spaces for the enactment of innovative policies, experimental projects, and collective actions aimed at generating much needed de-carbonization. While cities, with their rich social, economic, and cultural environments are, indeed, full of potential, many obstacles remain between our present realities and a post-carbon future. Today, decision makers and urban dwellers around the world must decide on the specific mechanisms will be used to retrofit the build environment, change habits, and rethink our relationship with the environment. The options currently at our disposal are varied in scope, implications and goals, from market-based approaches to carbon trading, to entrepreneurial projects to develop circular economies, to urbanist-led proposal for the 15-minute city, to mutual aid conceptions of collective living and degrowth. But beyond the excitement that all these might generate to different publics, what is at stake here is a deeper question about what are definitions of democracy, inclusion, resilience, and wellbeing that will guide our decisions as we continue to cope with the deepening effects of this ecological crisis. In this course we will reflect on these questions as we analyze the main approaches to climate governance at the local level and examine the political, economic, and social dimensions of these different visions of societal transformation. We will use case studies, academic texts, media works, and policy documents to investigate the actual forms of knowledge and expertise, institutional arrangements, and daily practices that constitute the existing climate urban climate governance landscape. Furthermore, we will use these materials to reflect on what might be done to achieve truly inclusive, democratic and empowering climate policy for cities and beyond. This course is open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students from all fields and will be relevant to anybody interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the potential, as well as the limits, of our current approach to climate governance.