Local government capacity as climate remedy: public trust, public policy, and structural solutions

The climate crisis requires that governments take action to protect communities, yet it also strains public resources and challenges the ability of governments to respond, contributing to the erosion of public trust in democratic governance (Safford and Segall Citation2025). Trending responses to that challenge in the U.S. federal government conversation are far from adequate. Although there is broad, cross-partisan consensus that a market-focused neoliberal order has not properly delivered (Gerstle Citation2018), and that government should, in some sense, provide more – indeed “abundant” – public goods, the contours of a new settlement are bitterly contested (Slobodian Citation2022). In this Commentary, we draw from sociological, legal, and economic literatures to suggest that a focus on rebuilding the capacity of local government is a critical intervention, one worth considering as a primary focus of climate strategy rather than as an add-on. In the face of a complex crisis, community resilience – and public trust – turns on overall government capacity, so rebuilding that generalist capacity is part of the critical path to a responsive and effective climate politics.