With more than half the world’s population now living in urban areas and with much of the world still urbanizing, there are concerns that urbanization is a key driver of unsustainable resource demands. Urbanization also appears to contribute to ever-growing levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Global policies and instruments to tackle climate change look very different once translated into domestic programmes of action, reflecting varied institutional capacity, competing priorities, and diverse political cultures and political economies. In light of these variations, this article analyses how clean energy is governed in India, both through and beyond the Clean Development Mechanism. Governance processes are assessed across a number of scales, including various actors involved in mobilising finance and providing political and institutional support for clean energy.