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Drivers of national climate policy
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Patterns of national climate policy performance and their implications for the geopolitics of climate change are examined. An overview of levels of emissions performance across countries is first provided. Substantial changes in emissions trends over time are documented, notably with GHG emissions trajectories, which are shaped less and less by the developed/developing country divide. Various patterns of policy convergence and divergence in the types of policies states implement are then surveyed. Four broad types of explanation that may account for these trends are then explored: (1) variation in the institutional form of country-level governance regimes, (2) patterns of dependence on fossil fuel energy, (3) broad systemic differences among states (specifically in their population densities, carbon intensity, and per capita incomes, and (4) variations in the traditions of economic intervention by states. The article contributes to the growing body of work on comparative climate policy, and provides a first attempt at exploring the comparative politics of instrument choice. The analysis challenges the continued importance of a North–South divide for the future of climate policy, thus reinforcing a sense of the ‘new geopolitics’ of climate change. Some of the implications of the analysis for debates about the form of future international agreement on mitigation policy are also explored.
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... Legal aspects are important to devise climate measures, especially for implementing climate adaptation policies for the agriculture sector, as laws can provide a stable environment for investing time and resources. During the last two decades, legislation has been developed to promote climate actions and implement climate policies around the world (Lachapelle and Paterson, 2013). Laws create institutional arrangements that define responsibilities for actors in every sector, including the agriculture sector, to act as per their defined mandate (Crouch et al., 2007). ...
This study presents a new framework for assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of climate adaptation policies for the agriculture sector at the subnational level. The role of the subnational level in climate policy is highly relevant, especially on the heels of the Paris Agreement (PA) of 2015. However, there is limited literature on climate adaptation policy implementation at the subnational level in the agricultural sector. Climate adaptation policy in agriculture is generally discussed at the national level, and subnational climate adaptation policies rarely address agriculture. Thus, this study was conducted to fill this gap by establishing an analytical framework based on the two existing literatures, which are not connected: climate adaptation policies at the subnational level and adaptation policies in the agricultural sector. The core components of the framework are (i) locally driven initiatives, (ii) locally capable institutions, (iii) legally implementable measures, and (iv) effective intergovernmental relations. The framework is then applied to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Punjab, two provinces in Pakistan, a country highly dependent on the agricultural sector and one of the most vulnerable to climatic changes. We found that both provinces have locally driven policies and have made efforts to build capabilities in their public administrations to adapt to climate change in the agriculture sector. Punjab has advanced in several indicators of the components of the framework but still is weak in others, such as local monitoring and evaluation efforts. KPK has interesting efforts in the dissemination of farmers' adaptation innovative initiatives (hidden adaptation), but still lags behind in the legal base for the policies. Finally, both provinces lack strong institutions for intergovernmental relations.
... Values are in GtCO2. 3. Governance Implementation There is already a large body of conceptual (Lachapelle & Paterson, 2013) as well as empirical work Fankhauser et al., 2015;Jewell et al., 2019) that has shown how institutions might affect the implementation of different mitigation options. Many mitigation options require long term planning, stability, and effective mediation of different groups that might not benefit from the transformation of the energy and other sectors, and thus require states to have a strong state capacity (Meckling & Biber, 2021). ...
... Lachapelle claimed that, not surprisingly, the two key factors, which appear to influence countries' commitment to achieving climate policies, are fuel dependency and economic crisis. The countries with substantial exports of mineral fuels are less likely to implement any type of climate policy [35]. The move threatens Poland's coal-based energy security, Duda argued [37]. ...
... Various terms could be used to refer to the tools that societies use to induce shifts. We interchangeably use the terms enabling conditions and enablers to refer to such tools (and do not refer to other terms used in the literature: drivers (Lachapelle and Paterson 2013;Le Quéré et al. 2019;Steckel et al. 2015), levers , leverage points, or places to intervene in a system (Meadows 1999). We also refer to tools but more as a metaphor to convey that a broader toolbox enables the shift in development pathways to increase sustainability, including mitigation. ...
To respond to the climate crisis, we need to accelerate system transformations at a pace, scale, and breadth not seen before. This means that it is urgent to shift development pathways towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions, even while progressing towards other sustainable development objectives. This paper argues that accelerated mitigation can not only benefit from policies that are outside the domain of conventional emission-focused mitigation policies but require such policies. We refer to this process as shifting development pathways towards sustainability . Here, we explore what enabling conditions make such shifts possible. We develop a framework to select examples of shifts — in realms such as educational access, housing access, fiscal arrangements, and institutional reform. We analyse them against key enablers. Our findings suggest that countries could learn from what has worked elsewhere, though context matters. Some enablers are more widely applicable, including finance, long-term vision, and focus on sustainable development objectives. Multiple enablers, integrated policy packages, and involvement of a broad range of actors help achieve multiple objectives. Some enablers may yield results in the near term, while others take time to yield results. Based on our analysis, we suggest that climate mitigation requires an “all of economy, all of society” approach.
Graphical Abstract
Globally accelerating environmental breakdown necessitates a large-scale mobilisation not only of the natural and engineering sciences, but also of insights generated from social sciences. Consequently, recent interventions in International/Global Political Economy (IPE) demand a gearing of the field towards putting climate breakdown centre stage. We respond to this call by drawing attention to the role critical IPE approaches can offer to the field to engage with climate breakdown more comprehensively and consistently. We argue that critical IPE can do so by combining problem-driven and praxis-oriented emancipatory perspectives, leading to systematic and concrete research programmes that are indispensable in the age of climate breakdown. We support our argument by documenting and systematising this potential across three core IPE themes:economic growth, state theory and global finance. In order to unlock its full potential for centring climate breakdown, we argue that critical IPE should better embrace multidisciplinarity and intersectional approaches, and produce more empirical work and methodological advances in future research.
The European Commission has proposed a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to enable ambitious climate policies in EU member states and to incentivize emission reductions in other countries. This paper adopts a dynamic, multilevel, polycentric perspective to discuss how domestic as well as foreign interest groups would be affected by the policy. Our analysis yields three central insights. First, diplomatic efforts should be focused on a small number of countries that would be most severely affected by the CBAM. Second, the CBAM should be implemented as an enabler of domestic mitigation efforts in an open climate alliance instead of an attempt to extend EU climate policy to other countries. Third, gradually phasing in the CBAM while phasing out free emission permits for EU producers and supporting the transformation of carbon-intensive sectors in third countries can ease political opposition from domestic as well as foreign industries.
Applying the new economics of organization and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross‐national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterize the ‘varieties of capitalism’ found among the developed economies. Building on a distinction between ‘liberal market economies’ and ‘coordinated market economies’, it explores the impact of these variations on economic performance and many spheres of policy‐making, including macroeconomic policy, social policy, vocational training, legal decision‐making, and international economic negotiations. The volume examines the institutional complementarities across spheres of the political economy, including labour markets, markets for corporate finance, the system of skill formation, and inter‐firm collaboration on research and development that reinforce national equilibria and give rise to comparative institutional advantages, notably in the sphere of innovation where LMEs are better placed to sponsor radical innovation and CMEs to sponsor incremental innovation. By linking managerial strategy to national institutions, the volume builds a firm‐centred comparative political economy that can be used to assess the response of firms and governments to the pressures associated with globalization. Its new perspectives on the welfare state emphasize the role of business interests and of economic systems built on general or specific skills in the development of social policy. It explores the relationship between national legal systems, as well as systems of standards setting, and the political economy. The analysis has many implications for economic policy‐making, at national and international levels, in the global age.
Social movements take shape in relation to the kind of state they face, while, over time, states are transformed by the movements they both incorporate and resist. Social movements are central to democracy and democratization. This book examines the interaction between states and environmentalism, emblematic of contemporary social movements. The analysis covers the entire sweep of the modern environmental era that begins in the 1970s, emphasizing the comparative history of four countries: the US, UK, Germany, and Norway, each of which captures a particular kind of interest representation. Interest groups, parties, mass mobilizations, protest businesses, and oppositional public spheres vary in their weight and significance across the four countries. The book explains why the US was an environmental pioneer around 1970, why it was then eclipsed by Norway, why Germany now shows the way, and why the UK has been a laggard throughout. Ecological modernization and the growing salience of environmental risks mean that environmental conservation can now emerge as a basic priority of government, growing out of entrenched economic and legitimation imperatives. The end in view is a green state, on a par with earlier transformations that produced first the liberal capitalist state and then the welfare state. Any such transformation can be envisaged only to the extent environmentalism maintains its focus as a critical social movement that confronts as well as engages the state. © J. S. Dryzek, D. Downes, H. K. Hernes, C. Hunold, and D. Schlosberg 2003. All rights reserved.
Climate change threatens the future of civilization, but humanity is impotent in effecting solutions. Even in those nations with a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions, they continue to rise. This failure mirrors those in many other spheres that deplete the fish of the sea, erode fertile land, destroy native forests, pollute rivers and streams, and utilize the world's natural resources beyond their replacement rate. In this provocative book, Shearman and Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction--and climate change in particular--is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government--and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance--an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society. Having argued that democracy has failed humanity, the authors go even further and demonstrate that this failure can easily lead to authoritarianism without our even noticing. Even more provocatively, they assert that there is merit in preparing for this eventuality if we want to survive climate change. They are not suggesting that existing authoritarian regimes are more successful in mitigating greenhouse emissions, for to be successful economically they have adopted the market system with alacrity. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power. There are in existence highly successful authoritarian structures--for example, in medicine and in corporate empires--that are capable of implementing urgent decisions impossible under liberal democracy. Society is verging on a philosophical choice between liberty or life. But there is a third way between democracy and authoritarianism that the authors leave for the final chapter. Having brought the reader to the realization that in order to halt or even slow the disastrous process of climate change we must choose between liberal democracy and a form of authoritarian government by experts, the authors offer up a radical reform of democracy that would entail the painful choice of curtailing our worldwide reliance on growth economies, along with various legal and fiscal reforms. Unpalatable as this choice may be, they argue for the adoption of this fundamental reform of democracy over the journey to authoritarianism.
Comparative case studies and analyses of the influence of domestic politics on countries' climate change policies and Kyoto ratification decisions. © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.
Representing the first comprehensive study of its kind, this book evaluates the comparative performance of national environmental policies since the beginning of the modern environmental era. Unlike other comparative studies, it looks directly at the purpose of environmental policy: pollution reduction. Lyle Scruggs presents four major explanations of environmental performance which it evaluates through the comparative statistical analysis of data from seventeen affluent countries. The results often challenge conventional explanations of good performance.
The global regime for climate change consists of two agreements, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, neither of which adequately addresses the real challenge. Certainly, neither agreement has had much effect so far. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased every year since the UNFCCC was negotiated in 1992. The trend did not change after the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997. Although Kyoto is still some way from being implemented, its short comings are already apparent. A new approach is needed.
This book investigates the effects of electoral systems on the relative legislative and, hence, regulatory influence of competing interests in society. Building on Ronald Rogowski and Mark Andreas Kaysers extension of the classic Stigler-Peltzman model of regulation, the authors demonstrate that majoritarian electoral arrangements should empower consumers relative to producers. Employing real price levels as a proxy for consumer power, the book rigorously establishes this proposition over time, within the OECD, and across a large sample of developing countries. Majoritarian electoral arrangements depress real prices by approximately ten percent, all else equal. The authors carefully construct and test their argument and broaden it to consider the overall welfare effects of electoral system design and the incentives of actors in the choice of electoral institutions. © Eric C. C. Chang, Mark Andreas Kayser, Drew A. Linzer, and Ronald Rogowski 2011.