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A rising number of climate cases is brought against governments, administrations, and companies in support of enhanced climate action. This is the second of two articles that aim to scrutinise climate litigation as a social process and as a driver towards deep decarbonisation from the perspectives of law, social, and political sciences. Working towards more systematic research on societal embedding and dynamics of climate litigation, we further develop and test two analytical tools, the Social Plausibility Assessment Framework and the Global Opportunity Structure, at two levels. While the first article presented these analytical tools and analysed general developments in climate litigation in their societal context at an overarching level, this second article zooms into a case-specific level and examines two landmark decisions, Neubauer and others v Germany and Milieudefensie and others v Shell. The analytical approach generates valuable insights about the conditions and effects of climate litigation on both levels. Our results show that climate litigation is a significant driver towards deep decarbonisation that is shaped by, and continuously shapes, legal, socio-political, economic, and scientific scripts and repertoires that enable novel forms of societal agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To stay within a 'well below 2°C' climate change track, the Paris Agreement and goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for climate action – a global decrease in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Arguments in this study are derived from the hypothesis that a collective identity among the EU states would foster collective actions toward reducing global warming. Thus, the objective of this study is to explore how different EU countries (Poland, Italy, and Germany) employ three decarbonization pillars: waste recycling, eco-innovation, and policy innovation (WEP) as a yardstick to mitigate global warming and attain the EU's 'net-zero' emissions by 2050. The study also utilizes annual data collected from the Eurostat indicator from 2014 to 2020. The findings reveal that Germany has the most successful average recycling rate in Europe; 65.5% of the country's domestic waste is either recycled or reused. On the other hand, Poland is a low performer in eco-innovation. Additionally, an analysis of policy regulations reveals that both Germany and Italy can comply with the policy and regulations of the EU on carbon neutrality. At the same time, Poland, on the other hand, lacks the commitment to carbon neutrality due to its reliance on carbon-intensive coal. Therefore, this study recommends translating EU climatic laws in their simplest forms into local laws. More so, citizens' behaviour will be further influenced toward environmental sustainability by this collective mindset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of court cases are being brought against governments, administrations, and corporations in support of enhanced climate action. This is the first of two articles that examine climate litigation as a social process and potential driver of deep decarbonisation from a perspective that combines legal, social, and political science. Contributing to an emerging interdisciplinary research agenda on the dynamics and effects of climate litigation and on its societal embeddedness, we present and test two analytical tools, the Social Plausibility Assessment Framework and the Global Opportunity Structure for Climate Action. The first article introduces these analytical tools, and applies them to assess the overall evolution of climate litigation and identify developments in its legal and societal context that enable or constrain future driver dynamics. Based on this assessment, we conclude that climate litigation constitutes an important but on its own insufficient driver of deep decarbonisation, which is shaped by, and continuously shapes, legal, socio-political, economic, and scientific scripts and repertoires that enable novel forms of societal agency. The second article further operationalises and illustrates the approach by zooming in on a case-specific level and examining two recent landmark decisions in the Netherlands and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CO 2 emissions from global steel production may jeopardize climate goals of 1.5 °C unless current steel production practices will be rapidly decarbonized. At present, primary iron and steel production is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, primarily coke. This study aims to determine which decarbonization pathways can achieve the strongest emission reductions of the iron and steel industry in Germany by 2050. Moreover, we estimate whether the German iron and steel industry will be able to stay within its sectoral carbon budgets for a 1.5 °C or 1.75 °C target. We developed three decarbonization scenarios for German steel production: an electrification, coal-exit, and a carbon capture and storage (CCS) scenario. They describe a phase-out of coal-fired production plants and an introduction of electricity-based, low-carbon iron production technologies, i.e. hydrogen-based direct reduction and electrowinning of iron ore. The scenarios consider the age and lifetimes of existing coal-based furnaces, the maturity of emerging technologies, and increasing recycling shares. Based on specific energy requirements and reaction-related emissions per technology, we calculated future CO 2 emissions of future steel production in Germany. We found that under the decarbonization scenarios, annual CO 2 emissions decrease by up to 83% in 2050 relative to 2020. The reductions of cumulative emissions by 2050 range from 24% (360 Mt CO 2) under the electrification scenario up to the maximum of 46% (677 Mt CO 2) under the CCS scenario compared to a reference scenario. This clearly demonstrates that the technology pathway matters. Nevertheless, the German steel sector will exceed its sectoral CO 2 budget for a 1.5 °C warming scenario between 2023 and 2037. Thus, drastic measures are required very soon to sufficiently limit future CO 2 emissions from German steel production, such as, a rapid decarbonization of the electricity mix, the construction of a hydrogen and CCS infrastructure, or early shutdowns of current coal-based furnaces. [Display omitted] • Scenarios for iron and steel production in Germany until 2050 • Adopting new technologies: hydrogen-based direct reduction and electrowinning • Comparison of CO 2 emissions with sectoral carbon budgets for the steel industry • Carbon budget for climate goal of 1.5 °C likely to be exceeded between 2023 and 2037 • Carbon capture scenario achieves lowest CO 2 emissions but has higher energy demand [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine whether innovations in policy concerning climate-change mitigation are symbolic or truly radical in the sense of ‘tipping’ existing policy portfolios towards a new instrumental logic, we study policy innovations in the context of pre-existing policy portfolios and analyse the associated dynamics over time. Our analysis is facilitated by a new measurement of policy output, the Index of Climate Policy Activity. This new approach sheds light on the relative importance of policy innovations in complex policy portfolios, and serves as a blueprint for further analyses of the politics of policy innovation. Empirically, we analyse policy innovations within the policy portfolios of energy production in Austria, Germany, and the UK between 1998 and 2010. We find high stability in the instrumental logic but substantial change in policy settings and calibrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]