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In the realm of climate policy, issues of environmental justice (EJ) are often treated as second-order affairs compared to overarching sustainability goals. We argue that EJ is in fact critical to successfully addressing our national and global climate challenges; indeed, centering equity amplifies the voices of the diverse constituencies most impacted by climate change and that are needed to build successful coalitions that shape and advance climate change policy. We illustrate this perspective by highlighting the experience of California and the contentious processes by which EJ became integrated into the states climate action efforts. We examine the achievements and shortcomings of Californias commitment to climate justice and discuss how lessons from the Golden State are influencing the evolution of current federal climate change policy.

Climate adaptation plans are an effective way to manage a marine ecosystem and support climate change research. However, in developing nations that have to deal with the impacts of climate change, there is little follow-up and no measures on whether these climate adaptation plans are implemented effectively and yield the desired results. This report contains a detailed analysis of a climate adaptation plan implemented in Tabasco, Mexico, that sought to decrease vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. This report consists of a background on the climate adaptation plan in Tabasco and a comprehensive, step-by-step comparison of this plan to the the UNFCCC framework for adaptation. Lastly, this report is complete with two case studies in Tabasco and policy recommendations for improved climate adaptation plans and government involvement in climate policy. The purpose of this report is to determine that despite the completion status of the climate adaptation plan, the goals outlined in this plan were not achieved satisfactorily and did not reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Mexico has faced challenges in effectively implementing conservation tools, ranging from weak enforcement to poor coordination between national, state, and local authorities. Ultimately, this report outlines the importance of a comprehensive and stakeholder-inclusive approach to climate change policy and planning, especially in the global south.

With the Green Deal, the von der Leyen Commission has put forward an ambitious agenda to transform the European Union towards climate neutrality. However, this commitment to environmental and climate policy has been tested by the numerous crises that have shaped her tenure. Historically, previous Commissions have often deprioritized environmental policy in times of crisis. In light of this, we examine the Commission’s leadership in the realm of environmental policy. Our analysis demonstrates that both the President and her Executive Vice President provided strong leadership and maintained a clear focus on the Green Deal. We further explore this leadership by examining the Commission’s actions in relation to four key Green Deal policies: the Climate Law, the Battery Regulation, the Methane Regulation, and the Nature Restoration Law. Our findings reveal that the rhetorical commitment to environmental and climate policy has translated into mostly ambitious policy proposals, marking a significant departure from the more restrained environmental ambitions of previous Commissions. This analysis contributes to the body of research on the European Commission’s role in environmental and climate policy, as well as its leadership dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existential threat of climate change requires reimagining foundational aspects of society, including jobs, transportation, energy, the built environment, natural resources, health, and water and food supplies. We argue that to realize such broad scale change requires systems thinking. In this introduction to the special issue on Nonprofits and Climate Policy, we outline four systems-based views of global social change, organized by source of change and assumptions about the technical rationality of the system: engineering, evolutionary, social constructivist, and (critical) realist. By elaborating this framework, we shed light on the fundamental assumptions embedded in climate advocacy and policymaking. Along with describing key scholarship and practice-based examples for each approach, we align the articles in this special issue with the four views of global social change to inspire systems-based research and practice at the nonprofit and climate policy intersection. We hope that creating more explicit accounts of the key beliefs and expectations about how social change occurs at a global systemic level will help to advance research and practice in sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first climate action stocktake cycle under the Paris Agreement was completed in 2023 to assess global progress on mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance goals. State-driven action needs to be complemented by sectoral efforts, and this paper builds on the first Tourism Stocktake undertaken in 2023 that examined climate action in the tourism sector. First, an expert elicitation survey was conducted to validate and deepen the findings from the stocktaking activity. Second, an analysis of the Stocktake's 40 metrics was undertaken against six criteria of indicator quality. The expert survey revealed a sector still in the early stages of implementing its climate response, with a consensus that 2030 tourism emission reduction targets would not be achieved. Tourism policy and investment were deemed inconsistent with climate ambitions, and current adaptation is insufficient for projected climate change, so that future impacts will restrict tourism development in some destinations. Analysis of the metrics exposed significant data gaps and a core set of 13 robust metrics to measure change over the next stocktaking cycle is identified. The paper concludes with recommendations to advance sector capabilities and collaboration to monitor progress on climate action for an updated Tourism Stocktake in 2026. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries, including Germany have struggled to agree on ambitious climate action, in part because technocratic policy advice failed to adequately consider the social and political consequences. The combination of science and citizen deliberation could enable a new coalition to stimulate policy learning along different climate policy options. The Ariadne Project was a transdisciplinary research project about different policy options for the German Energy Transition. It facilitated an iterative social learning process between researchers and citizens during focus groups, citizen conferences and online deliberations. As such, this case sheds light on a new culture of science–society relations. To assess if and how learning occurred, we ask whether the involved citizens and researchers have changed their understanding of policy options and of each other. We found that citizens were very enthusiastic about the new learning opportunities, and their roles within them. While researchers appreciated the new experience, they also faced challenges. We argue that despite these challenges, there is inherent value in providing spaces for researchers and citizens to interact with and jointly inform policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how management quality moderates the impact of carbon pricing on Chinese firms. Based on interviews with managers and lead engineers at manufacturing firms in Hubei and Beijing, we construct a novel index of climate-change-related management practices and link it to firm data from various sources. We document higher average productivity and more green innovation among firms that are well managed according to the index. In an event study of the introduction of regional cap-and-trade schemes for CO2, we analyze how management quality interacts with treatment. While treated firms reduced coal consumption more than control firms, this effect is statistically significant only for well-managed firms. The reduction could have been 25% greater if badly managed firms had been well managed. Our study highlights that good management practices, in particular energy monitoring, enhance the effectiveness of market-based climate policies by enabling firms to rationally comply with those policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions of local pollutants from industry have declined across many developed countries over the last decades. For carbon emissions such reductions have yet to materialize. Using German administrative micro-data at the product level, we apply the workhorse model for decomposing emission changes into scale, composition (changes in the mix of goods produced) and technology (emission factors of production) effects. We find that the production composition in German manufacturing shifted towards less CO2 intensive goods, while emission intensities of production increased. We show that data aggregation matters. Both effects are substantially underestimated when using data at the sector level as compared to the product level. A complementary plant level decomposition reveals that emission intensities of production increased both within plant, and due to a reallocation of production to more emission intensive plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effects of altruism on the formation of climate coalitions in the standard two-stage game of self-enforcing international environmental agreements with identical countries. Altruism implies that each country values, to some extent, every other country's welfare when deciding on its coalition membership and emissions policy. In the Nash [Stackelberg] game, the fringe [coalition] countries exploit the altruism of the coalition [fringe] countries so that altruism decreases [increases] the coalition size. In any case, global emissions and global welfare are close to the non-cooperative values. However, altruism narrows the gap between the individually optimal emissions and the socially optimal emissions, so altruism increases global welfare. The effects of altruism on the formation of climate coalitions crucially depends on its modelling: If altruism affects the membership decision but not the policy decision, or if each coalition country is more altruistic toward other coalition countries than toward fringe countries, altruism can stabilise large coalitions up to the grand coalition. Finally, altruism can stabilise small coalitions but destabilises large coalitions with asymmetric countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

IMPACT: 'Co-creation' is a major buzzword in contemporary governance. A range of public sector organizations nowadays declare co-creation as an overall strategy for their policies and actions. However, what co-creation should mean in operational terms often remains less clear. This article explores what co-creation could look like within three significantly different policy contexts: the exercise of authority, service delivery and regulation. To illustrate the argument, the article also explores the extent to which co-creation as a practice already exists in three Norwegian policy fields which resemble the three policy contexts. These three policy fields are child welfare and protection (authority), elderly care (service delivery) and climate policy (regulation). Although the illustrative examples are derived from a single country, they will be relevant to other countries as well. Co-creation is a broad concept that can potentially be applied to many significantly different policy contexts. However, the co-creation literature has paid less attention to questions like how policy content conditions co-creation, and how this generic idea can be translated into different policy fields. To address this gap, this article aims to explore what co-creation might mean in different policy contexts, and discusses co-creation in the context of legal authority, service provision and regulation. The arguments are illustrated using examples from three Norwegian policy sectors: child welfare, elderly care, and climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses four relevant climate actions in Indian agricultural sector through the lens of United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to understand how climate actions (SDG 13) are linked with other SDGs and their targets and what measures can be taken to scale up these actions. Four board categories of climate actions are considered for this exercise: shift to less-flooded paddy water management practices; minimizing overuse of nitrogen-based fertilizer, system of rice intensification and climate smart agricultural practices. A mixed method has been followed: first, scoping review of literature between 2010 and 2022 is undertaken to capture the growing body of literature and then a normalized weighted score is used to understand the net strength of the linkages. Scoping review helped in identifying 100 studies spanned across Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and the eastern part of Peninsular India. Findings from the scoring method suggest that these practices have linkages with 15 SDGs and as many as 43 SDG targets. Almost all linkages are positive (synergy) but there are a few negative linkages (trade-offs) as well. Trade-offs include exacerbating inequalities including gender, high upfront cost, requirement of skilled labor, lack of access to information and finance. This paper provides a detailed description of these trade-offs and suggests measures to tackle and minimize them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the required adjustments made by the European Union (EU) to adequately absorb the negative social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU is once again confronting a crisis. The extended fiscal instability and environmental imbalance resulting from the energy crisis, primarily caused by rising energy prices owing to geopolitical upheavals (the Russian invasion in Ukraine), have been compounded by rising inflation. The main research objective of this paper is the analysis and evaluation of the effects of the current energy crisis on the Greek economy through the perspective of energy poverty, energy dependence, and climate change. Greece has been negatively impacted by the significant rise in energy costs. In 2022, the percentage of the general population that faced difficulties in paying energy bills exceeded the European average, reaching the level of 34.1%, while almost 19% of the population could not keep their homes sufficiently warm. Additionally, in 2022, Greece was one of the countries most energy-dependent on Russia. Greece achieved most of its targets regarding climate change, with the most representative example being the reduction of GHG emissions by 42% from 2000 to 2022. However, this reduction did not come from the successful green transformation of the Greek economy, but instead was due to the reduction in overall energy consumption that came from the prolonged economic crisis, combined with the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the majority of Greek buildings are still not considered to be energy efficient, while the transportation industry continues to rely heavily on oil, coal, and natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, annual emissions from managed organic soils accounts for up to 5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate-wise management and restoration of degraded organic soils could reduce GHG emissions quickly and at relatively low costs. The European Union (EU) Member States that have large areas of organic soils with high GHG emissions are Sweden, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Netherlands, and the Baltic countries. To meet the climate targets and objectives of the Paris Agreement the land-use sector is indispensable and mitigation policies targeting organic soils will be needed. The international regulatory framework is broad and quite unspecific. In contrast, the European Union has initiated binding regulation for the land-use sector through the EU Climate Law, the EU LULUCF regulation, and the proposed EU Nature Restoration Law. However, even this regulatory approach is not on track to deliver on its binding ambitions, indicating the need for more effective implementation measures also on organic soils in the EU and its member states. Furthermore, we argue that appropriate policy selection should consider current knowledge regarding the climate impacts of management options of organic soils. Lastly, we need more studies on GHG emissions, and standardized methods for GHG inventories, to resolve uncertainties surrounding the impacts of management to GHG emissions. Successful policy implementation requires more efforts but also improved scientific justification through continuous consideration of climate policy integrity and strengthening of the reliability of GHG inventories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National climate policies have generated a considerable body of research in academic literature. Focusing on the little-studied case of France, this article examines the way in which, in this country, the State has drafted its latest low-carbon strategy (SNBC). Drawing on approaches such as ‘bureaucratic politics’ and ‘administrative capacity’, it questions the ability of the administration responsible for writing this document (and thus defending the climate cause) to make its voice heard within the political-administrative arena. Based on an in-depth sociological study, this article shows that this administration found itself in a position of ‘powerlessness’, due to three main factors: instrumental (the limited scope of the tool, reflecting an initial will to reduce its impact), organizational (the subordinate position of this administration within the bureaucratic hierarchy) and political (weak support from government). The result is a contested strategy, unlikely to bring about a credible roadmap to implement the necessary changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive Order No. 14008 mandated that U.S. federal agencies and departments develop Climate Change Adaptation Plans to enhance the nation's resilience to climate change. Invasive species are documented to reduce the effectiveness of climate adaptation and mitigation actions. In spite of this, only eight of the 26 federal plans directly reference invasive species, and just four meaningfully consider the reciprocal impact of invasive species on climate adaptation efforts. To ensure that climate adaptation planning and processes are effective with associated benefits for biodiversity conservation, a gap analysis of the Climate Change Adaptation Plans was conducted. Five key recommendations were developed that would transform how invasive species are considered within them. Examples of how invasive species have been included in some of the plans are provided, with suggestions for agencies that did not include invasive species on how they might do so, to illustrate that dedicated efforts in prevention, detection, and management of invasive species can safeguard carbon sequestration, protect communities and infrastructure, and minimize economic and biodiversity losses. Although developed based on U.S. federal plans, these recommendations can be used by state and local, as well as international, jurisdictions tasked with implementing climate‐adaptive policies to build resilience across multiple sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen an increase in climate financing channelled to the Global South from multiple sources, putting a spotlight on climate finance coordination challenges in recipient countries. However, the climate finance coordination debate has largely been centred at climate finance provision at the global level. Emerging literature has called on recipient countries to establish effective climate finance coordination mechanisms. Yet, the calls have not clarified what accounts for an effective coordination mechanism. This paper addresses the gap by analyzing stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination in Kenya. Kenya has instituted a legal and institutional framework to guide climate finance coordination, but challenges of coordination persist. Using the political economy framework, the paper analyzes political economy factors influencing stakeholder perceptions and climate change policy implementation to identify political contestations that need to be reconciled. Data is drawn from relevant literature, 29 key informant interviews and 4 focus group discussions at the national level in Nairobi and at the sub-national level in Turkana County. Deductive thematic analysis is adopted for coding and analyzing data. Results indicate that different ideologies, interests, incentives, politics, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of an effective climate finance coordination mechanism and climate policy implementation. The operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund are the most contested. The paper calls on policy actors to reconcile political issues of contention for recipient countries to institute coordination mechanisms that gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from stakeholders. Underlying political economy factors including different ideologies, interests, politics, incentives, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination as well as climate change policy implementation. The consequential political contestations need to be reconciled; otherwise, the established coordination mechanism is less likely to gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from climate change stakeholders. This calls for meaningful and extensive stakeholder engagements and consensus building to minimize contention, particularly over the operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on the benefits of green budget tagging (Green budget tagging refers to itemization and linking of every budget item with climate action, mitigation, adaptation, or both) in developing countries could help boost the uptake of this practice and in turn help these same developing countries to mobilize climate-related development finance. We apply double differences in means econometric analytical approach to evaluate the association between green budget tagging (GBT) and target outcome variables of climate-related finance and CO2 emissions. The results show that all 32 developing countries that have undertaken green budget tagging are also associated with larger inflows of climate-related finance. Among the adopters, climate-related finance inflows have been significantly larger for countries with externally-initiated green budget tagging than for those with internally-initiated tagging. The results also show that a minimum level of climate-related finance is required to achieve CO2 emissions reduction. However, the current mean yearly inflow of climate-related development finance falls short of the level that drives emissions reduction. These findings point to the importance of green budget tagging and to the need to upscale climate-related finance inflows to propel improvement in environmental quality. Although green budget tagging is a useful tool for mobilizing external development finance, current external finance inflows are insufficient to achieve ambitious emission reductions. Immense effort is therefore required to mobilize the adequate scale of climate-related finance from both external and other sources. Green budget tagging can be a crucial tool for mobilizing climate-related finance and improving environmental quality in developing countries. To entice climate-related development finance, developing countries need to clearly define climate-related projects in their national budgets. Climate finance mobilization policies designed for reducing emissions are not complete unless they emphasize and promote the scale of inflows. Hence, policymakers should put greater effort into mobilizing adequate finance (from both external and domestic sources) to drive emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has demonstrated that government policies often prioritise growth over climate during economic downturns. Yet government stimulus spending during economic downturns also offers an opportunity for decarbonisation through long-term investments in infrastructure, transportation electrification, building efficiency, and clean energy technologies able to reduce emissions and sustainably shift the economy away from fossil fuels. We study the size and distribution of green stimulus spending in response to two recent economic downturns – the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Focusing on Canada and the US – two major economies with strong incumbent fossil fuel interests – we explore the determinants of green stimulus spending. Counter to conventional wisdom, our findings provide little evidence to support the notion that institutional permeability to industry lobbying influenced the share of green stimulus spending. Instead, drawing on a novel dataset on green recovery spending and lobbying, we show that the strength of liberal parties in the legislatures shapes the distribution of stimulus funds. Our analysis suggests that liberal parties committed to decarbonisation can leverage economic crises to align economic and climate policy making, even in the face of strong lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out to analyse how and why the wood industry in France has recently responded to various calls for its economic models to fit better with the demands of climate change and ecological transition. By adopting a 'politics of industry' approach to the linkages between business practices and their regulation by the European Union, the state, and regional authorities, it unpacks the structuration of this industry, then examines the political work undertaken either to change or conserve it. The study draws upon interviews with public, private, and collective actors from throughout the industry, documentary analysis, and observation of stakeholder meetings. First, we show that in this industry, access to markets and to its factors of production (natural and financial capital) has indeed become increasingly driven by environmental criteria and practices of ecological planning. Second, however, the industry is still struggling to make its productive models fit with an institutional order that has only partially transitioned in this direction. In endeavouring to make productive models and this institutional order match up, key actors in the industry are still working politically to reach three objectives that are often contradictory: (i) build cohesion within the industry aligned with decarbonization ambitions, (ii) re-organize value chains that respond to calls for more national sovereignty for wood, and (iii) maintain ties between a productivist model that has taken on board ecological constraints and another, essentially conservationist, one which still resists change to the very definition of the overall objectives of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacity building is recognized as one of three means of implementation (MOI) within the Paris Agreement, along with finance and technology. There is a good reason for this, namely that all aspects of climate action require multiple forms of capacity. In fact, it could be argued that capacity is foundational even to the other two MOIs as advancing both finance and technology requires a variety of capacities across multiple specific contexts. The Global Stocktake (GST) recognized the importance of capacity building for the achievement of the Paris Agreement and included its assessment within its evaluation of progress. However, unlike the other two MOIs, no chapter within the IPCC AR6 explicitly attempts to synthesize the state of knowledge about capacity or capacity building for climate action, and coverage of capacity remains scattered across the report. In this commentary we briefly reflect on the coverage of capacity and capacity building in the IPCC’s AR6 and develop some initial proposals for how knowledge about this key MOI could be better included in future assessment processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens' assemblies to address climate change have multiplied in recent years. Seen as a useful tool to provide solutions to the climate crisis, they have, however, struggled to impact public policy. Additionally, little is known about how citizens' proposals are diluted or rejected in climate assemblies. We explore this situation through a qualitative case study of the French Citizens' Convention on Climate. The French case is unique in that it involved the incorporation of assembly participants in the process of integrating assembly proposals into a new Law on Climate and Resilience. We use semi‐structured interviews and analysis of secondary documentation to understand how citizens' views were finally excluded from draft legislation. Findings show remarkable citizen empowerment taking place during the Citizens' Convention, which nevertheless vanished during the joint elaboration of the law, allowing certain political and economic interests to impose their vision. We suggest that organisers of the process and social movements engaged in climate assemblies should be aware of such risks and try to control how decision‐makers adopt citizen proposals for producing legislation in order to avoid exclusions and democracy deficits in democratic climate policy‐making. We discuss and reflect on the potential and limits of deliberative and agonistic approaches to democracy and climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions play a significant role in motivating climate action, but the nature and the direction of the relationship between emotions and attitudes toward climate policy are relatively understudied. We conducted a survey experiment (United Kingdom, n = 1,330) in which we experimentally manipulated incidental emotions to consider the effects of fear, anger, and sadness on support for different climate policies. In terms of informative policies, the results show that inducing sadness significantly increases support for early warning systems for disaster predictions but has no notable effect on providing health risk information concerning climate change. Regarding protective policies, inducing fear positively and significantly influences support for banning petrol cars, while an immediate ban on coal plants shows no statistically significant effect. Interestingly, contrary to the expectations and findings in the literature, we found the negative effect of anger treatment on the support for punitive measures oriented toward high-electricity-consuming households and no effect on punitive measures against businesses and frequent flyers. Our findings highlight the potent influence of emotions in motivating support for specific climate policies, revealing their intricate nature. At times, certain emotions such as anger can even cause reduced support for climate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen participation has a crucial role in delivering the transformations needed to tackle the climate crisis. To capture citizens' perspectives on the issue, we use a deliberative mini-public on consumption and mobility in Spain. Following a mixed-method research design, we combine the results from a deliberative survey with a thematic analysis, being one of the few case studies transcribing deliberations and systematically identifying the themes emerging from them. Our results show how deliberation increased citizens' understanding of the complexities of the climate crisis, as well as their willingness to commit to certain behavioural changes and accept certain policies, although it had no effects on policies recognised as unjust. The thematic analysis unveiled participants' perceived barriers and solutions to climate action and the most common emotions linked to them. Our findings indicate that citizens feel more empowered to act on consumption, as mobility is often seen outside their remit. Moreover, citizens' feelings of frustration with the current socio-economic system and hope for future changes deserve further scrutiny to evaluate the acceptability of alternative futures. The deliberative process created a space of dialogue among citizens and showed the potential of deliberation to contribute to democratising climate governance and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study leverages the roles of climate justice and social innovation in the perceptions of climate risk and climate adaptation policies within the local heat-vulnerable areas of seven Korean metropolitan cities. Using survey and document-based analyses, this work examines residents' perceptions of climate risks and evaluates local climate adaptation plans in the context of climate adaptation policies. Results demonstrate that economic and social fairness aspects and collaborative learning activities played positive roles in enhancing adaptation policies. Further, higher participation as an aspect of social innovation led to heightened climate risk perceptions. Findings imply that social innovation and climate justice features can contribute to triggering risk perceptions as an initial stage for enabling subsequent steps in support of climate adaptation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal transformations for addressing climate change are intensely contested and at risk of resistance and backlash to ambitious policy action. But they are frequently modeled through heuristics such as S‐curves which abstract from such conflicts, assuming increasing returns to scale as a driver of transformations. This is the case even while scholars accept the presence of political conflict in transformation processes. Within political science and allied disciplines, the notions of policy feedback and policy coalitions have been deployed to understand how such political conflicts may be understood. But these approaches risk gravitating toward an instrumental design impulse that inadvertently downplays conflict. We argue that policy action for societal transformations should be re‐conceptualized as an unfolding series of battle‐settlement events whereby heated episodic political struggles over a certain policy object or issue play out and eventually settle in ways that structure future debates while nonetheless remaining indeterminate and open to challenge or reversal. Such an approach reflects the varied empirical experiences of climate policy action to date which include both accumulation and reversal. It also helps explain trajectories of change that are discontinuous and lurching in contrast to common images of transformation as progressive and cumulative. We illustrate this approach through two cases of unfolding societal transformation on climate change: coal phaseout in the United Kingdom and renewable energy uptake in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable finance taxonomies such as the European Union (EU) taxonomy can support the transition to a climate-neutral economy. As a classification system, these taxonomies serve to offer transparency and guidance as to how capital flows can be shifted to sustainable and environmentally-friendly activities. In this Weekly Report, we analyze 26 sustainable taxonomies from countries and regions around the world using five criteria. Our study shows that although many taxonomies follow a holistic sustainability approach, mandatory criteria have often yet to be developed. The share of a country or region's emissions that is covered by the taxonomy varies considerably, as the taxonomies follow different approaches for determining the activities that are aligned with them. Taxonomies often only apply to a limited group of market participants and are rarely linked to mandatory reporting obligations. The results emphasize that better coordination between the existing taxonomies worldwide is needed and that the criteria and thresholds for selecting activities in alignment with taxonomies should be in accordance with the Paris Agreement. This way, taxonomies can develop their full potential in guiding the transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung: DIW-Wochenbericht is the property of DIW Berlin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article offers insights into how leadership can be provided to advance the EU policy-making process through a case study of the policy-making for the new EU emissions trading system for buildings, road transport and additional sectors (ETS-2). Conceptually, it contributes to the literature on leadership in the EU by developing a three-part framework for observing leadership in EU policy-making, focussing on the intentions of an actor, the effects of the actions of an actor and the perceptions of other actors. The article also contributes to the literature on interactions between leaders in EU policy-making. Empirically, we provide a process tracing analysis of leadership in the policy-making process for the ETS-2. Using our framework, we examine five key leadership moments, showing how Denmark provided cognitive leadership, Germany provided exemplary and structural leadership, and the Commission and rotating Presidencies provided cognitive and entrepreneurial leadership. Our empirical analysis shows that various types of leadership were partially simultaneously and partially consecutively provided, with some leaders following up on the leadership strategies of others. We term this dynamic ‘sequential leadership’. Our finding confirms the importance of seeing leadership as a relationship, not just between leaders and followers, but also amongst leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the ways in which the futures of climate change and the climate change policy process are constructed as narratives—both explicitly and implicitly—in two different yet interconnected contexts that shape public climate discourse and debate: foresight‐based political decision‐making and journalism. The featured case is the National Energy and Climate Strategy of Finland for 2030. We employ and expand the Narrative Policy Framework to better understand the co‐existent, implicit narratives of the future in the contexts of policy and media. We construct two co‐existing yet contradictory underlying narratives of the future of climate change and climate policy. Our approach reveals that the prevailing master narrative of a desirable future is challenged by a co‐existing counter narrative where policies in the energy and climate strategy prioritize shorter‐term policy interests over climate change. Building on these findings, we argue that, in climate policy communication, communicators convey futures through narratives—both explicitly, as descriptions of what is perceived, hoped, and anticipated to happen, and implicitly, as the sum of the parts included and excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, there has been increasing research interest in individuals' support of and resistance to climate and environmental policy instruments. However, there is an empirical bias in the literature, as few studies have been conducted in low-income countries. Based on a survey with 4,766 respondents we identify the level of public acceptability for climate policy instruments and their determinants in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). While our sample is not fully representative of the East-African population, we capture highly educated individuals in urban areas, who are likely to have a large influence on policy processes. In line with previous studies in other contexts, we find that higher education and climate change concern are linked to the acceptability of policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel consumption. Specifying how the revenue from a climate tax or subsidy removal would be used, almost doubled the support for these policy instruments. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that investments in social programmes, not environmental programmes, was the revenue specification that increased the acceptability the most. One possible explanation would be that in a context where poverty is more prevalent, social issues are more salient to people. We also find weak associations between trust in government and the acceptability of climate policy instruments in East Africa and large heterogeneity across the five focal East African countries. Besides establishing an empirical foundation for future research on climate policy support in East Africa, the study provides essential policy insights: Investing in education and improved information, contributing to increased awareness and understanding of climate concerns, can potentially increase support for climate policy proposals also in the East African context. Earmarking revenues from climate policy instruments for social programmes may also significantly boost support. However, as our study is not fully representative of the population in the five countries and relies on stated preferences, which may be subject to different biases, the results should be interpreted with caution. In a sample skewed towards more urban and educated East-Africans, specifying how the tax revenue would be used more than doubled the acceptability for climate taxes. Investments in social programmes was the revenue specification that increased the acceptability for climate taxes the most. Earmarking revenue use may be a way to increase carbon tax acceptability in East Africa. Investing in education and improved information contributing to increased awareness and understanding of climate concerns, can potentially increase support for climate policy proposals. The acceptability of a climate tax on fuel is lower than the acceptability of a quantity-based regulation on fossil fuel across the urban, well-educated and potentially politically influential population in East Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions-intensive, trade-exposed (EITE) industries must decarbonize to limit global warming to 1.5°C. This study explores how policy stringency and regional variability impact EITE industrial decarbonization. It uses Canada as a case study due to its heterogeneous industrial sector and high regional resource variability. The study has two scenarios: one with global climate action where the world pushes to limit warming to 1.5°C, and one where Canada acts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and the rest of the world lags. The scenarios differ in three ways: the global price of oil, the pace of technological change for low emission technologies, and domestic climate policy. In the global action scenario, a carbon price of $430USD2020 was needed to achieve 75% decarbonization of EITE industries by 2050. In our global inaction scenario, EITE industries only decarbonize 25%, as domestic climate policy considered international competition and the risk of industrial shutdown. If competitiveness concerns persist as simulated in this scenario, Canada is highly unlikely to achieve deep industrial decarbonization by 2050. The results also show that regional variability plays a significant role in low emissions technology adoption. While all regions will need targeted innovation and commercialization support as well as market uptake mechanisms, we find that relative advantages and disadvantages in terms of resource availability and industrial mix play an important role in how regional decarbonization occurs. For instance, regions with inexpensive local fossil fuels and ready geology suitable for CO2 storage have a high uptake of carbon capture and storage. Regions with access to abundant hydroelectricity rely more on electrification as a decarbonization pathway. Regions with no relative resource advantages are at greater risk for industrial shutdown due to the higher cost of decarbonization. Achieving national deep decarbonization of EITE industries in Canada or elsewhere is highly unlikely without global climate action due to competitiveness concerns. Policymakers interested in addressing competitiveness concerns might do so either through policy mechanisms that support the uptake of low emission technologies, mechanisms that penalize regions without decarbonization policy, or both. Policymakers should consider relative regional advantages and disadvantages to EITE decarbonization by designing policies that account for industrial heterogeneity and regional resource availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research often explores the role of scientific expertise in policymaking from an externalised perspective, mostly focusing on how policymakers use and abuse scientific expertise through political learning. However, very little is known about political learning by scientific experts. What strategies do they use to maintain and advance their access to, and influence on policymaking? Using process tracing, we illustrate how scientific experts' access to policymaking is challenged as a policy issue develops. We explore how this nudges scientific experts to engage in political learning and employ political advocacy strategies to enhance science's role in policy making, corresponding to evolving political opportunity structures. We empirically trace this using the case of EU climate policy development between 1990 and 2022. We identify three main sets of advocacy strategies used by scientific experts: Narrative and semantic (policy issue-oriented), Socialisation (Actors-oriented), and Governance (systems and structures-oriented). In doing so, this article illustrates the political actorness and agency of scientific experts and provides a supplementary understanding to the role of science in public policy and policy change, not only as a function of policymaker's instrumentalization of science, but also as a function of how scientific experts actively advocate for science's role in public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how the implementation of emissions trading systems (ETSs) impacts emissions reductions and the usage of renewable energy using a panel sample of the largest 100 countries worldwide. Exploiting cross-country variations in ETS implementations, we show that ETS adoption materially reduced greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) emissions by 12.1% (18.1%). Moreover, ETSs reduced overall emissions by cutting the usage of fossil fuels such as coal by 23.70% while boosting the usage of renewable energy by 61.59%, on average. In contrast, introducing carbon taxes has a less effective impact on emissions reduction. It fails to boost the usage of renewable energy, though elevating tax rates and expanding tax coverage may help enhance the efficacy of carbon taxes. This paper was accepted by Victoria Ivashina, finance. Funding: H. Ru thanks the financial support from the Nanyang Technological University, and Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Tier 1 RG134/20. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.03143. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanity has a shrinking window to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet climate action is still lacking on both individual and policy levels. We argue that this is because behavioral interventions have largely neglected the basic principles of operant conditioning as one set of tools to promote collective climate action. In this perspective, we propose an operant conditioning framework that uses rewards and punishments to shape transportation, food, waste, housing, and civic actions. This framework highlights the value of reinforcement in encouraging the switch to low-emission behavior, while also considering the benefit of decreasing high-emission behavior to expedite the transition. This approach also helps explain positive and negative spillovers from behavioral interventions. This paper provides a recipe to design individual-level and system-level interventions to generate and sustain low-emission behavior to help achieve net zero emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is still considerable resistance against carbon pricing — i.e. carbon taxation or cap-and-trade — in the social and policy sciences. We review its main arguments and conclude that they are not supported by the theoretical and empirical literature on instrument performance. Critics are also unable to offer alternative and feasible instruments that limit free riding in climate solutions and perform better on main evaluation criteria, namely effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and global-harmonization potential. Their argument that carbon pricing meets strong political resistance is countered by its widespread implementation already and by its ability to compensate inequitable impacts. We argue that overcoming unsubstantiated criticism on carbon pricing will lead to more consistent advice from policy experts to politicians, thus improving the feasibility of, and accelerating progress towards, globally harmonized and stringent climate policy. All in all, it might be more widely acknowledged that the remarkable feature of carbon pricing is that, if well implemented, it has a great number of advantages and few disadvantages. Rather than weakening political support by criticizing carbon pricing, critics would contribute more productively to effective global climate policy by defending proper and uniform implementation of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become a serious threat to human life. This study aims to reveal the face of climate policies and the integration of urban adaptation into urban planning policies in the city of N'Djaména. To achieve this, we adopted a methodology combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Surveys of key informants were used to gather information on how to achieve the objectives set. The results show that key informants believe that climate policies have not met the expectations of the city's citizens in terms of effectiveness and positive impacts. These players assume that urban policy planning does not take urban adaptation into account. The four categories of barriers hindering the integration of urban adaptation and its implementation relate to a lack of information and knowledge, political ill will, and organization and constraints linked to the mobilization and availability of resources. This study suggests the sharing of information, knowledge, and communication involving all stakeholders in N'Djaména's urban development, the organization of the city's state and municipal structures, the involvement and support of political authorities, greater access to financing, and the establishment of professional networks of expertise as catalysts for success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper assesses four relevant climate actions in Indian agricultural sector through the lens of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to understand how climate actions (SDG 13) are linked with other SDGs and their targets and what measures can be taken to scale up these actions. Four board categories of climate actions are considered for this exercise: shift to less-flooded paddy water management practices; minimizing overuse of nitrogen-based fertilizer, system of rice intensification and climate smart agricultural practices. A mixed method has been followed: first, scoping review of literature between 2010 and 2022 is undertaken to capture the growing body of literature and then a normalized weighted score is used to understand the net strength of the linkages. Scoping review helped in identifying 100 studies spanned across Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and the eastern part of Peninsular India. Findings from the scoring method suggest that these practices have linkages with 15 SDGs and as many as 43 SDG targets. Almost all linkages are positive (synergy) but there are a few negative linkages (trade-offs) as well. Trade-offs include exacerbating inequalities including gender, high upfront cost, requirement of skilled labor, lack of access to information and finance. This paper provides a detailed description of these trade-offs and suggests measures to tackle and minimize them.

International cooperation depends on conditional commitments between states. We examine the politics of conditional commitments in climate change using three experiments in ten major carbon-emitting countries. We specifically investigate whether public pledges of conditional action made by national governments increase public support for ambitious climate action in other countries. We find that only unconditional pledges increase public support for policy ambition in foreign countries. Additionally, countries seeking financial and technical transfers only gain foreign support for transfers when they combine conditional pledges with ambitious unconditional pledges. We also observe that the public in most countries only favors making part of their country’s climate pledge conditional on other countries’ actions when their home country makes an unconditional commitment at or above the average level necessary to prevent dangerous warming. Overall, public preferences are unconditionally aligned with addressing the climate problem. Conditional commitments are more aligned with increasing domestic support for climate policy than unlocking more ambitious settlements between countries.

Low carbon fuel and waste management policies at the federal and state levels have catalyzed the construction of Californias wet anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities. Wet ADs can digest food waste and dairy manure to produce compressed natural gas (CNG) for natural gas vehicles or electricity for electric vehicles (EVs). Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) of CO2 generated from AD reduces the fuel carbon intensity by carbon removal in addition to avoided methane emissions. Using a combined lifecycle and techno-economic analysis, we determine the most cost-effective design under current and forthcoming federal and state low carbon fuel policies. Under many scenarios, designs that convert biogas to electricity for EVs (Biogas to EV) are favored; however, CCS is only cost-effective in these systems with policy incentives that exceed $200/tonne of CO2 captured. Adding CCS to CNG-producing systems (Biogas to CNG) only requires a single unit operation to prepare the CO2 for sequestration, with a sequestration cost of $34/tonne. When maximizing negative emissions is the goal, incentives are needed to either (1) fund CCS with Biogas to EV designs or (2) favor CNG over electricity production from wet AD facilities.

Among the sufficiency, efficiency, and renewable frameworks for reducing energy use and energy-related carbon emissions, Building Energy Sufficiency (BES) is gaining attention from policy makers and engineers. Despite the significant role of the building sector in the success of national energy and climate plans, there is a lack of research on the drivers, technologies, and effective policy instruments required to achieve BES in the building operational phase. To fill this gap, this study presents a systematic review of the definition and paradigm of BES and concludes that BES should address both occupant demand and energy or emissions requirements simultaneously. The characteristics of occupant demand in building services are divided into four dimensions: time and space, quality and quantity, control and adjustment, and flexibility. Technical options regarding the building architecture, the envelope system, and the building energy system are reviewed. Finally, policy implications and recommendations are discussed. The multiple benefits and multidisciplinary nature of BES justify further research and accelerated policy implementation in developed and developing countries.