Guidelines to prioritise country contextual factors in policymaking processes

Climate change mitigation efforts have been underway in the EU for many years. EU Member States (MS) have acknowledged the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and have developed strategic national plans aimed at achieving the environmental goals set by the EU, and by the worldwide community through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is widely acknowledged that the energy sector is responsible for a major proportion of the total GHG emissions, and the EU is focusing on actions to decarbonise it, including the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades. However, despite careful planning, using best available knowledge, energy and climate policy makers often face situations in which actual policy outcomes differ from policy expectations. Such deviations can occur due to unexpected impacts of the social, economic or political context on the deployment of mitigation technologies and relevant policy outcomes. Throughout this report the focus is set on the factors that broadly hinder the deployment of energy and climate mitigation policies and technologies, and on suggestions for policy makers on how these can be overcome. More specifically, to provide more concrete suggestions and guidelines for national and EU policy makers and to make the scope more operational, accounting also for the aforementioned inherent limitations, the main research question was narrowed down to the following complementary inquiries: What are the most inhibiting contextual factors reported for selected case-studies? How did their influence manifest? How has the country under assessment dealt with identified influences thus far (policy actions, practices considered)? Can examples of different countries which addressed similar influences be of aid? The aim is to synthesise the influence of contextual factors hindering mitigation policy and technology options across different MS contexts and to derive (more) concrete suggestions for policy makers on how to deal with the contextual factors identified.
The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the EC. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of its authors and does not necessary reflect the views of the EC.