Moral reasoning in adaptation to climate change

Moral foundations theory argues that moral reasoning is widely observed and fundamental to the legitimacy of relevant governance and policy interventions. A new analytical framework to examine and test how moral reasoning underpins and legitimizes governance and practice on adaptation to climate change risks is proposed. It develops a typology of eight categories of vulnerability-based and system-based moral reasoning that pertain to the dilemmas around adaptation and examines the prevalence of these moral categories in public discourse about specific adaptation issues. The framework is tested using data on climate change impact, adaptation, and societal responsibility, drawn from 14 focus groups comprising 148 participants across the UK. Participants consistently use moral reasoning to explain their views on climate adaptation; these include both vulnerability-based and system-based framings. These findings explain public responses to adaptation options and governance, and have implications for the direction of adaptation policy, including understanding which types of reasoning support politically legitimate interventions.     

What room for politics and change in global climate governance? Addressing gender in co-benefits and safeguards

Questions of equity, gender, power and rights are central to environmental justice in climate mitigation schemes such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation). Drawing on the ideas of co-benefits and safeguards, the strategies for challenging mainstream discourse on gender in REDD+ – from the outside and within – are examined of two organisations that have attempted to bring a political concept – gender – into the largely technical discourse of climate policy. The analysis points to the risks of co-option that women’s organisations face, trying to challenge and change the mainstream discourse on gender in climate policy-making. The need for diverse and flexible strategies for resistance and influence in order to seize opportunities that may arise in countering the depoliticising force of global climate governance are highlighted.     

Climate adaptation in fragmented governance settings: the consequences of reform in public administration

The impact of dominant trends in public administration, such as decentralisation and privatisation on complex collective challenges is insufficiently understood. This is relevant in settings where climate change impacts become manifest at local level, and where financing power resides at national level but decisions are made more locally in a fragmented institutional setting. This study assists in overcoming this gap by analysing how the institutional context (i.e. a decentralised, privatised, fragmented setting) influences the capacity to address climate change challenges in a vulnerable area (the South Devon coast in the UK). There has been little action to address expected climate change impacts in this vulnerable stretch of coast. A lack of clarity around responsibility for addressing climate impacts and a lack of a deliberative structure between various actors involved, within a context of austerity, hamper climate change adaptation. The findings question whether decentralised decision making is sufficient for addressing climate adaptation challenges.     

Divestment discourse: war,justice, morality and money

The fossil fuel divestment movement has been a vibrant novel development in climate change politics in recent years, particularly in North America. Here, the character of the discourse used to promote divestment as a strategy is explored. The divestment discourse is shown to rest on four overlapping narratives, those of war and enemies, morality, economics and justice. All four are clearly discernible in statements from movement activists, in coverage of divestment campaigns by major news sources and in the movement’s aims, objectives and strategies covered in alternative media. The war narrative, with the formulation of fossil fuel companies as enemies to be overcome to ensure survival, is the dominant narrative. By polarising climate action and identifying an antagonist against which to mobilise, divestment discourse has articulated climate change as an explicitly political phenomenon, in contrast to the primarily consensus and collaboration-based approaches that have predominated in climate politics.     

Adaptation policy and community discourse: risk,vulnerability, and just transformation

How can public engagement assist in the development of just processes and outcomes in adaptation discourse and policymaking? A concern with justice is at the center of thinking about adaptation that is not only resilient, but also public, engaging, and transformative. Theoretically, the intersection of adaptation, transformation, and environmental and climate justice is examined, before exploring the specific concerns and normative foundations for adaptation policy articulated by local governments, environmental groups, and local residents engaged in adaptation planning in Australia. Despite a discursive disconnect between governmental focus on a risk or resilience-based approach and a community concern with the vulnerability of basic needs and capabilities of everyday life, deliberative engagement in adaptation planning can both address issues of justice and represent a transformative practice.     

Climate justice,adaptation and the Paris Agreement: a recipe for disasters?

A Capability Approach is adopted to critically analyse, in the interests of Climate Justice, whether the Paris Agreement is likely to adequately protect human and non-human Capabilities from the worst impacts of climate disasters. The mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage provisions of the Paris Agreement are not convincing. Adaptation offers only a modest response to climate change, compared with mitigation, and current financial commitments to fund adaptation in developing countries are far too low. Consequently, the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have a long way to go in their negotiations before they have any hope of meeting their agreed temperature goals, and protecting human and non-human Capabilities from climate disasters.     

When do climate change,sustainability, and economic development considerations overlap in cities?

Overlaps between economic development, sustainability and climate change objectives have both political and practical implications for the development of policies addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, little empirical research has systematically investigated factors underlying these overlaps. Here, survey responses from 287 cities in the US are used to explore associations between the presence of such overlaps and these cities’ policy actions and contextual conditions. Patterns in the presence of these overlaps are described, which help shed light on the political economy underlying policymakers’ considerations about overlapping climate change mitigation and adaptation considerations with economic development or sustainability. Policymakers’ considerations about the possible political co-benefits and political trade-offs of these objective overlaps will play a critical role in shaping interconnected policy responses to complex challenges like climate change in the years ahead.     

The importance of compatible beliefs for effective climate policy integration

ABSTRACT

European climate policy faced increasing constraints during the economic and Eurozone crises (2008–2014). The European Commission subsequently refocused policymaking toward integrating climate objectives into other policy areas such as energy and the 2014–2020 European Union (EU) budget. The conditions for successful climate policy integration (CPI) are analyzed, focusing on the compatibility of key actors’ beliefs. In renewable energy policy, CPI was successful as long as the co-benefits and related policy-core beliefs of energy security, rural economic development and climate action coexisted harmoniously. Once conflict among these policy-core beliefs emerged during the biofuels controversy, CPI was weakened as actors with competing economy-focused beliefs controlled the decision-making process. The case of EU budget climate mainstreaming illustrates how actors can add climate objectives into legislation despite meaningful discussion being ‘crowded out’ by other priorities. The findings highlight the importance of low conflict between departments, compatible beliefs and policy priorities for successful CPI.     

Political ideology and views about climate change in the European Union

There is a strong political divide on climate change in the US general public, with Liberals and Democrats expressing greater belief in and concern about climate change than Conservatives and Republicans. Recent studies find a similar though less pronounced divide in other countries. Its leadership in international climate policy making warrants extending this line of research to the European Union (EU). The extent of a left–right ideological divide on climate change views is examined via Eurobarometer survey data on the publics of 25 EU countries before the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2009 ‘climategate’ controversy and COP-15 in Copenhagen, and an increase in organized climate change denial campaigns. Citizens on the left consistently reported stronger belief in climate change and support for action to mitigate it than did citizens on the right in 14 Western European countries. There was no such ideological divide in 11 former Communist countries, likely due to the low political salience of climate change and the differing meaning of left–right identification in these countries.     

Unpacking the objectives and assumptions underpinning European aquaculture

Increasing demand for seafood and the lack of growth of capture fisheries have boosted aquaculture growth worldwide. However, European aquaculture has been stagnating over the past decade, and European public authorities have been developing policies and strategies in efforts to reverse this. Aquaculture discourses in the European Union, based on 34 policy, planning, and strategy documents, are examined and a discourse analysis conducted following Bacchi’s WPR (What is the Problem Represented to be?) approach. How the problems in these discourses are represented, the tensions among main objectives, and the implicit assumptions are unveiled, and discussed employing a Polanyian theoretical framework. Taking these assumptions for granted leads to a disembedded understanding of aquaculture, and facilitates the privatization of aquatic space and resources. The analysis contributes to the literature establishing the link between the expansion of aquaculture and the enclosure of aquatic resources and enriches environmental and political debates on European aquaculture.     

The European Council,the Council and the Member States: changing environmental leadership dynamics in the European Union

ABSTRACT

The leadership dynamics between the European Council, the Council and the Member States in European Union (EU) environmental policy since the 1970s are analysed. The puzzle is that, although the EU was set up as a ‘leaderless Europe’, it is widely seen as an environmental leader, albeit sometimes as a one-eyed leader amongst the blind. While differentiating between leadership types, it is argued that the European Council has the largest structural, the Council the most significant entrepreneurial, and the Member States the most important cognitive and exemplary leadership capacities. Most day-to-day environmental policy measures are negotiated by the Environment Council (in collaboration with the European Parliament). The European Council’s increased interest in high politics climate change issues is largely due to the EU’s global leadership ambitions. Member States have traditionally formed environmental leadership alliances on an ad hoc basis although this may be changing.     

Climate laws in small European states: symbolic legislation and limits of diffusion in Ireland and Finland

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen the introduction of framework climate change laws in several countries. The development of climate laws in two small European states, Ireland and Finland, both of which introduced national climate laws in 2015, are examined. Two questions are addressed. First, to what extent do later adopters of climate policy instruments draw on the examples of pioneering legislation? Second, how and why are pioneering climate policy instruments modified by later adopters? In both cases, the 2008 UK Climate Change Act was a source of inspiration in the early stages, particularly for civil society campaigns. Thereafter, domestic interests mobilised to remove from legislative proposals the most pioneering and ambitious parts of the UK model. The result, in both cases, was enactment of climate laws that resembled only very loosely the UK Climate Change Act.     

From conflict to resilience? Explaining recent changes in climate security discourse and practice

The recent rise of resilience thinking in climate security discourse and practice is examined and explained. Using the paradigmatic case of the United Kingdom, practitioners’ understandings of resilience are considered to show how these actors use a resilience lens to rearticulate earlier storylines of climate conflict in terms of complexity, decentralisation, and empowerment. Practitioners in the climate security field tend to reinterpret resilience in line with their established routines. As a result, climate resilience storylines and practices turn out to be much more diverse and messy than is suggested in the conceptual literature. Building on these findings, the recent success of resilience thinking in climate security discourse is explained. Climate resilience – not despite but due to its messiness – is able to bring together a wide range of actors, traditionally standing at opposite ends of the climate security debate. Through resilience storylines, climate security discourse becomes something to which a wide range of actors, ranging from security to the development field, can relate.     

Implementing EU climate and energy policies in Poland: policy feedback and reform

European Union (EU) climate/energy targets and policies are poised for the first full climate policy cycle – from adoption and implementation of the policy package for 2020, to reform for 2030. A dynamic approach to the ways in which EU policies affect policy development is developed by applying theories of domestic implementation, policy feedback and integration. Implementation experiences in Poland – the ‘least climate ambitious’ EU member state – affected Polish preferences for reformed EU policies. Existing EU policies, their ‘fit’ with Poland’s energy interests and change in anticipation of future EU policies explain much of the variation in preferences. Second, policy feedback from Poland significantly affected the EU 2030 climate and energy framework. As yet, the EU has succeeded only partly in gathering momentum through a ‘snowball’ effect whereby positive policy feedback from implementation generates further steps.     

Procedural justice in local climate adaptation: political capabilities and transformational change

Climate adaptation politics presents both obstacles and opportunities for correcting inequities that leave some communities especially vulnerable to climate-related environmental harms. By revealing these obstacles and opportunities, theories of procedural justice can help to identify procedural reforms and political strategies that advance the interests of vulnerable populations. An account of procedural justice is proposed that foregrounds the capability for political control over one’s environment, defined as having the political power to influence adaptation decisions. While the variables shaping this capability in the politics of environmental injustice often interact in ways that reproduce environmental inequities, adaptation politics has the potential to produce more transformational outcomes. To illustrate this potential, differences between the politics of environmental injustice and the politics of climate adaptation are drawn on to sketch the basic features of a typology of vulnerable populations’ political capabilities in the politics of climate adaptation, before highlighting the potential points for intervention.     

Assessing President Obama’s climate change record

ABSTRACT

President Obama’s climate change record is assessed by looking at his success in translating policy goals into policy outputs (laws or regulatory action) during his time in office. Obama’s campaign speeches are examined to identify specific promises to take action on climate change before proceeding to examine whether, how and with what success he managed to act upon these pledges. Obama is shown to have set out a multi-pronged approach to deal with climate change in his campaign speeches and succeeded in translating many of his goals into policy outputs. This finding contributes to debates about Obama’s ‘green’ credentials.     

Divergent neighbors: corporatism and climate policy networks in Finland and Sweden

ABSTRACT

Previous research has suggested that corporatist polities tend to enact more ambitious environmental policies than others. Here it is argued that the macro concept of corporatism can be dissected into three components: inclusiveness, consensualism and strength of tripartite organisations. These components of corporatism can be measured at the meso-level of policy networks. It is proposed that inclusiveness and consensualism are related to ambitious climate policy but exclusive tripartite coalitions can be detrimental for the ambitiousness of climate policy. This argument is backed by evidence from policy network surveys in two similar corporatist countries where climate change policies diverge: Sweden, where policies are ambitious, and Finland, where they are less so. It is found that in Sweden the climate change policy network is more consensual and slightly more inclusive, while in Finland tripartite organisations play a strong role.     

Drivers of political parties’ climate policy preferences: lessons from Denmark and Ireland

ABSTRACT

Political parties are important actors in domestic climate politics. What drives variation in parties’ climate policy preferences? To contribute to a growing literature on the party politics of climate change, we focus on the roles of public opinion, party competition, and parties’ traditional policy preferences in shaping parties’ climate policy preferences in Denmark and Ireland. In case studies that draw on in-depth interviews with policy practitioners, we show how parties respond to public opinion, accommodate issue-owners, and are powerfully constrained and enabled by their existing preferences. These mechanisms also help to explain different responses on climate policy across the left-right spectrum. Competition between mainstream parties is particularly powerful, but can constrain as much as it enables ‘greener’ climate policy preferences. While climate change may be a distinctive problem, the party politics of climate change features similar incentives and constraints as other domains.     

Leadership and lesson-drawing in the European Union’s multilevel climate governance system

ABSTRACT

The important role that climate leaders and leadership play at different levels of the European Union (EU) multilevel governance system is exemplified. Initially, climate leader states set the pace with ambitious policy measures that were adopted largely on an ad hoc basis. Since the mid-1980s, the EU has developed a multilevel climate governance system that has facilitated leadership and lesson-drawing at all governance levels including the local level. The EU has become a global climate policy leader by example although it had been set up as a ‘leaderless Europe’. The resulting ‘leadership without leader’ paradox cannot be sufficiently explained merely by reference to top-level EU climate policies. Local-level climate innovations and lesson-drawing have increasingly been encouraged by the EU’s multilevel climate governance system which has become more polycentric. The recognition of economic co-benefits of climate policy measures has helped to further the EU’s climate leadership role.     

Hurricanes and hegemony: A qualitative analysis of micro-level climate change denial discourses

The climate change countermovement and its program of climate change denial have been well documented and studied. However, individual rationales for rejecting climate science remain under-studied. Twitter data related to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 are used to understand why individuals reject the orthodox climate consensus, using a summative content analysis of climate change denial discourses. Three major discourses are discovered: rejecting climate science because climate science is a conspiracy favoring growth of government; opposing renewable energy and energy taxation; and expressing fear of governmental abuse of power. Importantly, each discourse expressed certainty that climate science itself was a wholesale fraud; the denial discourses themselves focused far more on climate politics than on science.