Moving targets: Carbon pricing,energy markets,and social movements in Australia

Reporting on the origins and directions of social movement strategy on climate and energy issues in the last decade, the shifts in ‘climate movement’ practice are discussed using a neo-Polanyian account of the political economy of climate change combined with sociological analysis of the strategic decisions campaigners reported making. Since the mid-2000s, Australia’s climate movement has been engaged in three concurrent arenas of political contestation. The longest-standing arena of movement activity has been negotiations over climate policy. More recently, activists and communities are engaged in a struggle over the expansion of fossil fuels. A third contest has been waged over the present and future position of renewable energy technologies in Australia’s electricity market. In the wake of climate policy failure, energy campaigns have been deepened, and it seems that a broader energy justice agenda is being forged. New strategic dilemmas are visible in the field.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Using ecological modernisation theory to account for the evolution of the zero-carbon homes agenda in England

Despite early successes, the ‘zero-carbon homes’ agenda in England is being wound down. Ecological modernisation theory, which focuses on the way in which political, economic, and social forces interact with one other in the provision of environmental goods and services, is used to explain this. Existing literature on zero-carbon homes is fragmented, with scholars focusing on a range of social, economic, or political explanations. Ecological modernisation theory reconciles these various strands to produce a nuanced explanation for this agenda’s evolution. An ambitious but poorly defined legislative approach placed a burden on house-builders to meet compliance costs associated with zero-carbon, but framing sustainability economistically also led to considerable uncertainty. The 2008 financial crisis, the politicisation of housing, and the election of a government with a deregulatory mandate influenced the resilience of the policy agenda as private-sector actors exploited the uncertainty and political will in order to evade their policy burdens.     

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.     

Climate engineering and human rights

ABSTRACT

In this Forum, three scholars discuss how climate engineering will pose novel human rights challenges, and may well force reconsideration of how human rights are applied as a guide to action. Following a short introduction, the first section introduces three competing approaches to human rights, arguing views which emphasize fairness or attempt to maximize satisfaction are more promising than one viewing human rights as inviolable ‘side-constraints’. The second section draws lessons from climate migration that are relevant for climate engineering in terms of incorporating a human rights approach to duties, rights, and participation. The final section compares the ‘needs-based’ and ‘rights-based’ approaches to humanitarian work in the face of climate change and climate engineering, raising concerns for duty-bearers and right-holders. The Forum’s conclusion draws together points of overlap and suggests a path forward for policy and research on this topic.     

Greening Leviathan: the rise of the environmental state?

‘Bringing the state back in’ to research on comparative, inter-, and trans-national environmental politics and policy will contribute to better understanding of the limits and prospects of contemporary approaches to environmental politics and the overall evolution of contemporary states once environmental issues become central. The rationale for the state as an analytical perspective in environmental policy and politics is explained, and an empirically oriented concept of the environmental state is introduced, along with a tentative sketch of its evolution in historical perspective. A research agenda on the environmental state is mapped out, centring around variation and convergence in environmental states across space and time; the political/economic dynamics of contemporary environmental states; and inter-linkages among environmental problems, the constitution of political communities, and the functioning of the public power. In conclusion, the ways in which the contributions to this volume address that research agenda are introduced.     

The politics of climate change policy design in Korea

The climate change policy design of the Lee Myung-bak administration was the outcome of interest group politics around the greenhouse gas and energy target management scheme, carbon taxes, and the emission-trading scheme. Using qualitative methods, this research examines powerful stakeholders and their interests at play in Korea’s climate change policymaking processes. It also links the political economy of climate change policy to the legacy of the ‘developmental state’ and examines environmental developmentalism in the design of the three climate change policies. The Lee administration strongly promoted environmental developmentalism, which created a new growth engine in an environmental field, while bolstering manufacturing businesses and excluding the views of environmental non-governmental organisations from the target-management and the emission-trading schemes. The Lee administration also sought to facilitate pro-business measures such as low taxes, which led it to reject a carbon tax. Therefore, environmental developmentalism was central to the politics of the Lee administration’s climate change policy design.     

Taming the Climate? Corpus analysis of politicians’ speech on climate change

The politics of climate change is much discussed, but there has been little investigation into how politicians themselves understand or articulate the issue. Corpus analysis, a method developed within linguistics, is used to investigate how UK politicians talk about climate change, using the example of the 2008 Climate Change Bill. Corpus techniques, including keyword analysis, collocation and semantic tagging, are used, alongside critical reading of the text. The analysis shows that politicians frame climate change as an economic and technical issue, and neglect discussion of the human and social dimensions. They are selective in their use of scientific evidence, with little mention of abrupt or irreversible change. In doing so, they attempt to ‘tame’ climate change, rather than confronting difficult realities. While this strategy has the benefit of political acceptability, it does not allow for discussion of the full political and social implications of climate change, and precludes more radical responses.     

The Czech Republic’s approach to the EU 2030 climate and energy framework

ABSTRACT

The East-West divide within the EU over climate policy has been frequently discussed. There is a tendency in the literature to focus on Poland and ignore the other countries in the central and eastern European region. Here it is argued that the institutionalised cooperation between the four countries in the Visegrad Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) provides a crucial component for an understanding of how the participating countries approach EU climate negotiations. Here it is suggested that the group is important as a bargaining coalition but also as a reference point for the development of shared ‘Visegrad’ norms in the field. This is based on a case study of the Czech Republic’s approach to the 2014 negotiations on the 2030 climate and energy framework and the country’s cooperation with the other Visegrad countries on the issue.     

Does climate denialism still matter? The prevalence of alternative frames in opposition to climate policy

Issue frames portraying climate science as uncertain are cited as a key impediment to new climate change and energy policies. However, some have recently argued that the debate over policy impacts, especially policy impacts on consumers, has become more politically salient than the debate over science. This study applies qualitative content analysis to 340 documents from the conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute, to test whether certain policy frames have become more common among leading opponents of climate policy in the United States. The results indicate a continued reliance on science framing, with more directed attacks on climate scientists and fewer frames stressing the uncertainty of climate science. An increase in the use of policy frames related to effects on consumers also suggests that opposition to climate policy is taking new forms as the political debate evolves, with ramifications for climate change policy opposition on an international scale.     

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.     

Ecological citizenship and democracy: Communitarian versus agonistic perspectives

Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable consumption as a main strategy to tackle climate change. They prefer to address individuals as citizens rather than as consumers, and focus on collective rather than individual change. Two prominent movements in this regard are Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action. While both movements criticise conventional approaches, they put forward entirely different strategies for what has to happen instead. Based on extensive qualitative research, this article analyses how these movements manifest themselves in Flanders (Belgium). The focus is on their different accounts of how and why collective practices have to be built, and the place they attribute to ‘the political’ in this. The analysis reveals the existence of two different forms of ecological citizenship: one communitarian, the other agonistic.     

Climate pioneership and leadership in structurally disadvantaged maritime port cities

ABSTRACT

Innovative climate governance in small-to-medium-sized structurally disadvantaged cities (SDCs) are assessed. Considering their deeply ingrained severe economic and social problems it would be reasonable to assume that SDCs act primarily as climate laggards or at best as followers. However, novel empirical findings show that SDCs are capable of acting as climate pioneers. Different types and styles of climate leadership and pioneership and how they operate within multi-level and polycentric governance structures are identified and assessed. SDCs seem relatively readily willing to adopt transformational climate pioneership styles to create ‘green’ jobs, for example, in the offshore wind energy sector and with the aim of improving their poor external image. However, in order to sustain transformational climate pioneership they often have to rely on support from ‘higher’ levels of governance. For SDCs, there is a tension between learning from each other’s best practice and fierce economic competition in climate innovation.     

Responsibility,capacity, greenness or vulnerability? What explains the levels of climate aid provided by bilateral donors?

At the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, donors pledged to ‘jointly mobilize’ $100 billion/year for climate finance by 2020. The Copenhagen Accord and other agreements do not specify who should provide how much of this collective target beyond the general principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR&RC), according to which the more responsible a country is for climate change and/or the more capable of paying, the more climate finance it should provide. Two additional burden-sharing mechanisms may explain how much climate finance donors provide: willingness to pay or ‘greenness’ and self-interest. These mechanisms are tested to determine which best explains current patterns in climate finance commitments by analysing bilateral climate aid. There is evidence for capability—richer countries provide more climate aid. In contrast, responsibility, greenness or self-interest do not induce more climate aid commitments. Better understanding the drivers of climate aid helps to mobilize more climate finance, and advances understanding of (sectoral) aid allocation.     

Boomerangs versus Javelins: How Polarization Constrains Communication on Climate Change

Political communicators work under the assumption that information provision, such as framing, may influence audiences and elicit some desired attitudinal or behavioral shift. However, some political issues, such as climate change, have become polarized along party lines, with partisans seemingly impervious to disconfirming information. On these highly polarized issues, can framing sway partisans to moderate their positions, or are partisans so motivated in their issue stances that framing fails? Using a variety of vignettes, and Republican climate change skepticism as a case, this article reports an experiment of how partisans respond to counter-attitudinal framing on a sharply polarized issue. Results indicate that Republicans are resistant to frames that encourage support of governmental action or personal engagement against climate change. There is strong evidence of motivated skepticism, given widespread backfire (or ‘boomerang’) effects and decreased attitudinal ambivalence following exposure to framing, suggesting that issue polarization may severely constrain attempts at communication.     

Addressing concerns about climate policies: the possibilities and perils of responsive accommodation

Responsive accommodation is a political strategy that addresses concerns about a policy proposal by incorporating amendments that address those concerns. This approach can broaden the policy’s appeal, but is strategically risky, as it can alienate the policy’s base of support. We examine this strategy and its application in the politics of climate change. Using a novel survey experiment, relative public support is evaluated for two amendments to a carbon tax proposal – revenue neutrality assurances and a carbon tariff – designed to ease concerns about taxes and global competitiveness. Analysis shows that support for a carbon tax increases when coupled with a carbon tariff, but decreases among some of the policy’s supporters when described as revenue-neutral. These results suggest that policymakers using a responsive accommodation strategy must carefully weigh its possible risks and rewards in their particular context.     

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.     

How to tell the truth about climate change

Scientific knowledge, it is argued, is insufficient to overcome climate skepticism. Spiritual truth is proposed as a way to do so. First, the cases of Eric Holthaus and Paul Kingsnorth are examined. Though they knew about climate change, they were only able to tell the truth and act on it after a personal collapse that transformed them. Telling the truth in this way carried a political force that their previous advocacy did not. These figures help animate and adapt Foucault’s notion of spiritual truth for climate change. Finally, this theory of spiritual truth is compared to Naomi Klein’s argument that climate science determines political truth and Bruno Latour’s argument that politics should decide the truth of climate science. Spiritual truth accommodates the insights these perspectives provide while adding transformation as a key element for telling the truth about climate change.