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The article presents geographical perspectives about climate policy implementation . It highlights several papers relative to policy implementation that were first presented at the Royal Geographical Society conference in September 2006. Collectively, the papers evidence the need for a greater appreciation of the polyvalent geographies of climate policy implementation, to challenge and contextualize prevailing orthodoxies about how rapid climate change can or should be tackled. According to the author, the papers deal a range of theoretical and practical issues which assist geographers' understanding of the socially and politically embedded nature of climate policy implementation and the key challenges involved in making climate promises a reality.

Energy production has come under increasing scrutiny as concerns about energy security and climate change have risen. In the UK changes in government structure and privatisation of the electricity industry have led to the emergence of multi-level governance. This means that decisions on how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity-generating sector should no longer be solely a national policy decision. Previous studies have sought to explore how renewable energy may develop under multi-level governance, but this paper pays attention to a traditional fossil fuel source, coal, which is still an important means of electricity generation. Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel and advocates argue that carbon capture and storage techniques could make coal ‘clean’, paving the way for a long-term, secure and low emission way to produce energy. This study focuses on the Yorkshire and Humber Region, which has had a long association with coal mining and looks at the implications of this as the region seeks to develop a climate change action plan and an energy strategy within the new regional governance structures. The paper argues that the regional networks developed to address climate change are influenced by existing social power structures and alliances. The region as a territorial structure becomes a useful device in promoting national priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transport sector is consistently responsible for around 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries and is one of few sectors where emissions continue to increase as a result of apparently insatiable demand for road and air travel. This paper examines how the formulation of transport policy fits into the exposition of UK climate policy, focusing on three principal areas of tension: policy priority (congestion and carbon reduction); strategies to reduce emissions (technological and behavioural solutions) and timescale (short- and long-term vision). We suggest that in overcoming such tensions government ministers will need to devolve significant policy formulation and implementation powers to an appropriate scale of governance – in this case the city-region – to fashion a ‘convergence space’ capable of promoting meaningful action with regard to transport's climate impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journalistic norm of ‘balanced’ reporting (giving roughly equal coverage to both sides in any significant dispute) is recognised as both useful and problematic in communicating emerging scientific consensus on human attribution for global climate change. Analysis of the practice of this norm in United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) newspaper coverage of climate science between 2003 and 2006 shows a significant divergence from scientific consensus in the US in 2003–4, followed by a decline in 2005–6, but no major divergence in UK reporting. These findings inform ongoing considerations about the spatially-differentiated media terms and conditions through which current and future climate policy is negotiated and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the efficacy of national climate programmes (packages of policies introduced by governments to meet emissions reduction targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol) by considering emissions trends before and after their implementation. Analysis reveals that only four of 21 countries with defined programmes demonstrate improved emissions trends following their inception and in only one is the change statistically significant. The reasons for this are manifold but serendipity appears to play as large a part as strategy in determining national emissions trends in the early years of climate programmes. Inflated claims of success by national governments are unhelpful for effective policy analysis and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]