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Prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, EU deliberations on the 'Fit-for-55' climate/energy package embedded in the European Green Deal were already well underway. The energy transition had also begun to gain traction towards more renewables, energy saving and emissions reduction. The invasion caused an energy-political earthquake that threatened to split the EU, slowing down or weakening these ongoing processes. This study finds that the invasion 1) strengthened rather than weakened the 'Fit for 55' package; 2) accelerated rather than slowed the ongoing energy transition; and 3) may have strengthened the EU's potential for climate leadership-by-example. However, the further consequences are highly uncertain as the EU shifts from crisis response to long-term governance of climate and energy policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have petroleum and power companies and their European industry associations responded to the EU emissions trading system (ETS)? Responses can be political, directed externally towards the initiation and reforms of the EU ETS itself, or internally and market-based, directed at low-carbon solutions. Proactive response strategies shape companies’ leadership potential. Variation in responses is explained by two models that differ in assumptions about corporate behaviour as well as the wider multilevel regulatory context in which companies operate. Responses are found to have converged within the two industries, with reactive companies following the proactive ones. Secondly, responses between the two industries increasingly diverge, with the power industry becoming much more proactive than the petroleum industry. The main explanation is found in the differing relevance of the two models and the wider regulatory context, particularly differing exposure to international competition and weak international climate agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the need for governance of human health and environmental safety risks of nanotechnology (NT) has received increased attention at international, national and EU levels. There were early calls for increased funding of independent research, risk analysis and voluntary or mandatory regulation, but currently overall regulatory efforts have not materialised. One possible explanation is that research has revealed little need to regulate environmental and health safety risks of NT. Alternatively, there is a gap between politics and governance and the evolving state of knowledge. Such a gap can be caused by various factors including change in interests, saliency and organisation. Organisational challenges related to the science-policy interface at national, international and the EU can affect how new knowledge is channelled into decision-making processes. Decrease in public saliency is another possibility. Finally, opposition to regulation among affected producers may have increased and in turn stalled regulation through lobbying. The two explanations are analysed in a multi-level governance context. Norway is chosen as an interesting case: Highly profiled as a frontrunner i.a. in regulating gene technology, but currently awaiting regulations in the EU due to the European Economic Area agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong rhetorical differences between the European Union and the United States on climate matters have been evident for almost two decades. Since the mid-2000s, such differences are becoming visible in their respective climate policies as well. We propose three explanations for differences in climate policy outcomes in the EU and the US. First, the agenda-setting privileges of their policy-makers are significantly different, influencing how agenda setters shape policies and link issues, such as energy and climate policy. Second, while issue linkage has helped overcome distributional obstacles in the EU, it has led to more complexity and greater policy obstacles in the US. Finally, legislative rules, procedures, and norms have constrained the coalition-building efforts of lawmakers in the two systems in different ways, affecting negotiation processes and outcomes. Such differences in agenda-setting privileges, potential for issue linkages, and legislative procedures in the EU and the US have left them wide apart in international climate negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2008, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) was significantly revised and strengthened. This article explores the basis for, and the consequences of, the revision for legitimacy. The key to legitimate EU governance is seen in the convergence of different sources of legitimacy at various levels of society. In addition to member-state consent, participation of non-state actors, democracy, expertise and effectiveness are of relevance. The first conclusion is that the recent revision of the EU ETS has indeed been grounded in a broader multilevel legitimacy basis. Second, the system faces significant challenges with regard to carbon markets and effectiveness, which could reduce its legitimacy in the long term. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has developed the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. This development is puzzling due to the EU's scepticism to international emissions trading in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the run-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This article analyses how the EU ETS was initiated in the first place mainly from the perspectives of Liberal intergovernmentalism (LI) and multi-level governance (MLG). LI emphasises change in the positions of the EU member states as the key to understand what happened and why, whereas MLG opens up for change in the position of supranational entrepreneurial leaders as the key explanation. The main conclusion is that entrepreneurial epistemic leadership exercised by the European Commission was crucial for making the EU ETS. The principal means of leadership involved building up independent expertise on how an EU ETS could be designed, and mobilizing support from state and non-state actors at various levels of decision-making. This type of leadership may be needed more generally to deal with challenges characterized by high scientific uncertainty and social complexity in which learning is pertinent, such as climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]