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This book examines the expansion of climate governance frameworks in the EU and US and their re-framing as part of green industrial programs.Addressing research on how vectors of stability and punctuation interact to advance or block policy progress, the book breaks new ground by presenting a theoretical framework suitable to integrate insights of comparative research and “sui generis” accounts of climate policy as a variable and multi-dimensional issue. In its empirical part, it compares two contrasting trajectories of climate policy-making: namely, the adaptation of the European Green Deal agenda to the exogenous shocks of the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine through its NextGen and REPowerEU programs; and the launch of green industrial policies targeting infrastructure (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and inflation reduction (Inflation Reduction Act) in the US. Finally discussing to what degree the EU and US show signs of convergence towards a new type of climate policy from opposed starting points, the book identifies future research agendas around the topics of climate policy integration and politicization.This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of climate change governance, EU and US politics, environmental politics and comparative politics.

Political responses to climate change are shaped by beliefs and ideas. How does discourse on climate action and its contestation affect policy-making? Addressing this question, the book compares EU and US policy-making since the Paris Agreement and its framing by key political institutions. The empirical part analyses the structure, linkages and contestation of frames to evaluate the contrasting spaces of climate politics in both systems. As the first direct comparison of EU and US climate governance since the Paris Agreement, the book advances current research on the politics of climate change, the politicization of multi-level governance and the role of discourse for policy change.