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The New Zealand government recently announced an intention to make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Interest has been expressed in using the United Kingdom's Climate Change Act 2008 as a model to achieve this goal. However, more needs to be done to critically review the UK legislation's applicability to the New Zealand context. This article identifies some of the issues emerging from a ten-year review of the UK act. It is hoped that close consideration of these issues will inform New Zealand policy and legislative development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental taxation is different from many other forms of taxation as it is not only used to raise revenue but it is also able to marginally influence behaviour to protect and enhance the environment. It provides valuable market led mechanisms to help limit greenhouse gas emissions, encourage sustainable behaviour and improve environmental performance to address climate change. The Post Paris (COP21) agreement provides a framework for global actions to address climate change and this sets the context for the discussion of environmental taxation. Environmental taxes have enormous potential to change carbon usage. In 2012, the Coalition Government (2010-2015) opined that the definition of an environmental tax includes three principles, namely that the tax is explicitly linked to the government's environmental objectives, that the primary objective of the tax is to encourage environmentally positive behaviour, and that the tax is structured in relation to environmental objectives, particularly the more polluting the behaviour the greater tax levied.¹ The current Government has adopted and applied this definition. By way of contrast, the definitions of environmental taxation favoured by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), respectively, give a wider remit for environmental taxation and policy making and include, for instance, various transport taxes which, as will be seen, do not fall within the Government's definition of an environmental tax. The Climate Change Levy, which is the focus of this article, was introduced as one of a series of new environmental taxes on business energy use in 2001. It is charged on electricity, gas liquefied petroleum gas and solid fuels used by business. Generally, environmental taxes are intended to increase investments in renewable technologies while reducing carbon emissions, but they are vulnerable to political influence and policy changes. Thus, the rationale for environmental or 'Green' taxes has shifted perceptibly to raising revenue rather than enabling government to meet its obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008. Environmental taxes are also susceptible to oil prices and fluctuations in the global economy. The North Sea oil and gas industry is going through a difficult period of retrenchment. A recent independent report has suggested that the industry has two years to adjust to changing economic circumstances.² Inevitably, this will impact on the tax revenues raised from this sector. In an ideal world, environmental taxes should be easy to avoid through a change in behaviour and, consequently, hard to evade. Environmental taxes provide important means to achieve policy objectives, but their full potential requires public support and, especially, engagement by the business community. The future of environmental taxes may depend on the success of 'green' investment. There is a case for introducing a single climate tax on business. Undoubtedly, environmental taxes deserve greater attention in the economic toolbox to meet climate change commitments. The UK faces some difficult policy decisions under the Climate Change Act 2008 to meet the 2030 energy and climate change package targets.³ Currently, the UK receives 7.5% of tax revenue from environmental taxes.4 To date, environmental taxation has had mixed outcomes in the UK, though few doubt its potential to define the future of carbon based energy use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how the UK government's headline climate change targets are translated into action at the local level in the transport sector drawing on the findings of research in two English regions. In doing so, these headline targets are identified as a symbolic meta-policy that results in little action on the ground and which challenges established conceptions of policy implementation. Both the 'meta' and 'symbolic' aspects of the policy offer part of the explanation for the lack of substantive action on the ground. As a meta-policy, the headline targets across government require the elaboration of other policies at other levels such as targets for government departments and local authorities, but these are largely absent, leaving the meta-policy without teeth. Over time, these headline targets have developed into a symbolic policy, serving political goals but having little practical effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although in recent years great emphasis has been placed on global agreements and national commitments on climate change, ultimately action on mitigation and adaptation must take place at the local level. Many local authorities have to face questions of whether they should develop policies on climate change, and if so, on what evidence should policies be designed and delivered. This paper describes how academic research on the economics of low carbon cities (the 'mini-Stern review') helped create such an evidence base for the Leeds City Region and its constituent local authorities. We describe how the response to the evidence and the pathways to impact were different in the individual local authorities and what this means for our understanding of evidence in local policy making. In terms of Weiss' (Social sciences and modern states: national experiences and theoretical crossroads. Advances in political science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ) classification, the study was mainly useful as an argument and idea rather than being used instrumentally. We find that the policy and political context in each authority determines to a large extent whether such an academic study is useable as evidence. The contents and timing of the study need to align with existing policy and/or political agendas: is climate change on the agenda at all, with what priority and how is it framed. We find confirmation of a relationship between the policy problem type and the role of evidence as argument, idea or data. The mini-Stern study itself was just one contribution to wide-ranging processes of informing, convincing, pressurising, etc., not just within the different councils but also within the wider communities. Other contextual factors include composition, agenda and activities of local civil society and the local business community. Finally, it depends on the expertise of policy officers in the councils what use is made of evidence. Making policy takes (much) time, translation and negotiation across levels and sectors. Policy work describes how policy officers bring their diverse forms of knowledge to bear on policy questions; how this work is done is something that is learned from practice rather than from the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]