Search

Purpose – The issue of climate change raises new requirements for the way our societies work. Even though climate policy is regarded as being crucial on the way to a low carbon society, the coordination of technology and climate policy proves difficult. The purpose of this paper is to look closer into the challenges and experiences related to the coordination between climate and technology policy in order to draw lessons for the future integration of both policy fields. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper a case study approach is applied to the policy coordination efforts in two countries: Denmark and the UK. From a theoretical point the study is informed by the literature on the dimensions of policy learning and the findings of innovation and transition studies. Findings – The case studies provide important lessons how important flexibility and continues policy learning and its institutionalization will be on the way towards a low carbon society. However, it becomes clear that the price of this flexibility is the risk of "symbolic action", respectively, postponing emission reduction measures. Research limitations/implications – The findings are drawn from two countries, however it remains not fully clear in how far the instruments and approaches from countries like Denmark and the UK can be applied in a similar way in other countries. Originality/value – The paper provides an important discussion of contradictions between climate and technology policy from the perspective of the literature in innovation studies and policy learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the host country of the 26th United Nations Climate Conference, the United Kingdom (UK) fully carried out climate diplomacy at the conference, and intended to promote the green concept in the international community through diplomatic means, which shows its greater ambition in international climate governance. However, the UK, as the source of the Industrial Revolution, has not always followed the so-called green norms in history. In the interaction with the EU norms after joining the European Community, the UK gradually developed from an "opponent" of green norms to an "advocate" of green norms. After "Brexit", the British government did not stop at the previous green norms of the EU, and further gave the green norms a special brand of the UK on this basis. At present, during the term of Boris Johnson's government, the green norms shaped by the UK have been basically formed and disseminated within a certain mechanism. In this paper, based on the normative power theory and relevant historical facts, how the UK has shaped international norms and obtained normative power through a series of climate policy will be discussed, and some enlightenment to China's participation in the construction of international norms system today will be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing focus on uncertainty as a distinct concept in the risk literature. This paper is concerned with how those involved in the design and implementation of climate change policy conceptualize risk and uncertainty. Based on interviews with policy and industry elites in Australia, China and the UK, it finds that participants did not distinguish between "risk" and "uncertainty" in their conceptualization of climate threats. For the majority of them, politics was the most significant source of risk and uncertainty in climate policy, but delegation of otherwise political decisions to the market was seen as the best solution. The conclusion suggests that the conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty is less important, for policy and industry elites, than the need to develop mechanisms that account for both persistent scientific uncertainties as well as interpretive and moral ambiguities in climate policy design and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Utilizes 111 expert interviews and 50 site visits to examine UK industrial decarbonization. • Explores sociotechnical pathways, capabilities, and learning processes. • Harnesses a challenge-oriented regional innovation systems (CoRIS) framework. • Reflects on deeper issues of incumbency, innovation, and incremental vs. transformative change. Few sectors in the global economy need deep decarbonization as much as heavy industry, which is currently the largest and fastest growing source of global carbon emissions. Based on an original dataset of 111 expert interviews and 52 site visits, this paper asks: what sociotechnical pathways, capabilities, and regional innovation systems are emerging to support industrial decarbonization? It combines and applies insights from evolutionary economic geography and transitions studies, such as sociotechnical capabilities and learning, as well as spatial frameworks such as challenge-oriented regional innovation systems (CoRIS) and green industrial restructuring. It utilizes these collective concepts of pathways, capabilities and CoRIS to explore the organizational and technological, individual, and systems level dimensions of industrial decarbonization efforts ongoing across Great Britain. We find that within industrial net-zero clusters, spatial and technological proximities are being effectively leveraged, especially through new forms of networking, collaboration, and partnerships. CoRIS provides the basis for greater reflection on perennial transitions issues, both within and across clusters, related to incumbency and innovation, in addition to spotlighting emergent issues such as light versus deep green restructuring and incremental versus transformative change. In simpler terms, industrial decarbonization unfolds as a multi-scalar process. Industrial decarbonization exhibits both incremental and transformative patterns of change. Industrial decarbonization lastly involves dynamic processes that coevolve across a spectrum of sociotechnical attributes. [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]

To achieve European Union (EU) greenhouse gas emissions of 80–95% below 1990 levels by 2050, CO2emissions from residential energy consumption must be substantially reduced. Recognition of this has led to the introduction of a range of policy instruments at both EU and member state level. These policies are examined for the EU and the UK, first by grouping them into three ‘pillars of policy’ – standards and engagement, markets and pricing, and strategic investment (each of which focus on different ‘domains of change’ embodying different economic processes) – and then by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each pillar in terms of instrument coverage and effectiveness. Strengths and weaknesses common to both UK and EU policy landscapes are found, including a comprehensive but broadly ineffective standards and engagement pillar of policy, and an ineffective markets and pricing landscape (including effective subsidization of energy consumption in the UK, permitted by the EU), with poor coverage. The strategic investment landscape is found (until recently) to be substantially stronger in the UK compared with EU instruments and requirements. Priority reform actions are also proposed to address the weaknesses identified. The paper also offers discussion of recent policy developments in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is an international divide between net emissions importers and net emissions exporters, with industrialised nations mainly falling into the former and emerging economies the latter. Integrating emissions transfers into climate policy, so as not to disadvantage export-intensive countries, has been suggested to increase participation in international emissions reduction commitments. Consumption-based scenarios are presented for the UK identifying the geographic and sectorial source of emissions to meet future consumer demands given the current international climate policy landscape. The analysis is applied to the UK yet the discussion is applicable to international climate policy; assigning national responsibility for global emissions reductions; and extending the mitigation potential for net importing countries. Two trajectories for UK consumption emissions are calculated in which (1) international reduction targets are consistent with those pledged today equating to four degrees of temperature rise and (2) international reduction targets achieve a two degree future. By 2050 it is estimated that UK consumption emissions are 40–260% greater than UK territorial emissions depending on the strength of global reduction measures, and assuming the UK meets its 80% reduction in 1990 emissions by 2050 target. Cumulative emissions are presented alongside emissions trajectories, recognising that temperature rise is directly related to every tonne of carbon emitted. Whilst this paper argues that the current UK emissions targets underestimate the UK's contribution to global mitigation for two degrees, it shows how expanding the focus of policy towards consumption introduces new opportunities for reduction strategies at scale. The paper advocates the implementation of consumption-based emissions accounting which reveals underexploited policy interventions and increases the potential to break down barriers that exist between industrialised and emerging economies in international climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Responsible incentivisation requires attention to situated stakeholder perspectives. • We develop four policy scenarios and subject them to deliberation in the UK and Sweden. • New incentives and enabling reforms to existing policy instruments are needed. • Mitigation deterrence must be considered in real world (not abstracted) contexts. • Multi-instrument approaches are needed to overcome single instrument deficiencies. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plays a central role in scenario pathways that limit global warming in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Yet deliberate policy efforts to incentivise BECCS—whether through amending existing climate policies or introducing entirely new ones—remain rare. In this paper, we contend that BECCS must be incentivised responsibly, through policy-making processes which account for diverse and geographically varying societal values and interests. More specifically, we make the case for responsible incentivisation by undertaking a comparative analysis of stakeholder attitudes to four idealised policy scenarios for BECCS, including representatives of government, business, nongovernmental and academic communities, in the UK and Sweden. The scenarios were: business as usual; international policy reform; national BECCS policy; and national policy for negative emissions technologies. Based on our findings, we recommend that policymakers 1) recognise the need to develop new incentives and make enabling reforms to existing policy instruments; 2) consider the risk of mitigation deterrence in their real world (and not abstracted) contexts; 3) employ multi-instrument approaches to incentivisation that do not overly rely on carbon pricing or 4) force a choice between technology specific or technology neutral policies; and 5) attend to the diversity of stakeholder and wider public perspectives that will ultimately determine the success—or failure—of their policy designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The UK's and Germany's coal phase-out pathways diverge in timing and measures. • Different powers of actor groups contribute to diverging trends in UK and Germany. • Influential German coal corporations and unions slow down coal's decline. • Energy security concerns, domestic mining and economic dependence create resistance. • Reducing the influence incumbents have on policy making might enable coal phase-out. Political decisions and trends regarding coal use for electricity generation developed differently in the UK and Germany, despite being subject to relatively similar climate protection targets and general political and economic conditions. The UK agreed on a coal phase-out by 2024. In Germany, a law schedules a coal phase-out by 2038 at the latest. This paper investigates reasons for the different developments and aims to identify main hurdles and drivers of coal phase-outs by using the Triple Embeddedness Framework. The comparative case study approach reveals that policy outcomes regarding coal consumption are deeply influenced by several actor groups, namely, coal companies, unions, environmental NGOs, and the government. The most discussed aspects of a coal phase-out in both countries are energy security concerns, whether coal is mined domestically, (regional) economic dependence, as well as the relative power of actors with vested interests in coal consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many factors can conspire to limit the scope for policy development at the national level. In this paper, we consider whether blockages in national policy processes − resulting for example from austerity or small state political philosophies − might be overcome by the development of more polycentric governance arrangements. Drawing on evidence from three stakeholder workshops and fifteen interviews, we address this question by exploring the United Kingdom’s recent retrenchment in the area of climate change policy, and the ways in which its policy community have responded. We identify two broad strategies based on polycentric principles: ‘working with gatekeepers’ to unlock political capital and ‘collaborate to innovate’ to develop policy outputs. We then empirically examine the advantages that these actions bring, analysing coordination across overlapping sites of authority, such as those associated with international regimes, devolved administrations and civic and private initiatives that operate in conjunction with, and sometimes independently of, the state. Despite constraining political and economic factors, which are by no means unique to the UK, we find that a polycentric climate policy network can create opportunities for overcoming central government blockages. However, we also argue that the ambiguous role of the state in empowering but also in constraining such a network will determine whether a polycentric approach to climate policy and governance is genuinely additional and innovative, or whether it is merely a temporary ‘sticking plaster’ for the retreat of the state and policy retrenchment during austere times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the literature on carbon accounting is growing, studies on the valuation impact of firms' carbon abatement investment (CAI) are scarce, and the influence of country-specific climate policies is largely underexplored. Drawing on both the benefit and cost perspectives of the resource-based view, we predict that investors' perceptions of the net benefits of CAI are contingent on national climate policies. Based on a comparative analysis of data from the US, the UK, and Australia, we find that CAI is viewed as value-destroying by investors in countries that do not have a stringent climate change policy. In contrast, CAI enhances firm value in jurisdictions that implement such policies. Additional analyses show that investors also consider the characteristics of CAI (i.e., the size and payback period) and the act and extensiveness of voluntary CAI disclosure when evaluating firm value. Our findings fill important gaps in the literature and have critical implications for policymakers, investors, managers, and other stakeholders who are responsible for the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I develop a novel method for public appraisal of five policy relevant CDR methods. • The British public support the inclusion of CDR in UK climate policy. • 'Natural' CDR is preferred but likely a result of prevailing Romanticist thought. • 'Technological' CDR is less polarising and may be held back by the nature framing. • Highest support is from egalitarians, older people, men, and higher social grades. Efforts to deliver on net zero emissions targets are set to rely on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods. Democratic, trustworthy and socially intelligent research, development, demonstration and deployment of CDR methods in aid of net zero will be highly dependent on how different publics evaluate them, and ultimately which groups support or oppose them. This paper develops a novel, nationally representative method for the multi-criteria appraisal of five policy relevant CDR methods – plus an option not to pursue CDR at all – by members of the British public (n = 2,111). The results show that the public supports the inclusion of CDR in UK climate policy. CDR methods often characterised as 'natural' or 'nature-based' are appraised more highly than 'technological' ones, in the descending order: habitat restoration, afforestation, wood in construction, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, and direct air carbon capture and storage. Yet, there is no significant disagreement in the appraisal of technological methods and they therefore may be less polarizing, suggesting that popular preconceptions of what is natural – and therefore more attractive – may be holding them back. CDR methods being mainly developed by public sector and non-governmental organisations are also appraised more highly than those being developed by private interests. Regional differences in option appraisal reveal where particular CDR methods are more or less likely to be supported or opposed; stressing the importance of matching physical requirements for CDR with appropriate social contexts. Demographic and socio-economic analyses show that people who appraise CDR methods most highly tend to be older respondents, male, or of a higher social grade. Finally, those with hierarchical worldviews and who voted 'leave' in the UK's referendum on EU membership are less supportive of CDR than those with egalitarian worldviews and who voted 'remain'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drained agricultural peatlands emit significantly higher amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per hectare than mineral soils. GHG abatement costs for representative cereals (CF) and dairy (DF) farms in southwestern Finland were estimated by integrating an emission-based tax together with an option to invest in a subsidized adjustable drainage system on peat soils in a farm-level dynamic optimization model. With an average 10% share of peat soils from overall farm area, emissions tax rates over 15 (CF) and 19 (DF) €/tCO2e triggered adjustable drainage investments with a significant reduction in GHG emissions per ha, when assuming no crop-yield effect from the adjustable drainage. Abatement costs for emissions tax rates €12–50/tCO2e/ha were €16–44/tCO2e (CF) and €26–51/tCO2e (DF) for whole farm-soil emissions, depending on the share of peatlands on the farm, on the yield effects of adjustable drainage, and on crop prices. High emissions tax rates imply higher abatement costs since farms have a limited capability to adjust their production and land use. Thus, emissions reductions from peatlands can be achieved at reasonable costs when investing in adjustable drainage on peatlands. The income losses due to emissions tax, however, are high, but they can be compensated for farmers by lumpsum payments independent of their production decisions. Since existing agricultural policies such as the EU CAP system may have limited effectiveness on GHG emissions, the emissions tax and adjustable drainage on peatlands could promote GHG abatement significantly on farms and areas with abundant peatlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on the relationship between management practices and firm performance. We interviewed managers of 190 randomly selected manufacturing plants in the UK and matched their responses with official business microdata. We find that climate friendly management practices are associated with lower energy intensity and higher productivity. Firms that adopt more such practices also conduct more climate friendly R&D which will sustain future growth in energy efficiency. Our findings are akin to the “energy efficiency paradox” and highlight the linkages between particular management practices and firm-level energy efficiency. We also find a strong empirical link between climate friendly management practices and organizational structure. Firms are more likely to adopt such practices if climate change issues are managed by the environmental or energy manager, and if this manager is close to the CEO. Adoption is less likely when the CEO is in charge of climate change issues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Voluntary and negotiated agreements are becoming increasingly popular instruments for regulating industry's environmental performance. Although their main purpose is to modify the behaviour of individual firms, the coordinating role of trade (or industry) associations is often critical to their environmental effectiveness. Thus, a clear and mutually agreed understanding of associations' role in the agreement process is essential. This paper examines the nature of trade associations' input into the negotiation and implementation of environmental agreements, using the case study of United Kingdom Climate Change Agreements. Results show associations serving a range of coordinating roles, including the aggregation of members' viewpoints, negotiation of agreements, provision of regulatory and technical knowledge and collation of performance data. We conclude that further involvement of trade associations in negotiated and voluntary agreements can bring appreciable, though not uncontested, benefits in terms of environmental effectiveness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid urbanisation of the twentieth century, along with the spread of high-consumption urban lifestyles, has led to cities becoming the dominant drivers of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing these impacts is crucial, but production-based frameworks of carbon measurement and mitigation-which encompass only a limited part of cities' carbon footprints-are much more developed and widely applied than consumption-based approaches that consider the embedded carbon effectively imported into a city. Frequently, therefore, cities are left blind to the importance of their wider consumption-related climate impacts, while at the same time left lacking effective tools to reduce them. To explore the relevance of these issues, we implement methodologies for assessing production- and consumption-based emissions at the city-level and estimate the associated emissions trajectories for Bristol, a major UK city, from 2000 to 2035. We develop mitigation scenarios targeted at reducing the former, considering potential energy, carbon and financial savings in each case. We then compare these mitigation potentials with local government ambitions and Bristol's consumption-based emissions trajectory. Our results suggest that the city's consumption-based emissions are three times the production-based emissions, largely due to the impacts of imported food and drink. We find that low-carbon investments of circa £3 billion could reduce production-based emissions by 25% in 2035. However, we also find that this represents <10% of Bristol's forecast consumption-based emissions for 2035 and is approximately equal to the mitigation achievable by eliminating the city's current levels of food waste. Such observations suggest that incorporating consumption-based emission statistics into cities' accounting and decision-making processes could uncover largely unrecognised opportunities for mitigation that are likely to be essential for achieving deep decarbonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to understand the scope for comparative lesson-drawing on national-level climate mitigation policy has acquired added significance due to the current impasse in international-level governance. Greater policy learning or lesson-drawing among peers at the national level could, to an extent, foster meaningful developments by overcoming generalised international apathy and inaction. In this respect, we analyse the features of one significant example of national climate policy in order to examine the scope for lesson-drawing, thereby setting out a normative research agenda. The UK Climate Change Act 2008 remains one of the few examples of legally enshrined national mitigation legislation and hence provides a relevant, but surprisingly under-researched, source of learning for policy-makers worldwide. By analysing its development, critical features and implementation, this article shows that-despite criticism of the sustainability and implementation effectiveness of the Act-some aspects of the policy could provide lessons for other states, and hence are potentially transferable extraterritorially, although lesson-drawing itself is conditional on contextual constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses media representations of the strengthening technological energy policy orientation in the UK and Finland. Drawing from over 1200 newspaper articles from 1991 to 2006, it scrutinises how energy policy in general and energy technologies in particular have been discussed by the media in these two countries, and how the media representations have changed over time. The results point to the importance of national political, economic and cultural features in shaping media discussions. At the same time, international political events and ideas of technology-driven economic growth have transformed media perceptions of energy technologies. While the British media have been rather critical towards national policies throughout the period of analysis, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has supported successive national governments. In both countries, energy technologies have increasingly become linked to global societal and political questions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do UK local authorities contribute to national carbon reductions? Urban energy and carbon models are emerging as a vital tool for local authorities that wish to understand the greenhouse gas emissions of their city and how to reduce them. The linkage between policy processes and tools is rarely recognized and tools are deployed ad hoc. A set of policy-relevant assessment criteria is proposed and used to review the emergent state-of-the-art in UK urban energy and carbon modelling. Drawing on the authors' own experience and the literature, a differentiation is made between accounting-style inventory tools and policy modelling tools. It is argued that although part of the same overall policy process, these two approaches lack consistency in methods and implementation. A comparison with local air pollution modelling makes this contrast apparent. A lack of clarity exists for the use of modelling in urban energy and carbon policy processes. A normalized urban modelling practice would ensure consistency while preserving local flexibility. Comment les autorités locales britanniques contribuent-elles aux réductions de carbone au niveau national? Les modèles d'énergie urbaine et de carbone apparaissent comme constituant un outil essentiel pour les autorités locales qui souhaitent comprendre les émissions de gaz à effet de serre de leur ville et la manière de les réduire. Il est rarement reconnu qu'il existe un lien entre les processus des politiques et les outils, et ceux-ci sont déployés ad hoc. Il est proposé un ensemble de critères d'évaluation pertinents à l'égard des politiques concernées, utilisé pour examiner les techniques dernier cri émergentes dans le domaine de la modélisation de l'énergie urbaine et du carbone au Royaume-Uni. En s'appuyant sur l'expérience propre des auteurs et la littérature, il est établi une différenciation entre les outils d'inventaire de type comptable et les outils de modélisation des politiques. Il est soutenu que, bien que faisant partie du même processus politique global, ces deux approches manquent de cohérence quant aux méthodes et à leur mise en oeuvre. Une comparaison avec la modélisation de la pollution de l'air au niveau local rend ce contraste évident. Il existe un manque de clarté concernant l'utilisation de la modélisation dans les processus des politiques relatives à l'énergie urbaine et au carbone. Une pratique de modélisation urbaine normalisée assurerait de la cohérence tout en préservant une flexibilité au niveau local. Mots clés: cadre bâti, rréduction du carbone, rvilles, rpolitique climatique, rénergie, rautorités locales, rmodélisation, défis de la recherche [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for effective and efficient climate policy has led to a major expansion in the use of market-based instruments and voluntary agreements (New Environmental Policy Instruments [NEPIs]) at national and international levels. Yet, despite the prevalence of these instruments as an outcropping of the broader shift toward neoliberal approaches to environmental policies, tremendous diversity exists in the way signatories to the Kyoto Protocol have deployed NEPIs. Drawing on recent geographical and political science research on the neoliberalization of nature, this article reexamines reasons for geographical variations in market environmentalism and, in particular, the role of national policy styles in refracting neoliberal influence on environmental policy. In so doing, I argue that policy styles are too frequently conceptualized in terms of state processes, overlooking complex and territorialized social relations between regulators and regulated parties. To illustrate this claim, I compare the implementation of climate policy in the United Kingdom and Germany, exploring the effects of national policy styles on NEPI deployment, factors contributing to industry reactions to market-based and voluntary measures, and how national policy styles color these evaluations. This is used to argue that understanding geographical variations in market environmentalism requires greater appreciation of the role of industry groups in the creation, defense, and evolution of national policy styles. I conclude by reflecting on the study's implications for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]