'The climate challenge, ecological modernisation and technological forcing. A comparative analysis of EU and US approaches'.

Negotiations to reach a post-Kyoto settlement at Copenhagen in December 2009 provide the opportunity to reinvigorate climate protection. This paper considers the potential for a 'second wave' of climate politics by comparing the divergent approaches of the EU and the USA. The underlying question raised is whether environmental and climate policy practice has been as divergent as policy rhetoric. The paper firstly situates trans-Atlantic divergence in the context of political cultures, with the EU's institutional history making it relatively comfortable with the practice of aspirational objectives, in contrast to US reluctance arising from an environmental policy tradition of precise and legalistic norm setting. Secondly, it critically reviews the capacity of ecological modernisation theory to resolve the tensions between economic and environmental orientations. The third part looks for evidence that ecological modernisation is actually occurring by investigating policy measures in the arena of 'technological forcing'. This label is applied to US 'technology forcing' as such, and to implementation in the EU of feed-in tariffs and an emissions trading scheme. Key commonalities identified are a preference for incremental improvements in the environmental performance of target firms and extremely limited capacity for initiating structural change within industry. Resistance from vested interests is a key explanation. However, the 'second wave' of climate politics will arguably be characterised by an understanding of the need for structural change, and the development of political strategies to overcome resistance from 'modernisation losers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]