The Design of Climate Institutions: Contributions for the Analysis

Abstract

This article explores the issue of designing government institutions in charge of the climate agenda in the Latin American context. To this end, it identifies some key political challenges facing climate institutions in the countries of the region. In particular, it discusses four topics: First, the cross cutting nature of the climate agenda; second, the long-term perspective (and levels of uncertainty) posed by climate problems against the tighter time frames of political cycles; third, the power asymmetry between the government agencies in charge of climate issues and other areas of government; finally, the implementation deficits of climate policies. The article also discusses different types of institutional design responses to address each of these challenges and the advantages and limitations of each one.

Policy implementation barriers in climate change adaptation: The case of Pakistan

“…This characteristic of climate change phenomena requires policies and actions to be integrated across sectors. Climate policy agenda needs to be incorporated in the existing sectoral policies (Ryan, 2016). Only then a workable policy implementation design can be developed.…”

“…Assigning control to a higher tier of authority such as the presidency is often sought as a solution to void asymmetrical power issues. However, as Ryan (2016) elaborates that such an arrangement is functional only under strong leadership and risks of failing exist when the new administration (political party) has a contesting agenda. Hence long‐term sustainability of such an implementation framework remains to be uncertain.…”

“…Assigning control to a higher tier of authority such as the presidency is often sought as a solution to void asymmetrical power issues. However, as Ryan (2016) demonstrates that policy processes have the tendency to exhibit path dependencies (Howlett, 2009). This means that once a certain course of action is taken it tends to be repeated for future policy processes regardless of its past failures (Macintosh et al, 2015).…”

Climate change governance in the anthropocene: emergence of polycentrism in Chile

“…The Chilean institutional response, as well as that of other countries in Latin America, has been the creation of inter-ministerial spaces for coordination, in many cases located within the orbit of ministries or secretariats of environment such as the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change in Brazil and the National Commission on Climate Change in Paraguay, among other cases. Another recurring response to the challenge of coordination among different actors and the integration of the climate agenda in sectoral policies is the creation of climate change units or offices in different ministries (Ryan, 2016). These new inter-and intra-ministerial groups have often coordinated PANCC and NDC processes.…”