Climate policy integration as a necessity for an efficient climate policy

Abstract

Significant changes in production processes and consumption patterns are required if high-consumption societies are to tackle climate change. These changes will not be achieved unless climate change is taken into account in the general and sector-specific policies that underlie economic activity and general social development. When actors react to climate policies, they are also influenced significantly by other policies.The degree to which climate change issues are considered and integrated into existing policy areas is therefore a key issue, along with climate-specific measures such as emissions trading. The paper assesses the extent of climate policy integration in six European countries (Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) and in some cases regions and municipalities and analyses measures and means for enhancing climate policy integration.This study shows that climate change has a more prominent role in governmental programmes than ever before, and it is no longer delegated to just one minister, one ministry or a few institutions. The most recent national climate strategies recognize the need for, and are built on, climate policy integration to a much greater extent than was previously the case. At the local level, many large cities, as well as smaller Climate Policy Integration as a Necessity for an Efficient Climate Policy -Amsterdam Conference 20092 municipalities, have made climate commitments which are often more ambitious than commitments made at a national level.More important than incorporating climate policy integration more deeply into policy strategies is extending it more fully to specific policy instruments. Across countries and regions, the need to deepen climate policy integration into spatial planning and governmental budgeting is common. In the countries studied, there are many inconsistencies between climate policy aims and other policy aims, which are rarely openly assessed. Mainstreaming climate policy opens up controversies such as the option of nuclear energy production or regulating the use of private cars. The study also shows that both mitigation and adaptation concerns all levels from the local to the global and that the interactions between levels are complex and multidirectional.

Exploring Institutional Transformations to Address High-End Climate Change in Iberia

“…These different dimensions of policy integration are relevant in the case of HECC. The first dimension relates to the "mainstreaming" of sustainability and environmental considerations into overarching policy documents, sectors and local government policies, as well as strategic plans and budgets, and is formalized around the concepts of Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) and, in our case, "climate policy integration" [36][37][38][39]. The second dimension refers to the need to deploy suitable co-operation and control mechanisms between various levels of governance.…”

Planning for Climatic Extremes and Variability: A Review of Swedish Municipalities’ Adaptation Responses

“…In the face of complex and uncertain predictions of climate change impacts, institutional and policy change at all levels must be able to learn from past experience. Not only is a careful pre-assessment and post-evaluation of risk reduction and adaption measures required, but also the development of indicators to monitor the effectiveness, equity, accountability and sustainability of related policies [46,50,77,78]. Current adaptation mainstreaming does not include such aspects.…”

“…Mainstreaming refers to the incorporation of the challenges posed by climate change into the work of city authorities by formulating effective responses to it, which-to become sustainable-then need to be anchored in existing institutional structures, mechanisms and policy across sectors and levels [42][43][44][45]. The level of mainstreaming of these responses not only influences the adaptive capacity of city authorities but also whether, and what type of, adaptive "on-the-ground" measures they prioritize [42,46]. It is often said that adaptive capacity is influenced by six general aspects which can be related to mainstreaming (i.e., the anchoring of adaptation at the institutional level): robust institutional setup, useful knowledge systems, functioning infrastructure, economic resources, access to technology and equity [10,38,[47][48][49].…”

Negotiating a Mainstreaming Spectrum: Climate Change Response and Communication in the Carolinas

“…Nunan et al (2012) argue that mainstreaming is a deliberate process, achieved by multiple routes and outputs, that takes place across and between multiple levels of government. This approach to policy negotiation and management is often called environmental policy integration in European settings (Adelle & Russel, 2013), leading some scholars to use the term climate policy integration to reference the climate mainstreaming process (Mickwitz et al, 2009). Although minor theoretical distinctions between these terms exist, this article uses the term climate mainstreaming to describe these concepts collectively.…”