Municipalities as Frontrunners in Mitigation of Climate Change: Does soft regulation make a difference?

Abstract

Soft regulatory measures are argued to represent a useful alternative to hard regulation when policy-makers seek to deal with difficult problems. This article investigates the impact of a national guideline on climate and energy planning adopted in Norway, a soft regulatory instrument, which sought to encourage stronger local climate mitigation policies. To assess the effectiveness of this policy approach the research reported here investigated the impact of the guideline on the institutionalization of local climate policy activity in a set of Norwegian municipalities. Our findings indicate that for municipalities in the early phases of developing their climate mitigation policy the planning guideline contributed to legitimizing climate policy by linking it to other policy areas. For municipalities that had come further in developing their climate mitigation policy, however, the planning guideline made little difference. The findings indicate that even if soft policy instruments might be needed in a situation with complex regulatory issues, it is difficult to achieve results without the support of harder policy measures. This is particularly the case if local authorities face financial constraints and lack manpower in their work in developing effective climate mitigation policy.

How municipalities act under the new paradigm for energy planning

“…However, these studies show that although political initiatives were introduced there is still a gap between the national and local level when it comes to realising political plans. For instance, local authorities often seem to struggle due to a lack of resources and specific knowledge [14,36], but also due to missing consistency in the energy policymaking at the national level [14,33,36].…”

Breaking silos: can cities break down institutional barriers in climate planning?

“…However, the success these municipalities experienced in their local climate efforts is explained not by a causal link to the plans, but by citizens' environmental preferences: 'Thus, climate plans are largely codifying outcomes that would have been achieved in any case' (Millard-Ball, 2012, p. 289). Kasa, Westskog, and Rose (2017) studied the impacts of soft national regulations on local climate planning, that is, regulations without sanctions. They found that these regulations have some influence on the development of mitigation policies in municipalities at early stages, primarily because they contribute 'to legitimizing climate policy by linking it to other policy areas', but they do not have a particular influence on municipalities that are very ambitious or disinterested (Kasa et al, 2017, p. 1).…”

How environmental reputation and ethical behavior impact the relationship between environmental regulatory enforcement and environmental performance

“…First, the findings extend our understanding of the curvilinear role of ERE on environmental performance. The existing literature suggest that environmental regulation enforcement improves environmental innovation and performance (Anwar et al, 2020; Kasa et al, 2018; Shevchenko, 2020). This argument assumes that the greater the ERE, the higher the compliance of environmental regulation by firms or individuals.…”