The political challenges of deep decarbonisation: towards a more integrated agenda

Abstract

Adopting public policies to deliver the ambitious long-term goals of the Paris Agreement will require significant societal commitment. That commitment will eventually emerge from the interaction between policies, publics and politicians. This article has two main aims. First, it reviews the existing literatures on these three to identify salient research gaps. It finds that existing work has focused on one aspect rather than the dynamic interactions between them all. Second, it sets out a more integrated research agenda that explores the three-way interaction between publics, policies and politicians. It reveals that greater integration is required to understand better the conditions under which different political systems address societal commitment dilemmas. In the absence of greater research integration, there is a risk that policymakers cling to two prominent but partial policy prescriptions: that ‘democracy’ itself is the problem and should be suspended; and that more deliberative forms of democracy are required without explaining how they will co-exist with existing forms.

Institutional coordination arrangements as elements of policy design spaces: insights from climate policy

“…For example, empirical research is needed to better understand why certain types of institutional arrangements emerge. Potential explanatory variables are whether countries are embedded in defective democracies or even authoritarian regimes (Jordan et al, 2022). And even if they are democracies, it could matter whether they are majoritarian or consensus democracies (Lijphart, 1999).…”

“…We expect the political orientation to dominate for mitigation policies, while for adaptation policies we expect a combination of both -an arrangement that has the potential of providing an optimal design space. These differences appear plausible considering that climate change mitigation requires an investment in the future that entails higher political costs (see Levin et al, 2012;Jordan et al, 2022), whereas adaptation to climate change is characterized by a lower degree of uncertainty and is more prone to incur political costs for non-action (see Biesbroek, 2021).…”

AnthroShift in a warming world

“…Governments have been working since 1992 to limit the effects of climate change and research has documented the role that transnational climate governance could play along with what has come to be known as polycentric approaches to governance systems in solving the climate crisis (For an overview, see Bulkeley et al 2014 ; Cole 2015 ; A. J. Jordan et al 2015 ; but see Fisher and Leifeld 2019 ). Even with numerous efforts to address the climate crisis at multiple levels of governance; however, policymaking has been relatively ineffective at bringing about the emissions reductions necessary to limit global warming below 1.5°C (A. Jordan et al 2022 ; see also Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 3 2022 ). Although world leaders were expected to coordinate a global response to the climate crisis that met the challenges the world was facing at the delayed COP-26 climate negotiations in Glasgow in November 2021, the outcome was disappointing.…”

The welfare state and support for environmental action in Europe

“…While there are many valuable studies on the extent of climate change and the most adequate possible solutions (for example, Gough and Meadowcroft, 2011; Jordan et al, 2022; Maor et al, 2017), the key question of the political viability of environmental policies necessary to achieve climate mitigation and adaptation has so far received less attention. 1 This is potentially problematic given that, as recent events such as the Gilets Jaunes protests suggest, solutions to the climate crisis will not be chosen on technical or economic grounds alone, but will crucially depend on the ability of governments to create sufficient electoral support to implement the necessary policy solutions.…”