Introduction: political strategies for climate policy

This volume is based on the premise that the principal obstacles to stronger action on climate change are political in nature. The science of climate change is well-established (IPCC 2007a) and there are well-known policy instruments that could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions without prohibitive economic costs (Stern 2007), yet governments and other political authorities are reluctant to take decisive action even though most appear to be convinced that strong measures are needed. At present the main political strategy seems to be the implementation of measures that target a broad range of emissions sources while not antagonising business groups or electorates. Typical policies include setting emissions targets, encouraging promising technologies, using market mechanisms such as taxes and emissions trading to spur innovation, and urging greater international cooperation on climate policy. So far, however, such measures have failed to reverse the steady rise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (IPCC 2007b, p. 4, Tans 2009).

Clearly more needs to be done. But how can governments move beyond existing policies without risking serious political damage? The aim of this volume is to contribute to answering this question by analysing the nature of climate politics from a number of different theoretical angles in order to improve our understanding of which political strategies would be likely to help national governments to make deep cuts in GHG emissions while avoiding significant political damage.

The rationale for this multi-theoretical approach is that different conceptual and logical schemas (theories) highlight different features of situations. Thus, describing the politics of climate policy in terms of different theories results in different conceptual and logical pictures of this phenomenon. This means that at least to some extent the inferences drawn from these pictures about the nature of the political obstacles to more vigorous action on climate change, and the best ways of overcoming them, will also be different. Together, therefore, these analyses reveal a more detailed and nuanced view of the political options open to activist governments than can be obtained from studies that stick to a single theoretical perspective.

Although there are a small number of previous studies that analyse the politics of climate change using explicit theoretical perspectives (see, for example, O'Riordan and Jaeger 1996, Newell and Paterson 1998), this is the first multi-theoretical study in this area. Most academic writing on climate politics in affluent democracies (see, for example, Helm 2005, Bailey 2007) does not directly address the question of which political strategies are likely to be of greatest assistance to governments, although a number of strands touch upon it. Accounts of the politics of climate change in various Western countries often have implications for this question (see, for example, Bailey and Rupp 2005, Oshitani 2006, Kerr 2007), and studies of discourses within environmental politics draw conclusions about political communications strategies (Hajer and Versteeg 2005, Ereaut and Segnit 2006). The growing literature on climate policies at sub-national level also includes relevant observations (Rabe 2004), while the extensive literature on international climate politics often touches upon domestic factors that influence governments' negotiating positions (Dolzak 2001).

Recently, however, two major studies have appeared to which issues of political strategy are more central. The first is an empirical study of the history and politics of climate policy in affluent democracies that focused directly on this question (Compston and Bailey 2008a). The conclusions of this study are set out in Table 1.

Table 1. Political strategies to enable governments in affluent democracies to take more effective action against climate change while avoiding significant political damage.

Type of political strategy	Specific strategy
Refinement of current strategies	Further efforts to reach global agreement
	Better reporting of climate change and clearer communication of the policy instruments that are needed
	Stricter emission and policy targets
	Identification and introduction of more policies on which all powerful actors can agree
	Incremental strengthening of existing policies
	Preparation of measures that can be implemented swiftly in response to public concern following extreme weather events
	Continued emphasis on the contribution of climate policies to other policy objectives, such as energy security
	More vigorous use of existing policy instruments, especially economic instruments and financial incentives to promote technological innovations and renewable energy production; more stringent voluntary agreements; and extension of emissions trading
Exploration of new policies	More stringent energy efficiency regulation and increased financial incentives for energy efficiency improvement
	Grand projet-style state investment in new infrastructure
	Personal carbon allowances
	Carbon import tariffs
Governance reform	Improved measurement of emissions
	More systematic envisioning of what a low carbon society would look like
	Integration of economic and environmental governance
	Provision of seats for independent experts and environmental NGOs on all climate-policy-related committees on which industry is represented
	Placement of able and committed individuals in key posts
	Improvements in the transparency of potentially popular initiatives
	More equitable distribution of costs
Greater emphasis on spillover policies	Policies that are easily transferable to other countries, difficult to reverse once introduced, and/or create pressure for their own strengthening or the introduction of related measures
Selective imposition of more radical policies	Introducing strong policies early in each electoral term
	Targeting economic sectors that can pass on extra costs to consumers
	Targeting losses on small sections of society
	Compensating powerful actors
Source: Compston and Bailey 2008b.

The second is a broader study of the politics of climate change in general by Anthony Giddens (2009). His book is very much based on the premise that it is essential to get the public on board, and business too, if the required policies are to be put in place, although he does acknowledge that business interests that oppose action may need to be faced down from time to time. Along with prescriptions about what needs to be done, which among other things stress multilateral action, an active state that plans and ensures outcomes rather than merely facilitating action, technological innovation, carbon taxes, embedding concern for climate change in the daily lives of citizens, and using public–private partnerships as a way of obtaining needed finance, a number of strategies designed to surmount or circumvent political obstacles are identified. These include:

•	employing information strategies that focus on a few key indicators, especially those linked to focusing events such as weather-related natural disasters;
•	favouring economic and technological innovations that generate competitive advantage and thereby attract business support (economic convergence);
•	preferring policies that not only combat climate change but also help to achieve other policy goals, especially energy security (political convergence);
•	promoting a positive model of a low carbon future rather than one based on giving things up, for example by providing incentives for low carbon practices wherever possible rather than imposing punishments for high carbon activities;
•	spreading a concern with climate change through all branches of government; and
•	seeking cross-party support to ensure continuity of climate policy.

However, neither of the volumes just mentioned brings the big guns of contemporary theories of political causation to bear on this issue. The aim of this volume is to remedy that deficiency by applying a number of such theories to the specific task of identifying effective political strategies for national governments that wish to make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The focus is mainly on the national level because that is where substantive policy measures are mostly formulated and implemented, and because the international dimension of the politics of climate change is already well covered in the international relations literature.

Each contribution to this volume describes a different theory of political causation, provides a diagnosis of the politics of climate change from the perspective of this theory, and identifies, on the basis of this diagnosis, relevant political strategies.

The first part of the volume consists of studies that stress the role of policymaking techniques.

Pidgeon and Butler address the use of risk management techniques to analyse and justify particular climate policies, as exemplified in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report (IPCC 2007a) and the Stern Review (Stern 2007). After a wide-ranging analysis of the strengths and limitations of risk analysis as an analytic technique, the authors conclude that its widespread use can be ascribed as much to its fit with contemporary governance narratives and practices as to its appropriateness to the problem at hand, which in some critical respects is quite limited. If policymakers are to better understand and deal with the high levels of complexity and uncertainty that characterise our picture of climate change, the tools of risk analysis need to be adapted and supplemented by alternative approaches. For example, policymaking processes could be reformed to include values and rationalities other than economic ones by means of enabling a wider range of stakeholders to participate in the policymaking process – although the extent to which this is likely to happen will be limited by the fact that alternative approaches do not fit as well with prevailing governance practices as does conventional risk analysis.

Ian Bartle's contribution is aimed at showing how more careful selection of policy instruments, along with reform of the policymaking process, could lead to better results in terms of controlling greenhouse gas emissions. After an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of major theories of regulation, in particular public interest theory, private interest theory and regime theory, Bartle considers the possibility that greater transparency in regulation could lead to more effective climate policies by means such as increasing legitimacy and facilitating policy learning, and he raises the possibility of implementing a political strategy based on this by centring regulation of emissions around a transparent carbon price instrument such as a carbon tax or a cap and trade system. The problem he identifies with this approach, however, is that market instruments appeal to just one type of human rationality, namely that of an economic actor who responds only in a self-interested way to price signals, whereas in fact there is considerable evidence that individuals and organisations use other rationalities as well. Egalitarians, for example, want greater equity between humans and between humanity and nature, while hierarchicalists want better governance and planning to ensure that the natural world and its resources are better managed. This suggests that a combination of policy instruments needs to be put in place in order to secure wide support, in particular:

•	transparent market instruments, such as carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes, to appeal to homo economicus;
•	command and control regulation, to appeal to hierarchicalists;
•	information and education, to appeal to egalitarians.

While there is a danger of policy proliferation, confusion and contradiction in this approach, it is argued that it is possible for policies to be complementary and mutually reinforcing.

Scrase and Smith analyse the dynamics of climate policy using a theory specifically designed to describe and facilitate technological change in its social and economic context. The basic idea of this transitions management approach is that new socio-technical regimes emerge through successful application and learning in niche uses or ‘protected spaces’ in which new technologies and social practices are not exposed to the full selective pressures operating in the incumbent regime. Applying this approach to climate policy would involve beginning by setting a low carbon goal such as a national or sector emissions reduction target. A series of multi-participant ‘transition arenas’ would then be convened to identify those regimes where emissions are most significant or the potential for change is greatest. Each transition arena would then go through an iterative process of (1) understanding the carbon reduction challenge for the existing regime and identifying ‘transition goals’, such as making electricity supply more sustainable; (2) developing a consensus about alternatives and a basket of ‘visions’ compatible with the transition goals; (3) identifying ‘pathways’ towards those visions, such as expansion of renewable energy; (4) instigating niche experiments that contribute to the realisation of these pathways; and (5) establishing processes for social learning and reflexivity across all of these activities. The idea is that over time this process would lead to a gradual transfer of institutional support away from the existing regime and towards a low carbon regime. Although the authors note that this approach implies a somewhat unrealistic model of politics in which niche lessons are expected to be taken up and acted upon consensually, they do identify a number of political strategies that are consistent with it, in particular:

•	investing more in research and appraisal processes;
•	taking steps to elevate the standing of interactive, expert-led decision-making;
•	making wider use of high-level expert assessments to justify policy;
•	including policies in election manifestos in order to give them political legitimacy in the event of victory;
•	creating large, powerful and well funded institutions with a remit to pursue the project's aims, while curtailing the power of institutions that may be resistant to radical change, such as government departments that are close to fossil energy companies;
•	taking steps to tie future governments into continuing the political project to achieve transitions, as the British government, for instance, has already done by legislating to commit future governments to legally binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the period up to 2050.

The authors note that its reliance on industry and experts suggests that the transitions management process is more closely aligned with top-down technocratic forms of corporatism than with bottom-up radical decentralisation. The significance of this observation is that it implies that low carbon transition pathways are more likely to proceed by enabling investment in large scale energy supply technologies, such as nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, than by expanding decentralised energy supply and accelerating efficiency improvements in homes.

The second part of the volume comprises two studies that take a more political approach.

The theory of political causation used in my own contribution is one of the dominant theories of policymaking today: policy network theory. The particular version used is based on the idea that networks of political actors in any given area of public policy are created and sustained by interdependencies, and that consequently public policy is largely the result of elected and appointed officials pursuing their own policy preferences while at the same time exchanging policy amendments for resources that they need but which are controlled by other actors, in particular formal approval, political support, cooperation with implementation, and private investment. The logic of this theory suggests that governments that want to strengthen climate policy have four main strategic options, each of which is accompanied by distinctive types of political tactics.

The first option is to impose climate policies without exchanging resources at all. This means no policy concessions, but is politically risky. However, this risk can be minimised by tactics such as:

•	introducing unpopular policies early in their terms of office;
•	imposing measures on particular industries while leaving other industries alone;
•	targeting business sectors that can pass on any additional costs;
•	targeting those social groups that are least able to retaliate via the ballot box.

The second strategic option is the more usual one of exchanging resources within existing parameters. Among possible tactics here are:

•	putting together package deals that include concessions in other areas of public policy as well as, or instead of, amendments to the climate policy under consideration;
•	taking advantage of windows of opportunity created by weather-related natural disasters that are linked by media coverage to climate change.

In some circumstances it may be possible to alter the policy preferences of other actors by means of communications strategies such as:

•	providing clear and accurate information about climate change and effective responses to it;
•	stressing how climate policies serve other objectives as well, such as energy security;
•	adopting discourses that frame the issue of climate change in new ways, such as conceptualising the effort to control climate change, in the context of economic crisis, as a Green New Deal.

The fourth strategic option is to try to change the terms of resource exchange by means such as:

•	altering the distribution of formal decision-making power within government, for example by moving responsibility for energy policy from an economic ministry to an environment ministry;
•	giving new actors access to the policymaking process in the hope that this may make them more likely to accept proposed policy changes;
•	acquiring new legal powers in order to offer new benefits to other actors, and thus reduce the policy concessions necessary to obtain their agreement, for example by appropriating additional planning powers for central government, or by forming new agencies to make investments in areas that private firms will not touch;
•	seeking cross-party agreement in order to deny opponents of these policies the opportunity of inflicting political damage on activist governments by voting for parties that oppose these policies;
•	seeking new sources of political support, help with policy implementation, and business investment.

The rational choice approach employed by Frank Grundig focuses on interactions among political actors, and seeks to explain political outcomes on the basis of a small number of assumptions and deductive reasoning. Rational choice models assume that actors are self-interested and that they maximise their utility in accordance with their preferences. Grundig applies several such models to analysing first the formation of states' domestically derived negotiation positions on climate change, and second the dynamics of these international negotiations. As a result, several promising political strategies are identified:

•	taking steps to enlarge the membership of environmental non-governmental organisations in order to boost their influence on national negotiating positions;
•	persuading environmental organisations to direct more funding into campaign contributions in states hesitant to take action;
•	using organisations such as the World Bank to assist developing countries to strengthen civil society, on the basis that this would result in greater pressure on their governments to act, as well as allowing emissions trading to take place more widely;
•	stepping up information campaigns in order to counter the influence of campaign advertising and thus reduce the influence of special interest groups opposed to action on climate change;
•	re-balancing abatement costs between the EU and the USA, on the basis that previous studies indicate that the net economic benefits under the Kyoto Protocol would have been negative for the USA and positive for the EU;
•	making abatement more efficient by introducing an international emissions cap and trade scheme.

The final part of the volume focuses on communications.

Neil Gavin's contribution illustrates how examination of media coverage can illuminate the politics of climate policy by analysing the role of the media in the dynamics of the public sphere, by which is meant that area of public life where common concerns and societal problems are defined and debated and, as a result, public opinion is formed. Since climate change is a global phenomenon, ultimately it is the international public sphere that is relevant here. A major theme is that the relatively low priority given by the media to coverage of climate change makes it difficult for activist governments to convince citizens that radical and costly action is needed, or for concerted pressure to be applied to governments to take such action, although coverage of IPCC reports and weather-related natural disasters is likely to bring climate change up the agenda from time to time. For this reason governments need to:

•	tread warily and with circumspection;
•	distance themselves from responsibility for the negative consequences of climate change intervention;
•	keep direct costs to government as low as possible, lest budgets become over-stretched and other pressing concerns have to give;
•	avoid direct criticism for obvious failures of omission or commission in policy implementation or integration, especially in relation to taxation.

Sarah Pralle looks at the politics of climate change through the lens of agenda-setting theories. Although elected and appointed officials may believe in climate change and want to do something about it, the fact that they are also confronted with policy problems in other areas means that whether climate change is actually high on their agenda for decision is another matter. For this reason it is vital to identify factors that will help the climate change issue rise and stay high on the agendas of governmental and non-governmental institutions. Pralle's contribution shows how this can be done by using theories of agenda-setting to identify strategies for defining the problem of climate change in ways that raise its salience with the public, on the basis that this will put governments under greater pressure to address it. These include:

•	regularly reporting key problem indicators in user-friendly terms;
•	emphasising scientific consensus and knowledge;
•	emphasising growing public concern;
•	emphasising specific local impacts and personal experience;
•	emphasising human health impacts;
•	inserting a moral and ethical perspective into the debate.

She also points out strategies for framing solutions in ways that attract maximum support and protect against factors that might otherwise cause the public and policymakers to abandon efforts to solve the problem, such as cynicism and fatigue. These include:

•	pointing to existing solutions;
•	framing solutions in terms of energy;
•	emphasising the costs of doing nothing;
•	focusing on economic gains associated with green technology;
•	providing regular feedback about policies and progress.

Strategies for maintaining political will include:

•	taking advantage of focusing events such as weather-related natural disasters;
•	offering ‘predigested’ policies to overcome gridlock;
•	venue-shopping.

In the final contribution, Amy Fletcher applies frame analysis, an approach derived from discourse theory, to identify and analyse argumentative strategies utilised by political actors in their efforts to build a consensus around action on climate change, using the USA under the second Bush Presidency as a case study. Two strategies in particular are foregrounded:

•	framing climate change as a security issue in order to enlist the support of those concerned with national security;
•	using the Apollo metaphor to liken the task of controlling climate change to the effort during the 1960s to put a man on the moon.

Fletcher concludes that the Apollo framing is especially promising because its positive framing of climate policy in terms of technological achievement, industrial transformation and economic opportunity appeals to a particularly wide range of political actors and voters.

More and more attention is being paid to climate change and considerable thought has now been devoted to working out how in principle it can be brought under control. Progress in understanding the politics of climate change has lagged behind somewhat, but is just as important if the required policies are to be put in place. By bringing a number of theories of political causation to bear on this problem the contributors to this volume are able jointly to generate, or at least make explicit, more ideas about strategies for activist governments than a single theoretical perspective could yield.

To understand what these ideas mean and evaluate their chances of success if implemented, however, you will need to begin by evaluating their logic within the theoretical contexts in which they have been formulated.