Climate laws in small European states: symbolic legislation and limits of diffusion in Ireland and Finland

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen the introduction of framework climate change laws in several countries. The development of climate laws in two small European states, Ireland and Finland, both of which introduced national climate laws in 2015, are examined. Two questions are addressed. First, to what extent do later adopters of climate policy instruments draw on the examples of pioneering legislation? Second, how and why are pioneering climate policy instruments modified by later adopters? In both cases, the 2008 UK Climate Change Act was a source of inspiration in the early stages, particularly for civil society campaigns. Thereafter, domestic interests mobilised to remove from legislative proposals the most pioneering and ambitious parts of the UK model. The result, in both cases, was enactment of climate laws that resembled only very loosely the UK Climate Change Act.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• climate legislation
• policy diffusion
• symbolic policy
• Ireland
• Finland

Acknowledgments

An early draft of this article was presented at a workshop in June 2016 hosted by Dublin City University on ‘Climate politics in small European states’. I thank participants in the workshop as well as Neil Carter, Conor Little, and two anonymous referees for helpful feedback, and Louise FitzGerald for editorial assistance. I am very grateful to Prof. Mikael Hildén and the Finnish Environment Institute for hosting me for a research visit in August 2016, and to the interviewees who shared their time and knowledge generously with me. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Readers with a particular interest in the Irish case are directed to Torney (2017), which draws on the same empirical research as this section but develops the narrative at greater length.