Germany’s Federal Climate Change Act

Figures & data

Table 1. Empirical manifestations of low, moderate, and high degrees of integration of policy frames, subsystem involvement, integration of policy goals, and integration of policy instruments

Degree of integration Dimension of integration	Low	Moderately low	Moderately high	High
Policy frame	Mitigation framed as narrow ‘environmental issue’	Cross-cutting nature of mitigation somewhat acknowledged	Cross-cutting nature of mitigation recognized, but need for integrated cross-government approach not acknowledged	Cross-government approach widely acknowledged
Subsystem involvement	Only one leading climate policy entrepreneur, (e.g. environmental ministry) with potential obstruction by other actors	Few interactions between ministries with primary responsibility remaining with leading policy entrepreneur	Frequent and institutionalized exchange across ministries with formal responsibilities assigned to all relevant ministries	All relevant ministries highly involved in climate policymaking, frequent interaction and close coordination among key ministries
Policy goals	Climate change mitigation goals not considered among sectoral goals	Mitigation considered in sectoral goals, but not prioritized	Mitigation considered one priority goal in sectoral policy making, goal conflicts persist	Emission reduction prioritized and all other sector goals aligned
Policy instruments	No climate policies and/or (cross)sectoral policies that conflict with mitigation	Some adjustment of (cross)sectoral policy mix, but only weak climate policies	Existence of strong (cross)sectoral climate policies although these may be insufficient to meet emission reduction goals	Policy instruments sufficiently strong to meet emission reduction goals

Figure 1. Historical GHG emissions and future GHG emission reduction targets. From 2020, the figure displays annual emission reduction targets as specified in the revised German climate change law passed in 2021

Data source: Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetz (2019) and Bundestag (2021)

Table 2. The contribution of the Climate Change Act to policy integration

Dimension of integration	Expected effect of CCA	Explanation
Policy frame	Little (moderately high integration)	Introduces new net-zero GHG goal in 2045
Subsystem involvement	Little to none (moderately high integration)	Assigns formal responsibilities for sector emission management to individual ministries No coordination between ministries for the preparation of IPs formally required
Policy goals	Significant (moderately high integration in all sectors)	Legislates emission reduction as priority sector goal Does not require ministries to prioritize emission reduction over other sector goals or ensure coherence with other sector goals
Policy instruments	Significant (moderately high integration)	Short-term dissonance between goals and instruments with CCA reform Annual review and instant adjustment program (IP) might increase instrument consistency over time Obligatory ex-ante impact assessment and bi-annual review by EEpert Advisory Council Does not guarantee consistency of instruments with goals

Bundestag, 2021. Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung. Entwurf eines Ersten Gesetzes zur Änderung des Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetzes.

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