Agenda-setting and climate change

Abstract

An agenda-setting perspective can help us understand current climate policy politics by identifying factors that will help the climate change issue rise and stay high on public and governmental agendas. Keeping climate change at the forefront of government decision agendas will be critical in the coming years because climate change is a long-term problem and governments are unlikely to ‘solve’ the climate crisis with one policy enacted at one point in time. Kingdon's multiple streams model of agenda-setting is used here to explore strategies for keeping the issue of climate change on agendas and moving it up the list of policy priorities.

Keywords:

• climate change
• climate policy
• agenda-setting

Introduction

The problem of human-induced climate change was hypothesised in the early 1890s by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who warned about the possibility of a so-called ‘enhanced’ greenhouse effect caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Abatzoglou et al. 2007). Despite Arrhenius's early warnings, it took another century before the world's political systems began to recognise and respond to the problem. By the early 1990s, the issue of global warming had secured a spot on the international political agenda, as indicated by the signing of the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change by more than 150 countries at the 1992 Earth Summit. Since that time, many nations (particularly those that committed to specific targets and timetables under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol) have taken steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, with varying success (see DiMento and Doughman 2007). From one perspective, then, we can conclude that climate change is squarely on the agendas of the world's affluent democracies. European Union countries have enacted a number of regional and national laws designed to help meet their Kyoto targets, the Japanese government has explored market-based policies to reduce their carbon emissions, and the United States under the new Obama administration appears to be on the verge of passing legislation mandating caps on carbon emissions.

If the problem of climate change is already on governmental agendas, then why should we examine the issue of agenda-setting and climate change? By asking what political strategies will enable national governments to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the assumption underpinning this volume presumes that policymakers in affluent democracies want to do something about climate change. Yet national governments are not acting more aggressively, it is suggested, because they are afraid of suffering excessive political damage.

The agenda-setting literature suggests a somewhat different set of questions and rests on a different set of assumptions. Agenda-setting scholars ask why some policy issues emerge on governmental agendas while others are relatively neglected (Kingdon 1995). Scholars such as Downs (1972), Cobb and Elder (1983), Hilgartner and Bosk (1988), Kingdon (1995) and Baumgartner and Jones (1993) note that public problems rise and fall on public and governmental agendas, often independently of the objective state of a problem. Indeed, some problems are not defined as problems at all, but rather as conditions with which we choose to live (Stone 1988; Kingdon 1995). Problems without readily available and feasible solutions may fail to get on the decision agendas of governmental actors even if they attract public and governmental attention (Kingdon 1995). Other problems may rise up on the agenda only to fade as the public grows ‘bored’ and turns to other issues, becomes cynical about our ability to solve the problem, or assumes that it has been solved by the government (Downs 1972). Policy information may be ignored for long periods because of the cognitive limitations of policy actors and institutions, only to receive disproportionate attention at a later date (Jones and Baumgartner 2005b). In short, agenda-setting research examines the fates of different public policy issues as they receive more or less public and governmental consideration, and agenda-setting scholars attempt to explain these varying patterns of attention.

The agenda-setting perspective starts with some basic assumptions. First, scholars have identified at least three broad agendas in democratic political systems, although they use different terminology to describe them. For our purposes, the public agenda refers to the set of issues that are most salient to citizens and voters, the governmental agenda consists of the issues that are up for discussion in governmental institutions such as legislatures and executive agencies, and the decision agenda is the narrower set of issues about which governmental officials are poised to make a decision. Non-governmental institutions, such as the media, also have agendas, and these can affect the public and governmental agendas (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988, Kingdon 1995). The second assumption is that each of these agendas has a ‘carrying capacity’ that limits the number of issues it can handle simultaneously, thus creating competition among issues for a place (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988). Third, it is less helpful to characterise issues as entirely on or off agendas than it is to think of them as occupying points on a continuum on which some issues are highly salient and a top priority, others are less salient, and still others do not register at all. Finally, the agenda-setting literature assumes that highly salient issues are more likely to move onto the decision agendas of governmental institutions. More effort and resources are expected to be directed to solve these problems than other less salient problems, although policy change is not guaranteed even when an issue is highly salient (Cobb and Elder 1983, Kingdon 1995).

An agenda-setting perspective can help us understand current climate policy politics by identifying factors that will help the climate change issue rise up and stay high on the agendas of governmental and non-governmental institutions. As noted, climate change can be considered ‘on’ the agenda of many democratic countries, but its position on these agendas varies across time and space. It may, for example, be high on a government's agenda after weather-related natural disasters but then fade as politicians turn their attention to other issues. Keeping climate change at the forefront of governmental decision agendas will be critical in the coming years because climate change is a long-term problem, and ongoing scientific and technological advances will continue to shape (and reshape) our understanding of the problem and the feasibility of various solutions. Put differently, governments are unlikely to ‘solve’ the climate crisis with a single policy enacted at one particular moment. Instead, the problem requires governments to commit to a series of policy measures, with the probability that progressively more stringent targets will have to be enacted and enforced over time. In short, the climate change crisis requires that the issue remains a priority item that is not displaced by economic downturns and other political, economic and social developments.

Two agenda-setting models provide especially useful insights into how policy issues gain saliency and maintain a central place on public and governmental agendas. John Kingdon's (1995) ‘streams’ model of agenda-setting devotes attention to how problems get noticed and how issues move onto decision agendas, while Rochefort and Cobb's (1994) problem definition framework investigates how problems are strategically framed so as to increase their salience. Other agenda-setting models, such as Baumgartner and Jones' (1993) punctuated equilibrium model (further developed in Jones and Baumgartner 2005b) are useful for understanding patterns of agenda stability and change and for identifying the factors that drive these dynamics. Kingdon (1995), and Rochefort and Cobb (1994), provide a more in-depth look at the particular factors that increase the odds of a problem receiving a lot of attention, gaining in salience, and achieving high agenda status. The next section outlines these models and begins to apply them to the climate change policy area, using the USA as the primary case for purposes of illustration.

Achieving agenda status: problems, policies and politics

John Kingdon (1995) envisions the rise and fall of issues on the agenda as a product of the interplay of three ‘streams’ or policy processes: problems, policies and politics. These streams operate largely independent of one another, as they tend to have their own rules, ‘star’ different players, and are subject to different internal dynamics. Nevertheless, at propitious moments (when ‘windows of opportunity’ open) savvy policy entrepreneurs can help guide the merging of the three streams, and this merging dramatically increases the chances that an issue will receive serious attention by policymakers. Put differently, when a feasible solution is attached to what the public and policymakers perceive as an important public problem, and when political conditions are amenable to change, a policy window opens. Policy entrepreneurs must then seize the opportunity and push for government action.

The problem stream and climate change

Why would policymakers pay serious attention to climate change at some times but not at others? According to Kingdon (1995), problems come to the attention of policymakers via indicators, focusing events and feedback. Indicators can illuminate the scope and severity of a problem through the monitoring of natural (or social) processes, activities and events. Indicators arise through both routine monitoring and special studies. For example, contemporary scientific and political interest in the phenomenon of global warming was sparked in part by US scientist Charles Keeling's decades-long monitoring of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels, which he began measuring in the late 1950s. His measurements produced what is known as the ‘Keeling curve’, which shows an alarming trend of increasing carbon dioxide emissions over the last half century (Kolbert 2006). Prior to his study, scientists were not certain whether carbon dioxide would accumulate in the atmosphere or be absorbed by the ocean and by the earth's vegetation. Keeling's research indicated that CO₂ was in fact concentrating in the atmosphere and he provided important evidence suggesting that humans were contributing to the problem (Abatzoglou et al. 2007).

Policymakers also learn about problems through dramatic focusing events that grab the attention of the public and policymakers alike. Birkland (1998, p. 54) defines focusing events as relatively rare sudden events that ‘can be reasonably defined as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms’, and ‘are concentrated in a particular geographical area or community of interest’. Unlike problems that are revealed through long-term monitoring using statistical methods, focusing events highlight a problem (or problems) in one striking event that the public and policymakers learn about simultaneously. The flooding of New Orleans and other communities on the Gulf Coast of the United States as a result of Hurricane Katrina was a focal event that suggested any number of problems, including inadequate flood-control protection in the area, inept government response protocols and, perhaps for some observers, the problem of warming oceans resulting from climate change.

Finally, policymakers learn about problems through feedback on current policy programmes. Typically this is negative feedback generated by evaluation studies, target groups, bureaucrats or policymakers themselves, who report on what is not working or on the unintended consequences of policies. For example, initial feedback on the European Union's emissions trading programme suggested problems with its design and implementation that reduced the price of carbon credits and therefore partly undermined the goals of the programme (Clayton 2007).

It is important to note here that even with indicators, focusing events and feedback, issues do not come to the attention of policymakers as ‘objective’ problems whose meaning is established and uncontested. Instead, much debate exists about whether a problem is amenable to government action, what kind of problem it is, the cause and scope of the problem, and other equally vexing issues (Stone 1988, Baumgartner and Jones 1993, Rochefort and Cobb 1994). Political actors, in fact, spend considerable effort framing problems so as to increase (or decrease) attention to them, mobilise (or demobilise) particular policy actors, and direct policymakers toward preferred solutions. Whose definition of a problem takes hold has enormous consequences because it can shape how an issue is handled in the political process.

Rochefort and Cobb (1994) suggest that policy actors will argue about the severity, incidence, novelty, proximity and crisis nature of an issue, as these factors affect an issue's salience and therefore its agenda status. In general an issue's salience will rise to the extent that policy actors can define the problem as unique and extremely serious, with widespread impacts that hit ‘close to home’ and result in catastrophic consequences. Importantly, policymakers and advocacy groups will also engage in debates over how to categorise a problem (for example, is climate change a moral problem or not?), the cause of it (who or what is to blame?), and how to solve it (e.g. should we use governmental mandates or market mechanisms?). Indeed, the debate over solutions, or what Kingdon (1995) calls the ‘policy stream’, is a critical part of the agenda-setting process, and is taken up in the next section.

It is important to note that policymakers process the flow of information from indicators, feedback, focusing events and problem definitions in a disproportionate manner. Jones and Baumgartner (2005a, 2005b) show that policymakers often ignore or under-react to problem indicators in the larger environment. However, circumstances may change (for example, indicators may reveal a severe problem, new aspects of the problem become evident, or new framings of the problem emerge) such that policymakers recognise their error, pay disproportionate attention to a problem, and respond in non-incremental ways to it. The result is a pattern of attention that includes long periods of policy stability punctuated by bursts of agenda (and potentially) policy change (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Jones and Baumgartner 2005a, 2005b).

The policy stream and climate change

In addition to a problem stream, Kingdon (1995) envisions a policy stream in which solutions are being generated by specialists and experts within policy communities and are waiting to be attached to the salient problems of the day. While there are many potential solutions, only a select few are chosen and implemented. Kingdon argues that proposals must pass a threshold test of technical feasibility and congruence with reigning values to be selected. Moreover, solutions must be perceived as staying within budgetary limits. ‘Budgetary considerations prevent policy makers and those close to them from seriously considering some alternatives, initiatives, and proposals’ (Kingdon 1995, p. 106). While Kingdon does not dwell on the point, it is worth noting that these criteria are subject to change and that political actors will try to shape the public and policymakers' perceptions about them. Even budgetary constraints, which appear ‘objective’, are subject to varying interpretations.

For our purposes, the most important point that Kingdon and others make about solutions is the need to have one: problems that have no solutions attached to them are less likely to make it onto governmental and decision agendas. The public is also less likely to worry about problems when they feel there is nothing to be done about them (Abbasi 2006, p. 146). As detailed further below, this characteristic is one of the most critical aspects of climate policy politics: for climate change to rise and stay high on agendas, the public and policymakers must be convinced not only that we should do something to combat climate change, but that we can.

Politics and climate change

A model of agenda-setting would be incomplete without attention to shifting political opportunities. The multiple streams model focuses on three key political factors affecting agendas: the national mood, organised political forces, and administrative or legislative turnover (Kingdon 1995, p. 146). Kingdon assumes that policymakers sense a ‘national mood’, perhaps via public opinion polls, and that this mood makes it more likely that the government will pay more attention to some problems and solutions than to others (Zahariadis 1999, p. 77). An ‘anti-government’ mood, for example, might prevent proposals for large-scale government intervention in the economy and society from achieving a prominent place on the decision agenda. Interest groups may contribute to policymakers' understanding of the public's preferences (or at least the preferences of some segments of it) and of how various solutions will affect target groups (thus influencing policymakers' perceptions of solution feasibility). The balance of interest group support and opposition to a policy may shape policymakers' agendas and selection of alternatives (Kingdon 1995, p. 150). Electoral turnover often leads to rather dramatic agenda changes, as new administrations push their pet issues and raise the status of some problems and solutions. In the USA, significant turnover in Congress can have a similar effect.

Windows of opportunity

The likelihood of any issue rising to prominence on the agenda is significantly increased when the problem, policy and politics streams join together. Such windows of opportunity open as a result of activities in the political stream or because a problem is deemed especially pressing. Kingdon argues that some windows are predictable, such as the budgetary and reauthorisation processes in the US Congress, electoral cycles and the like. Other windows are governed by less predictable processes such as focusing events, damning reports, and the emergence of pressing problems (Kingdon 1995, p. 165). Regardless of whether a window opens predictably or randomly, policy entrepreneurs must be ready to seize the moment, for the windows rarely stay open for very long.

The demise of issues

While Kingdon is primarily concerned with how issues rise on agendas, the decline of issues is a similarly important question. As suggested above, a key challenge in climate policy politics will be to keep the issue high on public, governmental, and decision agendas, as it must weather any economic storms or other developments that might weaken the commitment of the public and policymakers to solving it. Decades ago Downs (1972) predicted that attention to environmental issues would gradually decline after an initial period of enthusiasm and high salience. While Downs' predictions did not bear out – some environmental issues have faded, but new ones have taken their place – he did identify important dynamics that may help explain cycles of shifting issue attention.

Downs identifies the public and the media as driving forces behind issue emergence and decline. Public enthusiasm for solving problems helps to get issues on agendas initially, but subsequent cynicism, unwillingness to sacrifice, or lack of understanding may lead to a decline in attention and agenda status. As the costs and difficulty of solving a problem become more evident, the public tends to lose interest. Similarly, if the public believes that large sacrifices are required (in behaviour, for example), then attention to a problem may wane. A rather different cause of issue decline is when the public (mistakenly or not) believes that the government has solved a problem, and therefore feels free to turn their attention elsewhere. Kingdon (1995, p. 103) adds that even people in government may feel that they have solved a problem and thus redirect their efforts elsewhere. Actual failure to solve the problem can have a similar effect, as policymakers grow tired of trying to pass or amend legislation and let the problem move to the back-burner (Kingdon 1995, p. 103). The media, Downs suggests, can exacerbate cyclical patterns of attention, as it is under pressure continually to find new problems and new solutions, or at least new angles on old ones. As a result, media attention to problems is likely to rise and fall over time; the pattern will depend in part on the nature of the issue and real world events related to it.

In the environmental policy area, the most important ‘real world’ events affecting the place of environmental issues on the agenda are economic events. Put simply, economic problems often move environmental problems and solutions down the list of priorities. Public opinion data from the United States suggests that the state of the economy is frequently a priority concern and that citizens' willingness to sacrifice economic growth for environmental protection decreases as the strength of the economy declines (Guber 2003).

Political strategies for keeping climate change on the agenda

What can agenda-setting theories teach us about the most effective strategies for putting (and keeping) climate change high on the agendas of affluent democracies? Three sets of strategies are examined here, mirroring the categories (problems, policies, and politics) used in Kingdon's streams model. It is assumed that the actors pursuing these strategies would comprise a range of groups and individuals, including environmental advocacy groups, scientists, journalists, agency personnel, legislators, cabinet members, and perhaps even leaders in renewable energy technologies. Together they constitute the ‘climate change advocacy coalition’ – the sum total of actors who are active in this policy area and have an interest in getting and keeping the issue high on public, governmental and decision agendas (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993).

The climate change problem: saliency and strategic framing

To keep the problem of climate change on governmental and decision agendas, it must be salient to policymakers. Public interest in an issue is not the only way to generate salience for politicians in a democracy, but it is an important one. Some politicians will prioritise climate change in their campaigns and when in office based simply on their personal concern for the problem. But policies are not enacted by individuals; therefore, we must consider strategies for increasing its salience more generally so that the average policymaker – someone with limited time and many potential problems to address – is willing to pay serious and frequent attention to the problem.

If the public plays an important role in raising an issue's salience for policymakers, then where does it stand on the issue? A majority of the public in affluent democracies believes that global warming is a ‘somewhat serious’ to ‘very serious’ problem, and these numbers have been increasing in recent years (Leiserowitz 2007a). However, expressing general concern for a problem is not an accurate measure of issue salience. A fuller picture emerges when individuals are asked whether they ‘personally worry’ about a problem, as this suggests a more active state of concern. On this score, the results are more mixed. In the USA only about 19% of respondents in a 2006 Pew Research Center poll said they worried a great deal about global warming compared to 47% who admitted that they worry a little or not at all about it, although recent data suggests growing concern (Pew 2006, Gallup 2008). More recent data from the Gallup Organisation paints a more optimistic picture, as it shows that the proportion of US respondents who said they worried a great deal about global warming reached a high of 41% in March 2007, although it dropped to 37% and then 34% in the two subsequent years (Gallup 2008, 2009). Perhaps the most accurate measure of issue salience, though, results from open-ended questions that ask respondents to list the most important problems facing the country. On these questions, global warming fares poorly, as other issues, like the economy, routinely outrank it when people are asked to list top priority issues for the government to address (Leiserowitz 2007a, Gallup 2008).

One conclusion we can reasonably draw from this data is that there is a significant amount of latent public concern about global warming. Policy entrepreneurs within the climate change advocacy coalition might be able to tap into this latent concern and thereby raise the salience of the problem with the public and policymakers. The key question is how to do it, and this question unfortunately elicits no clear and easy answers. More research is needed to uncover the best strategies for communicating to the public and policymakers in ways that would increase the salience of the issue; the recommendations that follow should be read with this in mind.

1. Regularly report key problem indicators in user-friendly terms

Climate change science has no shortage of indicators. We have data confirming a rise in global temperatures, and scientists are accumulating evidence to show that climate change is affecting sea level, precipitation, polar ice cap coverage, migratory patterns of animals, species habitat, the intensity of hurricanes, and other natural processes (Abatzoglou et al. 2007). If Kingdon (1995) is correct in claiming that policymakers (and presumably the public as well) learn about problems through indicators, then the climate change advocacy community should choose a few key indicators to highlight in their communication campaigns. Different indicators may have to be selected for different audiences, depending on the effects that most worry them, but clarity of communication and ease of understanding should be a priority. Using metaphors and analogies could prove useful, as they could help simplify complex scientific relationships (see Stone 1988). However, the climate change advocacy community cannot focus on current indicators alone; it must project into the future so the public and policymakers understand what is likely to happen decades from now. The most alarming indicators for climate change are often based on scientific modelling that looks at future global warming scenarios, which suggests that the public and policymakers must trust scientists and their models; otherwise the indicators are unlikely to raise the necessary alarm.

Indicators alone will not cause agenda and policy change, however. As noted, policymakers and policy institutions often ignore information or discount it for long periods of time (Jones and Baumgartner 2005a, 2005b). In other words, policymakers are unlikely to respond proportionately to changes in problem indicators (that is, attention and policy will not keep pace with changes in indicators); instead they will under- and over-respond over time. Climate change activists must therefore remain flexible and innovative in how they package and frame information about global warming in order to overcome the institutional and cognitive limitations of institutions and policymakers.

2. Emphasise scientific consensus and knowledge

Research suggests that people are less concerned about climate change when they think that scientists do not have a very clear understanding of the issue (Wood and Vedlitz 2007). Moreover, they are less likely to support immediate action to combat climate change when scientific uncertainty is introduced into survey questions (Leiserowitz 2007a). Since less than half of US respondents in a recent survey believe there is consensus within the scientific community (Leiserowitz 2007b), this represents an area for improvement. Every message about climate change should reinforce the fact that the scientific community agrees that global warming is happening and that it is the result of human activity. Moreover, climate change communications should reassure the public and policymakers that scientists know a lot about the problem and its impacts. Policy entrepreneurs should communicate that ‘the debate is over’ and should point out that the detailed climate models developed by scientists have helped them correctly predict climate change trends and impacts. In other words, communications should not only indicate the extent of the problem but should also address the certainty issue. If people trust that scientists themselves agree and are knowledgeable about this issue, they should be less inclined to discount the problem, more disposed toward considering it a priority issue, and more likely to support immediate actions to combat global warming.

3. Emphasise growing public concern

Individuals take their cues not only from scientists but also from each other. An innovative experiment designed by Wood and Vedlitz (2007) tested how social forces shape people's assessment of the seriousness of global warming as a public problem. They found that when individuals perceived their own definition of the problem to be out of synch with the larger community, they changed their assessment in the direction of that made by the community (Wood and Vedlitz 2007, p. 564). In other words, when respondents were told that 80% of the public viewed global warming as a serious problem, they were more likely to be very concerned about the problem than respondents who were told that only 40% of the public believed it to be very serious. This data suggests that advocates of strong global warming policies should capitalise on the growing public concern about the problem by broadcasting the fact that the ‘community’ (the national community and global community) views global warming as a serious problem. Such information may prompt individuals who display less concern to ‘update’ their views to be more in line with the majority. On an aggregate scale, as greater numbers of individuals express high levels of concern, the overall salience of the problem should rise and keep it on agendas.

4. Emphasise specific local impacts and personal experience

Problems that are immediate and proximate to people tend to elicit the most concern from citizens (Rochefort and Cobb 1994). Large proportions of citizens around the world appear to believe that global warming represents a critical threat in the next 10 years (Leiserowitz 2007a). However, respondents in developed countries are less convinced than people in developing countries that global warming will directly affect them, their families and their communities (Leiserowitz 2007a, 2007b). In other words, citizens in affluent democracies tend to think that the impacts of global warming will be geographically distant, affecting people in other countries but not necessarily themselves (Leiserowitz 2007b, p. 8). This is likely to decrease the salience of the issue for people in affluent democracies.

What this research suggests is that the problem of climate change must be defined in ways that emphasise local and regional impacts. Because these impacts will differ depending on the geography and vulnerabilities of particular places, messages should be tailored to different geographical audiences so as to ‘bring the issue home’. Wood and Vedlitz's research (2007, pp. 560–561) shows that people who report higher levels of personal experience with the problem (such as those who agreed with the statement, ‘My life is directly affected by global warming and climate change’) expressed higher levels of issue concern. Policy entrepreneurs should enlist credible spokespeople, such as ranchers, farmers, hunters and others who have close ties to the land, to speak about the changes they have observed. These spokespeople can explain to the public how rising temperatures, changing levels of precipitation, shifting migratory patterns and other issues linked to climate change have affected their livelihoods and recreational pursuits. Not only would these strategies illuminate local impacts, they would also put a human face on the problem and may highlight the economic costs of global warming.

The more general lesson is that the public must be made aware of the specific impacts of global warming whether these are close to home or more distant. Wood and Vedlitz (2007) found that when survey respondents were presented with clear evidence of the effects of global warming, such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, and increasingly severe storms, they altered their assessment of the severity of the problem.

5. Emphasise human health impacts

Citizens in affluent democracies are more concerned about the potential human health effects of climate change than any other impacts, according to a 2001 GlobeScan survey (cited in Leiserowitz 2007a). Therefore, in addition to emphasising local impacts, climate change policy entrepreneurs should make it clear to the public and policymakers that global warming may lead to higher death rates from heat waves and higher disease rates due to vector-borne diseases, and that greenhouse gases add to air pollution and its associated health problems. It is important to note, however, that key individuals (within government, for example) and important interest groups may be more concerned with the economic costs associated with climate change, for example, or its implications for national security. Messages to these groups should be tailored to tap into their particular concerns in order to increase the saliency of the problem. Climate change policy advocates must also be prepared to repackage the global warming issue by focusing on new dimensions of the issue. Failure to do so is to risk what Hilgartner and Bosk (1988, p. 63) refer to as ‘saturation’, whereby the public is flooded with redundant messages that lose their dramatic value and decrease attention to the problem.

6. Insert a moral and ethical perspective into the debate

Many public policy issues are defined in moral terms – abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, the death penalty, war. It is not a coincidence that these issues attract passionate followers to the point where some individuals privilege these issues above all others when it comes to voting for elected officials, donating to interest groups and making personal choices in their lives. Prominent members of the climate change advocacy coalition have recently called for a more explicit moral framing of global warming (Abbasi 2006), based on the many ethical issues that arise in connection with the issue, including questions of unequal responsibility for the problem, distributional issues (e.g. the world's poor and vulnerable will be most affected), and fundamental questions about the viability of life on Earth. Of course, framing the climate change issue in moral terms carries potential risks because moral arguments can be perceived by some as sanctimonious and may arouse a backlash. Moreover, some of the moral aspects of the problem (e.g. distributional impacts) require citizens in developed countries to consider the impacts of global warming on people who are culturally and geographically distant from themselves. As noted above, distant problems tend to elicit less concern than proximate problems.

Despite these potential limitations, a moral frame could inspire citizens to accept policies that require personal sacrifices because they believe important ethical issues are at stake. Moreover, moral arguments have been shown to increase the mobilisation and political activity of some religious groups, such as the US evangelical community. Given that Christian conservatives in the United States are a powerful voting bloc in their own right, religious mobilisation could reshape the agendas of reluctant politicians. Conservative politicians who are nervous about being associated with the issue would be provided with ‘cover’ to support – perhaps even champion – climate change policies.

Climate change policies: offering solutions and salvation

Increasing the salience of the climate change issue must go hand-in-hand with developing and ‘selling’ solutions to the public and policymakers: problems without attached solutions are less apt to rise high on governmental agendas and are unlikely to make it onto decision agendas at all (Kingdon 1995). Solutions also play a role in keeping issues on agendas. If a solution is perceived as too costly, does not fit with prevailing values, or requires too many sacrifices, then the problem to which it is attached may fade from the agenda. The following discussion does not recommend specific solutions to global warming but rather offers guidance on how to frame them based on agenda-setting theories and general observations about environmental politics and policy.

1. Point to existing solutions

Citizens in affluent democracies appear to support immediate action to address global climate change; in one survey, the majority of respondents preferred that government act now even if there are major costs involved (Leiserowitz 2007a, p. 19). However, this data does not tell us whether the public believes that effective solutions to global climate change exist. To prevent the public from losing interest in the issue due to cynicism about whether the problem can be solved, the climate change advocacy community should emphasise the availability and feasibility of solutions. The message should be that we do not have to wait for some future technology to save us but can begin to implement existing solutions today. Of course some technologies remain controversial, others are not yet ready for ‘prime time’, and many have not been implemented on a scale that can achieve significant reductions in emissions. Nevertheless, technologies to increase energy efficiency, for example, can often be quickly deployed at relatively low costs (Lovins 2005). These solutions can be presented to the public as starting points, and individuals can begin to implement energy-saving strategies in their own lives, which may empower them to take further actions toward lessening their carbon footprints.

2. Frame solutions in terms of energy

The rising cost of energy, especially oil, raised the salience of the energy issue in the USA during 2007–08, prior to its eclipse by the current economic recession. A 2005 Yale University poll on the environment, for example, found that 92% of Americans think dependence on foreign oil is a serious national problem (Abassi 2006, p. 49). The climate change advocacy community should capitalise on the public's concern about energy supply and price by focusing on transforming our energy infrastructure. This solution can be attached to a number of policy issues, not just climate change. The energy issue has been linked to national security issues (in the USA, as noted, the focus is ‘getting off foreign oil’) and to the global economic recession.

Focusing on transforming how we generate and use energy, then, might enlist a broader public in supporting solutions that can also help to mitigate climate change. Moreover, the US public exhibits high levels of support for renewable energy technologies and correctly identifies these as being an important solution to global warming (Leiserowitz 2007a, p. 18). In other words, the public is predisposed toward supporting a transition to cleaner forms of energy, the cornerstone of a comprehensive approach to mitigating climate change. Finally, a focus on energy might make the issue more palatable to politicians who are reluctant to make climate change a centrepiece of their campaigns and policy agendas because they fear the electoral consequences of doing so.

A word of caution is in order, however: recent calls for energy independence in the United States have led to increased support for offshore oil drilling and an increase in the production of biofuels, activities that can exacerbate the climate change problem. It is important, therefore, that the climate change community resists efforts to redefine the energy issue in narrow terms that ignore the problem of global warming.

3. Emphasise the costs of doing nothing

Despite their support for renewable energy technologies, ‘many Americans appear to believe that solutions to climate change will be costly and painful, and will offer little by way of corresponding benefits’ (Abbasi 2006, pp. 147–148). Agenda-setting theories suggest that this belief is bad news for keeping the issue of climate change on the agenda, as people tend to lose interest in an issue when they perceive the costs of solving it to be too high (Downs 1972). Therefore, in addition to emphasising the economic gains associated with green technology (see below), climate change advocates must point out the costs that countries will incur if they do nothing to address climate change. The Stern Review Report clearly states that the costs of inaction will be far greater than the costs of action (Stern 2007), but it appears that the public has not absorbed this message. The climate change advocacy community should advertise costs that states and localities have incurred as a result of floods, hurricanes and the like as a way of illustrating the potential budgetary impact of rising global temperatures.

4. Focus on economic gains associated with green technology

If global warming is framed in part as an energy issue, then it becomes possible for climate change advocates to speak about jobs and other economic opportunities associated with the transition to clean energy. The Apollo Alliance, a US-based coalition of business, environmental, labour and community leaders, is already framing the issue in these terms. Their 2008 report calls for significant investment in clean energy technologies by the US government, with promises that this will reap considerable economic and ecological dividends (Apollo Alliance 2008). The report makes appeals based on patriotic calls for American innovation and leadership, and taps into concerns about energy independence. These appeals may build support for green energy policies because they draw on widely-held shared values. However, climate change advocates must be careful that they do not detract from the fact that the USA must work cooperatively with other nations to solve the climate crisis, and they must acknowledge that some sectors of the economy will suffer losses.

5. Provide regular feedback about policies and progress

Research suggests that large numbers of US citizens believe that the government shares their concerns about climate change and think that policymakers are doing something about the problem (Abbasi 2006, p. 145). In other words, many Americans are mistaken about the USA's position on the Kyoto Protocol and about its domestic efforts to combat global warming. They appear unaware that other affluent democracies have criticised the USA for its failure to commit to emissions reductions (Abbasi 2006, p. 145). Climate change advocates, then, should make it clear to the public that the USA is considered a laggard when it comes to climate change policy. In fact, advocates should routinely compare – perhaps even rank – affluent democracies on their efforts (and success) toward meeting emissions goals. As Kingdon (1995, p. 100) notes, feedback on policies can alert policymakers to problems and keep them on the agenda. Continual feedback on policies and progress may increase attention to the issue and keep pressure on politicians to meet their commitments.

Climate change politics: maintaining the political will

Of the many uncertainties surrounding climate change politics and policy, perhaps the biggest is whether policymakers in affluent democracies will be able to keep attention focused on the problem over the coming decades. Many things could conspire to lower the priority of the issue even for governments that are predisposed to do something about the problem, let alone those that are more reluctant to act. Moreover, global warming policies may be weakened or overturned after they have been enacted.

Perhaps the best strategy for keeping climate change on the governmental and decision agendas is to design climate change policy in ways that encourage future administrations to pay attention to the problem and discourage future efforts to overturn or ignore it. A policy with long-term commitments that reach over several decades, for example, may provide some protection against agenda decline, although it is not a guarantee. A climate change policy that requires policymakers to revisit emissions goals based on new scientific data may help keep the issue on the agenda as well. Beyond elements of policy design, the climate change advocacy community might engage in the following activities as ways of keeping global warming on the agenda.

1. Take advantage of focusing events

Many focusing events associated with climate change – hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and the like – are particularly ‘focal’ events, meaning that they do serious, visually dramatic and obvious damage (Birkland 1998). Environmentalists can use the increased public and media attention in the wake of such events to get (or keep) global warming on the agenda. These events should be treated as symbols of climate change, as it is difficult to connect definitively any one storm or weather event to global warming. Environmental groups should point out that a warming world will bring more of these events and emphasise the need to prevent such a volatile (and costly) scenario. Since focal events are often unpredictable, the climate change advocacy community must be prepared to seize the opportunity when an event occurs; in the absence of group activity and mobilisation, ‘events will gain little more than passing attention’ (Birkland 1998, p. 72).

2. Offer ‘predigested’ policies to overcome gridlock

The issue of climate change mobilises powerful interest groups that do not always see eye to eye on policy. In the United States, federal action on climate change has been hampered in part by aggressive mobilisation by industry and labour organisations against the climate change advocacy coalition (Kamieniecki 2006). When powerful interest groups are mobilised on both sides of an issue, policy gridlock may result; as Kingdon (1995, p. 151) puts it, ‘Much of the time, a balance of organised forces militates against any change at all’ (see also Klyza and Sousa 2008). When gridlock reigns, problems fall off decision agendas because no agreement can be reached. However, competing interest groups might recognise a need to amend policies that are not working, particularly if both sides pay a price for the flawed policy. An example might be a cap and trade programme in which the price of carbon permits is set too low. While some industries may benefit from this, others, such as those who own extra permits, could lose and might be willing to negotiate with environmental groups and others to amend the policy. Under such conditions these unlikely allies could negotiate and offer policymakers a compromise proposal to overcome policymakers' inertia and put global warming back on decision agendas (see Bosso 1987).

3. Venue shopping

Another way in which advocacy groups and policy entrepreneurs can attempt to overcome policy gridlock and inertia is to seek new venues in which to press their policy claims. Baumgartner and Jones (1993) argue that the existence of multiple arenas for policy decision-making increases opportunities for agenda and policy change: if advocacy groups are stymied in one venue, they can appeal to another institution and invite it to assert jurisdiction over the issue. This new institution may take an interest in the problem and put it on its agenda; it may accept a different definition of the problem and therefore give advocates a chance to advance a new understanding of the issue; and it might also provide privileged access to one set of actors so that policy can move forward (see Pralle 2003). Venue shopping gives policymakers and advocacy groups an opportunity to keep issues on the agenda of government by shopping among the various governmental institutions and urging them to address the climate change issue even when others are ignoring it. Studies of forest policymaking and pesticides politics in Canada and the USA (among other research) suggest the success of such strategies for environmental advocacy groups (Pralle 2006a, 2006b).

Conclusion

Climate change is a long-term problem that will require sustained political and policy attention over the coming decades. Policymakers, however, are confronted with a host of legitimate policy problems that are competing for their attention. How can the climate change advocacy community keep the issue of climate change on the agendas of the public and policymakers over the long term? This paper has examined strategies for keeping the issue on agendas and for moving it up the list of policy priorities. Specifically, it has offered strategies for defining the problem of climate change in ways that could raise its salience with the public, on the understanding that if the issue is salient with the public, then policymakers will face some pressure to address it. It is also important to frame solutions in ways that garner maximum support and protect against forces, such as cynicism and fatigue, that might cause the public and policymakers to abandon efforts to solve the problem. Finally, the climate change advocacy community must take advantage of political opportunities, such as focusing events and multiple policy venues, to keep global warming on the agenda even when policy is gridlocked or other issues threaten to displace it.

The specific political strategies for raising the salience of the problem are:

•	Regularly report key problem indicators in user-friendly terms;
•	Emphasise scientific consensus and knowledge;
•	Emphasise growing public concern;
•	Emphasise specific, local impacts and personal experience;
•	Emphasise human health impacts;
•	Insert a moral and ethical perspective into the debate.

Strategies for framing solutions 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.

Finally, strategies for maintaining political will require:

•	Taking advantage of focusing events;
•	Offering ‘predigested’ policies to overcome gridlock;
•	Venue shopping.