The Swedish climate policy framework as a means for climate policy integration: an assessment

ABSTRACT

Has the Swedish Climate Policy Framework – including the new Swedish Climate Act – adopted in June 2017, been conducive to advancing climate mitigation, and if so, to what extent and in which aspects? Although Sweden is often described as a frontrunner in climate work, several evaluations prior to the adoption of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act concluded that Swedish climate policy has suffered from both implementation and monitoring deficits, as well as from the fact that climate goals and strategies were non-legally binding. Taken together, such deficits make the stable, long-term prioritizing of climate mitigation over other sector policies increasingly difficult, thus limiting the possibilities to reach future targets. This article focuses on three dimensions of climate policy integration – assessing policy processes, outputs and outcomes – with the aim to analyse political developments and policy outcomes in Sweden after the implementation of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act. The results of a comprehensive set of interviews with policy experts and high-level decision-makers show that the framework is believed to have had important effects, mainly in terms of changing both policy language, cross-sector coordination, and increasing the prioritization of the climate issue. Thus the study (1) contributes to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of Climate Change Acts as instruments for climate policy integration; (2) paves the way for future comparative studies; and (3) presents important practical lessons for policy makers on the effects of legal mechanisms to achieve climate mitigation.

Key policy insights

• Climate Acts provide a legal framework for governmental climate activities.

• A comprehensive framework including three dimensions of climate policy integration – assessing process, output and outcome, should be used to evaluate Climate Act effects.

• The Swedish Climate Policy Framework and Climate Act has induced a weak type of climate policy integration, showing effects on climate policy debate, coordination, policy measure implementation and policy support.

• The framework sends strong signals of political will to address climate change, but the non-inclusion of targets and instruments in the Swedish Climate Act is causing debate and insecurity regarding what policy instruments will be implemented

KEYWORDS:

• Climate acts
• climate policy integration
• Swedish climate policy
• environmental policy integration

Introduction

Pressure on governments to achieve tangible greenhouse gas emission reductions is growing. This stems both from multilateral agreements, such as the Paris Agreement from COP21 in 2015, and from domestic and global civil society interest groups. Reaching the long-term mitigation goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature well below 2°C from pre-industrial levels presupposes that governments adopt increasingly more stringent domestic policies governing such changes. As a response, a large number of policy measures have been proposed, developed and implemented in a political attempt to steer social development in a more climate-friendly direction (cf. IPCC, 2019, 2014; Jordan et al., 2018).

For national governments, however, the task of designing effective and efficient climate policies is exceedingly complicated by the need to negotiate both the tension between different societal and political goals, for example the well-debated growth versus environment dimension, as well as the preferences for short-term investments in other policy areas voiced by major clusters of voters and influential interest groups. Furthermore, climate problems in particular are also administratively complex, spanning multiple sectors, across multiple administrative levels. Successful climate policies thus require concerted, long-term efforts across different policy arenas, where solutions might focus primarily on other goals than climate mitigation (e.g. Söderberg, 2011).

In practice, several strands of literature conclude that these challenges are reflected by both the design and framing of policies and policy measures in-use, as well as by the substantial outcomes of these policies. Following Frickel and Davidson (2004), the State is caught between the dual imperative of protecting the environment on one hand and ensuring continuous economic growth, individual freedom and autonomy on the other. De Geus (2004; see also Eckersly, 2020), argues that the final decade of the 1900s and the early 2000s have therefore seen a ‘pacification of the environmental issue’ as it has been rhetorically incorporated in the political discourse, but once there, it is reduced to a question of symbolic acts or a technical policy-issue (cf. Jagers & Matti, 2020; Dryzek, 2005).

The case of Sweden can be used to illustrate these climate policy challenges. Sweden is often described as a frontrunner in both addressing environmental and climate issues and in the construction of an administrative environmental policy system (e.g. Duit, 2016; Lidskog & Elander, 2012; Lundqvist, 2004; SGI, 2020). Although this general picture has been questioned (see, for example, Finnveden & Åkerman, 2009; Hysing, 2014; Larsson et al., 2019), Sweden regularly ranks in the top group in the annual Environmental Performance Index mainly due to its comparatively low per capita GHG-emissions. In addition, Sweden has long been a pioneer in the organization of environmental policy structures and tools: the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established as early as 1967, a sectoral responsibility for Swedish public agencies was decided on in 1988, and Sweden boasts one of the oldest CO2-taxes in the world, introduced in 1991. Also in the international arena, Swedish efforts to act as an environmental pioneer are evident. Ever since the first UN Conference on Human Environment was organized in Stockholm in 1972, Sweden has attempted to shoulder the roles of both a driver and a mediator in the multilateral environment and climate negotiations. Nonetheless, several evaluations (e.g. OECD, 2014; Skr., 2013/14:209) conclude that Swedish climate policy has suffered from both implementation and monitoring deficits, as well as from the fact that climate goals and strategies are non-legally binding (SOU, 2016:21). Taken together, these deficits make the stable, long-term prioritizing of climate mitigation over other sector policies increasingly difficult, thus limiting the possibilities to reach future targets and comply with multilateral goals.

As a response to these political challenges, several European states, starting with the UK in 2008, have introduced Climate Change Acts (CCAs) in an attempt to strengthen (a) the prospects for long-term political commitments to climate mitigation, (b) the possibilities for increased cross-sectoral coordination, as well as (c) the processes for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of domestic strategies to this effect. Through the implementation of CCAs, a legal framework for governmental climate activities is created, regulating both target-levels and the processes through which the government shall set, reach and follow up these targets. This development of hard law instruments targeting governmental activities is evident also in Sweden, where the All Party Committee on Environmental Objectives’ report – A climate-policy framework for Sweden (SOU, 2016:21) – presented to the Swedish government in early 2016, outlined suggestions for a legal regulation of the government’s climate responsibilities. This was adopted in the Swedish Climate Policy Framework in June 2017. The framework comprises three parts: a Climate Act, climate targets (long-term target of zero net emissions by 2045; milestone targets for 2020, 2030 and 2040) and a Climate Policy Council. The purpose of the framework is ‘to create a clear and coherent climate policy to ensure long term signals to the market and other actors’ (SEPA, 2020) and to integrate climate goals in all political sectors (Swedish Climate Policy Council, 2020). To this end, the Climate Act obliges the government to ensure that climate policy goals and budget policy goals are coherent, and to present a yearly climate policy action plan for achieving the climate targets (SEPA, 2020).

Although the overall responsibilities of governments are typically outlined in the constitution or comparable legislation, detailing how the government should act and how it should legally regulate which targets for a specific policy area is significantly rarer. Scholarly analysis is required to understand the extent to which hard law is successful and why when directed specifically towards governmental activities and responsibilities so as to create more stringent, less volatile, and better enacted climate policy regimes. While some studies, primarily from the UK, admittedly have noted difficulties implementing the requirements of the CCA (e.g. Averchenkova et al., 2020; Fankhauser et. al., 2018; Giddens, 2009; Helm, 2010; Lockwood, 2013), most analyses nonetheless focus on the processes preceding its adoption (cf. Carter, 2010; Carter & Ockwell, 2007; Hill, 2009; Rollinson, 2010) rather than evaluating and explaining their effects. Similarly, there are few studies focusing on the Swedish Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act (but see Romson, 2020; Karlsson, 2021 for recent studies). However, in a recent analysis of climate policy integration in Swedish energy policy after the Swedish CPF implementation, Nordlund (2020) concludes that a weak form of Climate Policy Integration (CPI) has taken place, where climate policy goals are integrated into national energy policy rhetoric and considered side-by-side with economic and social aspects rather than prioritized. Furthermore, some policy measures have been taken in order to enhance climate change measures in the energy sector, although energy policy still to a large extent proclaims the need for future change rather than implementing new measures (Nordlund, 2020). In their evaluation of a number of European CCAs, Nash and Steurer (2019) emphasize that one weakness of the Swedish Climate Act structure is that no sanctions are built into the system if the executive’s fail to adhere to its provisions. Furthermore, the three-part structure of the framework means that the Act merely contains procedural rules, while the actual climate targets are placed outside of legal regulation. Correspondingly, the Swedish Climate Policy Council emphasizes that emission reductions are decelerating, current policy decisions are inadequate for reaching the climate policy targets, and the Climate Act requirements to analyse the climate effects of decisions are not fulfilled since the accounts are either lacking or incoherent (Swedish Climate Policy Council, 2020).

In order to explore the possibilities of CCAs becoming an integral part of future environmental governance, there is a need for further theoretical development as well as empirical knowledge, both on the prospects and prerequisites of hard law instruments in general, and in particular by asking if, how, why, and under what conditions CCAs contribute to advancing climate mitigation in practice. Given that such empirical studies are lacking to date, the main aim of this article is to analyse political developments and policy outcomes in Sweden after the implementation of the Climate Policy Framework and the Swedish Climate Act. In order to do so, the article outlines an analytical framework for assessing the various possible effects of CCAs. The results of the study thus (1) contribute to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of CCAs as instruments for climate policy integration; (2) pave the way for future comparative studies of CCAs currently in use; and (3) present important practical lessons for policy makers regarding the effects of legal mechanisms in pursuing climate mitigation.

Analysing the impacts of CCAs: an E/CPI-perspective

The overall question of this article concerns whether, and to what extent, CCAs can advance climate mitigation. To this end, studying substantial outcomes and thus evaluating the success of CCAs by changes in climate performance can be done, for example, by Germanwatch’s Climate Change Performance Index or the by Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. This should, naturally, be an integral part of the ambition for any study of long-term CCA effects. However, direct effects on climate performance are neither the sole possible outcome of a CCA nor the sole ambition of it, as the implementation of hard law focusing on governmental activities also targets procedural changes. Furthermore, substantial outcomes can be both distorted by developments in other areas (for example, the COVID-19 pandemic, GDP-growth or new technological innovations) and be rather difficult to causally link to the introduction of a CCA, in particular after less than a decade of implementation. Further, focusing only on substantial outcomes does not allow for explaining success or failure, but merely for detecting it. This article therefore proposes a broader take on CCA impacts. As climate change is a textbook example of a challenging environmental issue that needs to be fully integrated in multiple sector policies and across multiple levels in order to be successfully addressed (Rayner & Okereke, 2007), we propose that evaluating the potential of CCAs through a perspective anchored in environmental or climate policy integration (E/CPI) will greatly benefit the analysis.

The broader concept of environmental policy integration (EPI), is a long-standing key principle in European policy (starting with WCED, 1987), currently included under Article 6.1 in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. It embraces the inclusion of environmental perspectives in all sectoral policy (cf. Persson, 2007; Runhaar et al., 2014). Thus, a growing field of research focuses both on environmental policy integration in general (e.g. EEA, 2004; Hertin & Berkhout, 2003; Liberatore, 1997; Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007; Persson, 2007; Persson & Runhaar, 2018; Söderberg & Eckerberg, 2013) and on climate policy integration (CPI) in particular (Adelle & Russel, 2013; Jordan & Lenschow, 2010; Kettner & Kletzan-Slamanig, 2018). Given that formal institutions can be viewed as intermediate variables that enable or prevent policy change, several studies have confirmed that institutions also set the stage for environmental policy integration (Connelly & Smith, 1999; Jordan, 2002; Jordan & Lenschow, 2008 Lafferty, 2004; Lenschow, 2002; Lenschow & Zito, 1998; Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007;; Persson et al., 2018; Runhaar et al., 2018). Therefore, a more specific question guiding the paper is whether CCAs, viewed as formal institutions, are conducive to climate policy integration?

According to this literature there are a number of different ways to achieve E/CPI, and the European policy toolbox contains both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ climate governance instruments. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA, 2005), the role of legal instruments from an E/CPI perspective should therefore be viewed as one part of a mix of governance instruments for achieving E/CPI. On the EU-level, policy instruments of the ‘harder’ type have been used significantly more often for climate change objectives (e.g. setting quantitative targets) than for general EPI, where ‘softer’ instruments are common (e.g. Jordan, 2002). Furthermore, where general EPI is about integrating environmental policy in ‘all sectors’, this is a task that is difficult to measure in terms of outcomes. The more specific CPI is, the greater the need for a more hands-on tool to measure performance (e.g. in terms of CO2 emissions), and hence a focus emerges ‘more about engaging a narrower set of sectors to work together in particular ways to meet specific goals’ (Adelle & Russel, 2013, p. 9).

After studying EPI in 30 OECD countries, Jacob et al. (2008) hold that instruments for EPI can be divided into three categories: communicative instruments, organizational instruments, and procedural instruments such as green budgeting or impact assessment. In the field of climate policy, there is a rich landscape of EU member states that have different communicative and organizational instruments, while procedural instruments in general and ‘hard law’ in particular are far less common (Mickwitz et al., 2009). Thus, ‘hard law’ such as CCAs can be viewed as a new type of procedural instrument for EPI (Mickwitz et al., 2008). However, the interest for such instruments is growing in Europe as a means for structuring, regulating and committing to climate work. Therefore, this article focuses on procedural instruments, exploring if, how, why, and under what conditions CCAs advance climate mitigation in practice, and also furthers our theoretical understanding of hard law as an instrument for enhancing E/CPI.

Operationalization of E/CPI

E/CPI is essentially ‘about reconceiving the key policy objectives of sectors in a way that makes the environment an intrinsic rationale of sector policy’ (Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007, p. 45). Such a process can also be distinguished by the reframing of perspectives in sectoral policies and strategies towards sustainable development (cf. Lundqvist, 2004; Nilsson, 2005; Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007; Nilsson & Persson, 2003; Rein & Schön 1993, 1994). Importantly, E/CPI not only suggests a reframing merely in policy rhetoric, but also where policy goals are redefined and problem definitions and strategies are adjusted as the environmental considerations are integrated into the deeper core of sector policy.

In conceptualizing and operationalizing E/CPI, we therefore suggest making a distinction between three different dimensions (cf. Persson, 2007), each guiding us to explore a different possible policy effect of introducing CCAs.

First, a common approach to E/CPI focuses on policy processes, i.e. how requirements for environmental considerations are built into the policy process. The focus is both on the extent of cross-sectoral coordination, i.e. whether environmental concerns are included across different policy sectors, as well as to what extent environmental considerations are prioritized vis-à-vis social and economic concerns (Lafferty & Hovden, 2003; Lenschow, 2002; Persson et al., 2018). This dimension thus acknowledges that, analytically, E/CPI can be treated as a process of policy learning among the actors involved in the policymaking (Nilsson, 2005; Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007). Policy learning, that is, enduring alterations of actor’s understandings and beliefs in the light of new information and experiences, constitutes a key concept in several policy-process frameworks (e.g. Pierce et al., 2017) and suggests that systemwide alterations in official policy objectives and measures are the result of changed policy ideas on the actor level. In this dimension, we propose that E/CPI can be classified as either weak or strong, depending on variations in political prioritizations of climate issues in relation to economic and social issues, and whether these priorities are visible across different policy areas and not merely confined to the environmental policy field (cf. Söderberg, 2011).

Second, while changes in environmental discourse are undoubtedly of the utmost importance for reaching long-term, stable and positive outcomes, the generation of tangible results is also dependent on the effectiveness of institutional innovations (cf. EEA, 2005; Persson et al., 2018; Persson & Runhaar, 2018; Söderberg, 2011). Therefore, we suggest that another dimension of E/CPI should focus on policy outputs, i.e. the degree to which actual policies, political programmes and policy measures have changed as a result. In this dimension, we classify E/CPI as either rhetoric, where a reframing following the introduction of the CCA is confined to policy language and the political debate, or practice, where changes in political practice can also be detected after CCA implementation. These two dimensions thus provide us with 4 different possible E/CPI results of the introduction of a CCA, as illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1. The Processes – and Outputs-dimensions of E/CPI.

		Policy outputs
		Rhetoric	Practice
Policy processes	Weak	Change in policy language only. Changes confined to the environmental policy sector. Weak prioritization of climate mitigation over other policy goals.	Change in both policy language and policy outputs. Changes confined to the environmental policy sector. Weak prioritization of climate mitigation over other policy goals.
	Strong	Change in policy language only. Coordinated changes across policy sectors. Climate mitigation prioritized in relation to other policy goals.	Change in both policy language and policy outputs. Coordinated changes across policy sectors. Climate mitigation prioritized in relation to other policy goals.

Source: Authors

Finally, to these two dimensions, we also add a third dimension focusing on E/CPI as policy outcomes, that is, the impact and performance of the new policies introduced on the state of the environment (cf. Jordan & Lenschow, 2010). This dimension thus allows us to explore whether, and to what extent, CCAs have direct positive effects on the climate. Here, direct effects on the climate, i.e. the extent to which GHG emissions and environmental quality have changed after the introduction of the CCA, should of course be explored in long-term effect studies. However, it is also possible that the implementation of hard law instruments will have a non-negligible symbolic value, increasing trust in the government’s ambition and ability to forcefully address climate change (cf. Matti in SOU, 2016:21). High levels of institutional trust have been proved imperative for the acceptance of new policy measures both in general (e.g. Braithwaite & Levi, 1998) and for complex and contested issues in particular (Dietz et al., 2007; Kellstedt et al., 2008). Since elected policy-makers are usually reluctant to introduce policies that are perceived as having low levels of public acceptability (cf. Burstein, 2003), changes in attitudes among both citizens and key societal actors are highly relevant to explore. Thus, both long-term and short-term effects on trust in the government’s long-term climate policy ambitions as well as on perceived priorities of climate mitigation measures, are other ways of measuring substantial outcomes. These types of attitudinal changes might significantly affect the long-term possibilities for climate mitigation and thus climate performance outcomes.

Although the degree of E/CPI in these specific dimensions can be evaluated separately, studying the impact of CCAs only focusing on one dimension does not provide a comprehensive analysis of possible effects. Therefore, the proposed framework does not focus on merely measuring substantial outcomes in terms of lowered emission levels and other direct outcomes. Rather, it attempts to elucidate the extent to which CCAs create possibilities for more stringent climate mitigation through affecting political ideas and processes, cross-sectoral coordination, and political practice.

Methods, data and research design

Based on the theories on E/CPI presented above, this section develops a refined methodological framework, focusing on our three dimensions of climate policy integration – assessing process, output and outcome – to analyse political developments and policy outcomes in Sweden after the implementation of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act. We then apply this framework to the effects of the Swedish Climate Policy Framework.

In order to investigate the relationship between hard law implementation, policy change, and climate performance we have collected original data through a round of 18 anonymized expert interviews. The interviews targeted 9 key policy actors with first-hand insight into the implementation and effects of the Swedish Climate Policy Framework on a national level (as suggested by Fankhauser et al. 2018). The group of experts consisted of key actors within the political administration, i.e. political decision-makers and high-level civil servants directly involved in designing and implementing climate policy, and thus affected by the Climate Policy Framework in their day-to-day tasks. It also included 9 national level actors from key national interest groups with immediate insights into the effects of the Climate Policy Framework on the market and on both low-emission and high-emission industry.

The interviews were semi-structured and performed via video link from May – June 2020; all interviews comprised the same themes and questions and only minor adjustments were made in the interview guide depending on the type of actor interviewed. Semi-structured interviews as a data collection method are proven to be both versatile and flexible (Kallio et al., 2016), enabling us to combine ‘closed’ and ‘open-ended’ questions (Halperin & Heath, 2012). The interviews consisted of two parts. First, the informants were asked to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each question in order to enable us to clearly distinguish interviewee views on different themes. They were then asked to develop their answers on all themes in the second part of the interview. A closed question with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response is useful in order to minimize the risk for misinterpretation of the answers provided, but they are unlikely to cover the full range of responses that a respondent may want to give. Therefore, the combination of ‘yes’/’no’ questions and developed answers strengthens the analysis (Esaiasson et al., 2017). All interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed according to our framework.

In conducting our expert interviews, we asked our interviewees to convey their perceptions of both how and to what extent the Climate Policy Framework has impacted policy processes, i.e. climate policy developments in Sweden, as well as whether or not the framework has led to any substantial outputs and outcomes (in terms of policy, opinion, and climate performance) and why that is. More specifically, to capture policy processes, we asked our expert interviewees if the Climate Policy Framework has had effects on the internal and external political debate, climate policy opinion, or on policy coordination, and if it has contributed to a stronger and clearer prioritization of climate issues in politics, organizations, society and industry. To capture policy outputs, we asked our expert interviewees if the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to strengthening and stimulating the implementation of political measures to fulfil climate policy goals. To capture policy outcomes, analysing official statistics on developments in climate impacts and environmental quality would be a natural step. However, for a number of reasons, e.g. the short time frame since the adoption of the Swedish Climate Act (from mid 2017 to 2020), the fact that the statistics lag one year behind, and given the skewing effects on GHG emissions from the COVID-19 pandemic, such evaluations are less meaningful in our early stage assessment. Instead, we assess outcome through asking our expert interviewees if the framework had substantial effects on emissions and pro-environmental behaviour, on the political will and ability to implement climate policy measures, and on the support for climate policy measures amongst politicians, industry and the general public (see Table 2).

Table 2. Interview questions and results.

Theory	Interview question	Result
	Is it your / your party's / your organization's opinion that Sweden's climate policy framework has contributed to …
Policy Process	change your internal discussion about the climate? change your external discussion about the climate? you / your party / organization having undergone a change in your understanding of / perception of climate / climate policy? increased coordination between the ministries / parliamentary committees in order for the policy to jointly achieve the climate policy goals? the policy giving more coherent signals to companies / business / industry on how to achieve the climate policy goals? a stronger and clearer priority on climate issues in … ? - Politics - Organizations - Society - Industry	Politicians: 6 yes, 3 no. Other: 6 yes, 3 no. Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 7 yes, 2 no. Politicians: 4 yes, 5 no. Other: 4 yes, 5 no. Politicians: 5 yes, 4 no. Other: 1 no. Politicians: 5 yes, 3 no. Other: 7 yes, 2 no. Politics: Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 9 yes, 0 no. Organizations: Politicians: 6 yes, 3 no. Other: 5 yes, 4 no. Society: Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 8 yes, 1 no. Industry: Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 8 yes, 1 no.
Policy Output	strengthening and stimulating the implementation of climate policy measures to achieve climate policy goals?	Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 7 yes, 2 no.
Policy Outcome	reduced greenhouse gas emissions? a change in behaviour (pro environmental)? strengthening the political will to enforce climate policy instruments? strengthen the political ability to enforce climate policy instruments? strengthening support for climate policy measures?	Politicians: 6 yes, 3 no. Other: 6 yes, 3 no. Politicians: 7 yes, 2 no. Other: 5 yes, 4 no. Politicians: 6 yes, 3 no. Other: 9 yes, 0 no. Politicians: 5 yes, 4 no. Other: 8 yes, 1 no. Politicians: 8 yes, 1 no. Other: 8 yes, 1 no.

Source: Authors

Note: This question was asked only to politicans and a civil servant at the Governmant Offices.

We believe that our comprehensive round of expert interviews provide the study with an unparalleled first-hand insight into the extent to which the Swedish Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act have been conducive to CPI and climate mitigation.

Results

In this section, we present the results from our interviews following the three-part framework to consider changes in policy processes, outputs and outcomes, and we divide the answers into the two types of interviewee categories: Politicans (i.e. political decision-makers and high-level civil servants) and Other (i.e. national interest group representatives). For an overview of the exact number of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers in the different categories of interviewees on each question, please see Table 2.

Policy processes: the impact on discussions, understanding, coherence and priorities

Most of our infomants agree that the internal discussions (within their own parties/organizations) about climate have changed as a consequence of implementing the Climate Policy Framework. The politicians who have answered ‘yes’ emphasize that the Climate Policy Framework has shifted their focus to issues regarding management, governance and monitoring of climate policy. Both politicians and others who have answered ‘yes’ further stated that they refer and relate to the Climate Policy Framework to a greater extent now than before in their internal work. The interviewees who have answered ‘no’ did so by emphasizing that their party or organization have had the same views regarding climate for a long time and that the framework has not changed this. Regarding the impact of the framework on the external discussion (with other organizations/parties/actors) on climate, our respondents agree to a large extent. The framework has enhanced the attention to Sweden’s climate policy internationally and nationally; it is easy to refer to the framework in discussions with other actors, and the framework helps put pressure on a range of other actors to take action.

Our interviewees are divided in their views regarding the framework’s contribution to a change in their understanding of climate policy (see Table 2 for more information on the distribution of answers). Here, half of the interviewees (9, four politicians and five representatives for organizations) emphasize that as they already had an understanding of and commitment to these issues beforehand, the framework itself has not affected this. Simultaneously, some of our interviewees, mainly representatives from political parties that answered ‘no’ on the previous question, hold that the framework has increased their general understanding of governance of climate policy and that the increased prioritization of the climate issue after introducing the Climate Policy Framework has led to increased knowledge and new insights.

In order to gain insight into how the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to increased coordination between different government ministries and parliamentary committees to jointly achieve the climate policy goals, we asked the politicians and the civil servants to convey their views on this. Here, our interviewees stressed that the structures within the parliamentary committees and the ministries are arranged in a way that makes coordination difficult, where each parliamentary committee and ministry is responsible for their exclusive issues. The government administration is to a high extent viewed as a ‘negotiation organization’, and there is reluctance towards changing the existing structures. However, to cope with the fixed structures, many of the parties have instead increased their internal coordination between members in different parliamentary committees. And, as a consequence of the obligations stated in the Climate Act, the fixed structures have started to loosen up a bit – for example, cooperation through joint committee meetings and committees submitting opinions to other committees on issues that concern them, has increased.

The vast majority of our interviewees agree that the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to more coherent policy signals to industry on how to achieve the climate policy goals. The fact that the decision on the Climate Policy Framework was taken in broad agreement in the parliament sends clear signals of consensus regarding the need and will to reach the climate policy goals; it also signals that political decisions are expected to follow to steer national processes and actor’s behaviours towards the goals. However, a weakness of the framework is that policy instruments and tools implemented for reaching the framework’s goals are not specified and will therefore depend on parliamentary majorities, which vary over time. Strong political signals regarding precisely how to reach the climate policy goals are therefore missing.

Lastly, there is a strong consensus that the general prioritization of climate issues has become stronger and clearer as a result of the framework. Our interviewees hold that the prioritization of climate issues has increased within politics, in society, as well as among industry actors. The picture is a bit more diverse regarding the prioritization of climate issues in civil society organizations. The Climate Policy Framework sets sharp goals, provides a clear direction of travel and sends a strong signal that climate mitigation is very important. The framework is, however, still quite new and therefore the effect of the signals it sends is predicted to increase even more if or when the framework becomes better known.

Policy outputs

Our interviewees strongly agree that the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to strengthening and stimulating the implementation of climate policy measures to achieve climate policy goals. Since there was a strong consensus in the parliament regarding the decision to implement the framework and on the climate policy goals, it has also contributed to enabling and improving discussions on climate policy measures. Specifically, the mere existence of a framework and goals, taken in consensus, pushes the parties towards taking further measures and has made it more difficult to oppose suggestions for ambitious climate policy measures. The parties are no longer discussing what the target should be but rather the way forward – how to reach the agreed goal – which has made climate discussions more creative. Furthermore, our interviewees hold that arguments from the Climate Policy Council’s yearly evaluation are brought up in policy discussions and contribute to changes in policy proposals, and that the government’s action plans also make it easier to refer to the climate targets when making arduous policy decisions.

According to our interviewees, the weakness of the Climate Policy Framework is, however, that there is still no consensus regarding how to achieve the goals. In this aspect, the different parties are still divided and the climate policy measures are thus dependent on the parliamentary majorities. Some interviewees emphasized that goal conflicts still arise in many policy areas between other types of targets and climate targets, and here it becomes clear that climate change is not the main priority in policymaking across all sectors. There is still a heated policy debate around how priorities are made between climate and other types of targets, and many of our other (non-politician) interviewees hold that this leads to insecurity regarding what measures industry and other market actors should take. Some interviewees hold that mechanisms, which can help break up the current sector specific policy focus, are necessary in order for the framework to have an even stronger impact. Specifically, to include the emission targets in the Climate Act is put forward as an important step that would force all policy sectors to take responsibility for their respective climate impact.

Policy outcomes

Our interviewees agree to a large extent that the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to reduced GHG emissions, and there is no clear divide in argument between those who answer that the framework has led to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and those who answer that the framework has had no impact. In fact, the argument from the ‘no’ side is that the framework is new and that we don’t yet know if it has had any impact on the reduction of GHG emissions. From the ‘yes’ side, the argument is more in line with an expectation that the framework will lead to reduced emissions in the future. The reason, they say, is that the framework sets clear long-term targets and points to a ‘direction of travel.’

Most of the politician interviewees agree that the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to a change in the public’s pro-environmental behaviour, while our other interviewees are more divided regarding their view on this aspect. Those interviewees who do not agree that pro-environmental behaviour has been affected by the framework argue that the framework is new and not yet generally known to the public. Similarly, other interviewees argue that the public has indeed changed its behaviour in a pro-environmental direction during the last decades, but this is, they state, more a result of the generally increased awareness of climate issues and the public debate than a direct effect of the framework. Generally, our interviewees thus see more pro-environmental behaviour over the last decades and more awareness of the climate issue, but hold that the actual effect of the framework is difficult to discern and needs to be evaluated over longer time.

The Climate Policy Framework is viewed by our interviewees as an expression of a stronger political will to enforce climate policy instruments. Due to the framework, the parliament has pointed to a clear direction for Swedish climate action. However, our interviewees emphasize that the effect on the ability to actually enforce climate policy instruments is yet to be seen. Although the framework has set out the goals and direction, the ability to govern towards implementing climate policy instruments is not given in the framework but depends on (shifting) parliamentary majorities. There is, however, a strong consensus that the Climate Policy Framework has contributed to strengthening general support for climate policy measures. The consensus in parliament regarding the long-term climate goals provides legitimacy for climate policy measures.

Concluding discussion

This paper set out to analyse political developments and policy in Sweden after the implementation of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act. It has done so by outlining and applying a comprehensive analytical framework, focusing on CPI, and assessing the processes, outputs and outcomes of the Swedish Climate Policy Framework based on a set of expert interviews. Our results show that the framework, after being in place for only two years, is believed to have had important effects, but that there also are limitations in the framework that need to be addressed. In terms of the policy processes, the framework has improved the understanding of climate policy and facilitated climate discussions both within and between different types of organizations. Furthermore, even though there is an unwillingness to change current sector-focused structures, inter-sectoral coordination between ministries and parliamentary committees has improved as a consequence of the new framework, which also is visible in more coherent climate policy signals to industry and a generally improved prioritization of climate issues. In terms of policy outputs, the political consensus behind the framework has contributed to strengthening and stimulating the implementation of climate policy measures to achieve climate policy goals. And there is a consensus regarding the need to reach the decided climate targets, although there is still dispute regarding what instruments are most effective in order to reach the targets.

The results from studying the policy processes and outputs of the Swedish Climate Policy Framework combined, indicate that the framework has led to a weak form of CPI taking place in both rhetoric and practice. This is demonstrated by visible changes in both policy language and policy outputs. Further, the prioritization of climate and cross-sector coordination has increased, but not yet to a ‘strong’ degree (where coordination is highly improved and climate is highly prioritized over other issues). In terms of policy outcomes, the most important effect of the framework is the clear signal it sends in terms of a strong political will to prioritize climate mitigation, which in itself improves general support for climate policy measures. This symbolic effect is therefore important in order to achieve further emission reductions and transformation towards more pro-environmental behaviour among societal actors, although the direct effects on this and on the ability to enforce climate policy measures must be evaluated in future, long-term, studies.

The contributions of this paper are of both a theoretical and an empirical character. Theoretically, it provides noteworthy inputs to the literature on environmental policy and governance, particularly concerning aspects of third-party regulation, and on E/CPI. We suggest a comprehensive analysis, which should be applied in future comparative studies, in order to further elucidate the extent to which hard law can be applied as a measure for strengthening policy integration, including to understand why, and under what conditions. Furthering knowledge on these mechanisms and, in particular, the interplay between institutional design and political context, is of significant scholarly value and will help advance analytical models for environmental governance and policy integration. Furthermore, future comparative analysis will also provide significant insights into the future trajectory of environmental governance in Europe as an entity. In a more general sense, the paper refines an analytical model to assess policy performance and good governance through three metrics – processes, outputs, and outcomes – which are relevant outside the environmental area.

The contributions of the paper are also of a more practical character. As noted by both Swedish and international authorities, cross-sectoral cooperation as well as long-term, stable, stringent and effective policy measures are key to successfully combatting climate change. As governments around the world are struggling with balancing the reality of representative democracy’s short time-spans and the necessity of long-term commitments to climate mitigation, exploring the possibility and effectiveness of introducing legally-binding regulations of governmental processes and goals in favour of long-term commitments to climate mitigation are relevant. However, as the current literature neither researches if and how such regulations of governmental processes are effective, nor under what conditions positive outcomes can be expected, policy-makers contemplating introduction of hard laws are doing so without knowledge about its prospects and prerequisites.

This paper provides important food for thought for decision-makers and practitioners, both in countries where Climate Change Acts are already implemented and where such policy developments are being debated. Rather than focusing on a limited set of indicators of policy impacts, our study draws on the E/CPI literature to accommodate more comprehensive analyses of the possible effects of Climate Change Acts in changing political rhetoric and practice, increasing cross-sectoral coordination and altering political prioritization in favour of climate mitigation. Lastly, it should be noted that this study was conducted very shortly after the Swedish Climate Policy Framework was introduced, which placed some limitations on the research design. In the future, it is highly relevant to perform comparative studies, building on our three-part analytical framework, to also combine expert interviews with document analysis and statistical analysis of trends in both public opinion and GHG emissions. This would enable an even stronger analysis of CCAs as a means for CPI in the long term.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas: [grant number 2016-00702].

Interviews

Table

Informant	Date of interview (all dates 2020)
Politician 1	28 May
Politician 2	11 May
Politician 3	6 May
Politician 4	6 May
Politician 5	13 May
Politician 6	4 May
Politician 7	12 May
Politician 8	15 May
Politician 9	27 May
Other 1	7 May
Other 2	12 May
Other 3	6 May
Other 4	14 May
Other 5	5 May
Other 6	27 May
Other 7	6 May
Other 8	1 June
Other 9	15 June