https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5826-4071
We wrote of a ‘new era’ for climate policy, in our opening editorial when we took on the role of editors-in-chief of the journal Climate Policy seven years ago. With the Paris Agreement entering into force, we saw domestic implementation of climate action as a new defining theme, along with ‘pushing countries towards the progressively greater ambition that is needed’. We contrasted the unifying moment of Paris with a fragmentation of the international policy landscape. As we write our closing editorial, geopolitical tensions are even higher and collective progress has been more difficult than hoped. Yet opportunities for system transformations to low emissions and climate resilient development abound.
At the start of our tenure, we also set out a rising need for academic thought leadership on a variety of themes. The community of authors and also reviewers has exceeded all reasonable expectations – the journal Climate Policy has gone from strength to strength.
Multiple crises and fragmentation risk undermining climate policy
Ending 2023, headlines for the global climate suggest this has been by far the hottest year on instrumental record, with worsening climate impacts. Communities in many places are experiencing loss and damage – no longer a prediction, but here and now. Instead of peaking, global greenhouse gas emissions continue creeping up, rebounding after a pandemic-induced dip. It now seems only a question of when, not if, global warming will exceed 1.5°C.
But climate is only one of several crises that are defining global affairs. Wars have erupted in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere. Geopolitics is dominated by large power rivalry and the possibility of future conflict casts its shadow in the form of greater military expenditure, while security considerations increasingly enter climate, energy, resource, and industrial policy. Trade measures and large industry subsidy programmes are beginning to be enmeshed with climate policy, with the aim of facilitating emission reductions, yet provoking fears of protectionism. Big countries scramble to extract minerals critical to the energy transition. Global inequality persists and is exacerbated by climate change, worsening along with indebtedness. Global inflation has diminished the affordability of energy, food and other essentials of life, and feeds into an upswell of populism and continued rise of authoritarian leaders in many countries.
In a world in polycrisis, narrow self-interest threatens to undercut multilateral climate policy. Domestic political and economic attention tends to turn to other priorities, and international cooperation becomes harder. It is a time of fragmentation not integration, of concentrating on what is near and palpable, and less on long-term global benefit. It is hardly an ideal context for the kind of herculean effort that is needed to rapidly scale up finance for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including for very large-scale investment and finance. Too often, the UN climate negotiations remain stuck in old positions. International climate finance flowing to developing countries continues to fall far short of what is needed for low emission and climate resilient development. With greater ambition in mitigation and adaptation, fewer losses and damages would be suffered.
And yet, these dismal trends are only one part of the story. Other parts are hopeful beginnings and tremendous opportunities.
Opportunities for systems change and transformations
A defining positive development for climate policy has been the rapid fall in the costs of clean energy technologies. They are increasingly available in the developing world, though affordability remains an issue in some contexts and financing is still required. Solar PV and wind are now the cheapest options to generate electricity from new installations in many parts of the world, and rates of solar power installation have far exceeded expectations year after year. The next breakthroughs for mitigation are underway, with dramatically falling costs for energy storage and electric vehicles. Even with tougher challenges, such as decarbonizing heavy industry, there are encouraging signs of progress.
It was not too long ago that decarbonizing electricity supply, and electrifying transport and many other end uses seemed possible only as the result of very strong policy effort. Now they are coming into reach often at low or no extra lifetime cost, with remaining hurdles to adoption concentrated in upfront investment, infrastructure, and resistance from incumbents.
Climate policy increasingly harnesses sustainable development benefits, and other policies increasingly are designed to bring climate benefits. Carbon pricing is expanding in reach and stringency, regulatory policy instruments are on the rise, and industry policy is increasingly aimed at net zero emissions transitions. As climate policy moves further into the mainstream, the corporate sector, social and youth movements, indigenous peoples, local authorities, and many others tend to play a greater role in debates and policy. Their pledges and actions will require accountability and rigorous action, just as much as those of governments.
Adaptation has gained prominence in climate policy including in the negotiations, though better understanding of the global goal on adaptation is still being developed. There is national adaptation planning in almost all countries, with the challenge of moving to implementation. Such implementation will require iterative learning, even as communities already experience the hard and soft limits of adaptation. Adaptation action is not ramping up as fast as it needs to, and neither is international climate finance to support it.
A wide range of actors in finance have woken up to climate change, and this has led to momentum on fundamental reforms to international financial architecture. A combination of disclosure and fresh perspectives on climate-related financial risks is beginning to drive investment towards low emission, climate resilient development. As financial regulators raise awareness and reporting requirements for carbon and climate risks, finance and investments are shifting. While international public finance and broader finance flows are nowhere near what they will need to be, investment in renewables and clean energy infrastructure has grown rapidly. Yet key hurdles in climate finance remain. For example, funding of Loss and Damage is on the UN climate negotiations agenda, but getting actual money to flow to those in need seems far off.
The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Reports conveyed that transformations are needed across many systems, picking up the call made by many social movements for systems change, with an eye to the deep and rapid changes to keep temperature rise to well below 2°C, and preferably 1.5°C. Systems transformations open up many opportunities, for mitigation and adaptation – and with more of both, reducing losses and damages. Yet rapid and deep changes can be disruptive, and without addressing uneven distributional impacts, climate action can exacerbate inequalities. Ambition and equity, based on best available science, will need to continue to guide the multilateral and national responses to climate change.
Change is coming late, perhaps too late for some particularly vulnerable communities, and it is hampered in so many ways, but it is underway. As the synthesis of technical findings for the first Global Stocktake made clear, while action is proceeding, much more is needed now on all fronts.
Climate Policy journal in this era
The field of climate policy has experienced continued growth along with rising prominence of the topic in world affairs and consequently in research. Climate Policy has kept step with this rise. During our tenure, the number of journal issues per year rose by a quarter, while the number of papers submitted each year rose threefold. This contributed to an increase in quality, as indicated in the journal’s impact factor, which increased from 2.7 for 2016 to 7.1 for 2022.
As the number of high-quality papers submitted has increased, editorial decisions about which papers to proceed with have become more important. We have strived to provide space for all papers with highly relevant insights for climate change policy, for papers on emerging topics or on countries that are not on the beaten track of climate policy analysis, and from authors under-represented countries, especially in the global South – with a rigorous standard of quality.
Over the past years, new topic areas have become more prominent in Climate Policy. These include adaptation, loss and damage, climate governance, capacity-building, finance, climate justice, just transitions, NDCs, industry and transport. Various topic areas of mitigation and carbon pricing continued to be covered in the journal through our tenure.
Peer review is the pivotal element in traditional publishing methods. Climate Policy is fortunate in being able to draw on a broad and generous community of reviewers, who often themselves are authors with the journal. We owe our reviewers a debt of gratitude. Yet despite the depth and support of this community, finding willing reviewers for articles has become substantially harder over these years.
Thanks also go to the journal’s associate editors and editorial board members for their advice, support and oftentimes help in assessing papers.
A heart-felt thank-you to the two editors who served with us: Joanna Depledge from 2017 to 2020 and Jan Corfee-Morlot from 2021 to 2023. The role of editor has been key for this journal, and we know that many of our authors have deeply appreciated the passion and care that both Jo and Jan have brought to the endeavour. Our sincere thanks also to the excellent staff in the editorial office.
Finally, a warm welcome to the incoming editors-in-chief, Navroz Dubash and Yacob Mulugetta. Both are luminaries in the climate policy community, and we are delighted to pass the baton to them. We wish them and everyone in the Climate Policy community the very best, and we will remain close friends of this journal.