Do Climate Targets Matter? The Accountability of Target-setting in Urban Climate and Energy Policy

Håvard Haarstad

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26891-6_6

Abstract

Climate-related targets abound, but are they important drivers of policy action? Given the apparent gap between ambitious targets and concrete actions to reach them, climate-related targets can easily be seen as representative of a crisis of accountability. At the same time, this chapter argues, there are practices of legitimation at work that can help overcome this crisis, and translate abstract and arbitrary targets into concrete policy implementation. Norway’s Zero Growth Objective in transport policy represents a case of this. From its first formulation as a target around 2006 and until 2019, it has materialised as a “hard” target shaping funding streams and concrete policy interventions, and most likely, emission levels. Under certain conditions, abstract targets play important roles in legitimating transition policy.

Highlights

Who has committed to the 2 °C target? How did the world’s leaders discuss the 1.5 °C target at the latest high-level meeting? Who has the most ambitious target for cuts in CO2-emissions, or for growth of renewables? It may seem that setting targets is what climate policy consists of
The Covenant of Mayors initiative is one of many examples of how governance entities are organising themselves in networks rallying around particular targets
Considering the drastic transformations that many of these targets involve—for example, 72 cities have committed to the C40 network’s Deadline 2020 programme of cutting CO2 emissions in line with the Paris Agreement—one might suspect that the current practices of target-setting are unconnected to any realistic programme of delivering on what they promise

Summary

Introduction

A casual observer of the official fight against climate change may get the impression that it is primarily about setting quantitative targets for emissions reduction. The key question is, what all this targeting and goal-setting means for actual climate policy. Considering the drastic transformations that many of these targets involve—for example, 72 cities have committed to the C40 network’s Deadline 2020 programme of cutting CO2 emissions in line with the Paris Agreement—one might suspect that the current practices of target-setting are unconnected to any realistic programme of delivering on what they promise. The question of what all this targeting and goal- setting means for actual climate policy may generate a different set of answers. Even if not all the rhetoric is translated into substantive policy, could there be ways in which target-setting percolates into substantive policy-making practices?. This chapter reflects on the nature of target-setting, focusing in particular on climate and energy policy in cities. I aim to go beyond the readily-at-hand analysis that suggests targets are vanity exercises without practical implications, and to look deeper at the ways in which target-setting may “trickle” up and down in governance systems and—in a gradual way—facilitate transitions

Climate Governance as Political-rhetorical Practice

Metrics That Can Legitimate the Sustainability Transition

Following the Target—Norway’s Zero Growth Objective

Findings

Legitimating Sustainable Transitions