Climate Protection Policy Research Articles

The Participation of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission in the Process of Concluding International Agreements on Climate Protection

Abstract For many years the European Union has aspired to be the leader of global climate protection policy. By setting increasingly ambitious challenges in its efforts against global warming, the EU has tried to encourage other countries to compete in this field at international level. In this article, the authors present the roles of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission in the process of concluding international agreements on climate protection. The division of competences between the two institutions is important in the situation when the agreements are concluded within Union’s non-exclusive competence such as the one in the field of environmental protection. In case of such agreements both the Union and its Member States are contracting parties. However, not only the division of competences is at the centre of the EU external action, but also the development of appropriate solutions that will ensure the effective achievement of climate policy objectives.

Investment incentive reduced by climate damages can be restored by optimal policy

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions are likely to impact not only natural systems but economies worldwide. If these impacts alter future economic development, the financial losses will be significantly higher than the mere direct damages. So far, potentially aggravating investment responses were considered negligible. Here we consistently incorporate an empirically derived temperature-growth relation into the simple integrated assessment model DICE. In this framework we show that, if in the next eight decades varying temperatures impact economic growth as has been observed in the past three decades, income is reduced by ~ 20% compared to an economy unaffected by climate change. Hereof ~ 40% are losses due to growth effects of which ~ 50% result from reduced incentive to invest. This additional income loss arises from a reduced incentive for future investment in anticipation of a reduced return and not from an explicit climate protection policy. Under economically optimal climate-change mitigation, however, optimal investment would only be reduced marginally as mitigation efforts keep returns high.

Securitization of Climate and Environmental Protection in China’s New Normal

Around 2009, China’s economy has become the largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Climate protection policies have gradually entered the ‘high politics’ sphere in China particularly when climate and environmental protection have proved to be effective tools in achieving other political goals. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China has entered into the “new normal” with a more comprehensive economic strategy that includes or even elevates a wide range of climate and environmental protection policies. China’s economic development is now shifting the balance of growth away from heavy-industrial investment and toward a more sustainable growth. Why – and how – did China change its tune? The key driver of change on the political importance of climate and environmental protection is China’s effort to recentralize governance. At the same time, while acknowledging that centralization is itself not the end but also a means to other political goals, this paper focuses on how the securitization of climate change and environmental protection has effectively served multiple purposes. It serves as a guiding principle on socioeconomic development and it serves as legitimacy to reestablish control by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Xi at the helm. With the linkage of climate and environmental protection to these political goals, China’s experience becomes distinct from the usual securitization process. Also, China shows that while most political processes do not formally include democratic deliberation or the direct approval of an audience, climate and environmental protection does encourage more latent forms of participation not only of citizens, but of experts. Therefore, the process of securitization is also feasible in non-democratic societies

Assessing the Operationalization of Cultural Theory through Surveys Investigating the Social Aspects of Climate Change Policy Making

AbstractCultural theory (CT) provides a framework for understanding how social dimensions shape cultural bias and social relations of individuals, including values, view of the natural world, policy preferences, and risk perceptions. The five resulting cultural solidarities are each associated with a “myth of nature”—a concept of nature that aligns with the worldview of each solidarity. When applied to the problem of climate protection policy making, the relationships and beliefs outlined by CT can shed light on how members of the different cultural solidarities perceive their relationship to climate change and associated risk. This can be used to deduce what climate change management policies may be preferred or opposed by each group. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of how CT has been used in surveys of the social aspects of climate change policy making, to assess the construct validity of these studies, and to identify ways for climate change protection policies to leverage the views of each of the cultural solidarities to develop clumsy solutions: policies that incorporate strengths from each of the cultural solidarities’ perspectives. Surveys that include measures of at least fatalism, hierarchism, individualism, and egalitarianism and their associated myths of nature as well as measures of climate change risk perceptions and policy preferences have the highest translation and predictive validity. These studies will be useful in helping environmental managers find clumsy solutions and develop resilient policy according to C.S. Holling’s adaptive cycle.

Calculating urban heat demands: An analysis of two modelling approaches and remote sensing for input data and validation

Building stocks account for a large share of energy consumption and harbour great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The field of urban building energy modelling (UBEM) offers a range of approaches to inform climate protection policies, producing output of different granularity and quality.We compare two typology-based (archetype) approaches to urban heat demand calculation in a mixed-use area in Berlin, Germany. The goal is to show challenges and pitfalls and how remote sensing can improve the modelling. The first approach uses 2D cadastral data and specific heat demand values from a typology. For the second approach, we derive a 3D building model from aerial imagery, use parameters from the same typology, and calculate the heat balance for each building. We compare the differences in several geometric parameters, U-values and the heat demand. Additionally, we analyse if window detection on aerial image textures and surface temperatures from aerial infrared thermography can improve the estimated window-wall ratios and U-values. The two heat demand approaches lead to different results for individual buildings. Averaging effects reduce the differences at an aggregated level. Remote sensing can be used to improve some geometric parameters needed for modelling, but still requires additional research regarding U-value estimation.

Coal phase-outs and carbon prices: Interactions between EU emission trading and national carbon mitigation policies

The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) constitutes the core instrument of the European Union climate protection policy. It limits greenhouse gas emissions of its member states and aims at facilitating an efficient allocation of emission reduction across national borders. Accompanying this policy at the European level, individual member states have introduced national mitigation policies, including renewable energy (RES) expansion measures or coal phase-outs.This study examines to what extent national policies affect the effectiveness of the EU ETS and to what degree the impact is reflected in prices for European Union Allowances (EUA). To investigate this question, a fundamental optimization model of the European electricity markets is deployed and model endogenous EUA prices are derived with a set of future market scenarios. Overall findings indicate that fundamental market forces strongly affect EUA prices. Furthermore, national policies play a critical role: The expansion of RES does not affect the capacity of the EU ETS to provide sufficient price signals for the desired level of decarbonization but a coal phase-out has a strong price-suppressing effect. A withdrawal of certificates can re-establish the effectiveness of the EU ETS but prices can rise drastically when overestimating the necessary amount.

Cooperation Between Institutions of the European Union and Its Member States in the Creation of Climate Protection Policy

Climate policy is a complexed area of cooperation between Member States and European Union institutions. The ambitious goals that the EU sets for itself in this matter are not always possible to be met by all Member States, hence the ability to work out compromise solutions is of great importance. Member States have different internal conditions, which determine the objectives of their economic and energy policies, therefore they do not always have convergent interests in this area.
 The decision-making centre where EU climate protection policy is created is: the European Council, where key elements of this policy are agreed (such as reduction targets), and so-called an ‘institutional triangle’, i.e. EU Council, European Parliament and European Commission which are directly involved into the legislative process. This configurations is a platform where cooperation of the Member States manifests itself in various forms and intensity and where these countries may attempt to force their interests in the process of creating EU policy.
 The authors present the legal bases of the European Union's competences in the field of climate policy and the role of the EU institutions in its creation with particular focus on mechanisms that allow Member States to influence the shape of that policy.

Addressing Environmental Change through Emergent Integrated Environmental Observatories: A Case Study in the Czech Republic

A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that we have entered the Anthropocene Epoch. Many assert that society has exceeded sustainable ecological planetary boundaries and that altered biogeophysical processes are no longer reversible to natural rates of ecosystem functioning. To properly and successfully address societal needs for the future, more holistic and complex methods need to be applied at various spatial and temporal scales. The increasingly interconnected nature of human and natural environments—from individuals to large megacities and entire continents and from cells through ecosystems to the biosphere as a whole (e.g., as seen in the carbon cycle)—demand new and often interdisciplinary and international approaches to address emerging global challenges. With that perspective in mind, the Czech Republic’s National Climate Program was established in 1991 with the aim to understand the impact of global environmental change on society. The National Climate Program was updated in 2017 to formulate a new Climate Protection Policy. Here, we outline the multifaceted problems that climate change poses for the Czech Republic, as well as a new scientific infrastructure and approaches directed to better understanding the effects of climate change on our ecosystems, water resources, urban environment, agriculture, human health, and general economy.

Reshaping European and national security in a post COVID – 19 context

AbstractThe COVID-19 crisis, undoubtedly, raised a series of questions concerning aspects of national and human security. The crisis impact, per se, tested, in extremis, the medical systems and the political capacity to take swift decisions needed to protect the population. It is a general accepted thesis that the world will face a second wave of effects: economic and systemic. Regarding the last aspect, the current international system is constructed around many principles among them, relevant for our research are, global governance and national sovereignty. The manner in which the two concepts operate was tested during the pandemic. On one hand the international system of global governance failed to ensure a higher level of human security when facing a crisis. On the other hand, states were left to tackle the effects of the pandemic, more or less alone, as the entire international system was paralyzed. In this context state had to turn to classic concepts of national security, egocentric and protectionist, but needed to ensure one of its fundamental functions – providing the security of its citizens.As others crisis are expected to unfold in a domino like effect, redefining national security will be essential for states and regional organizations. But in this process decisions could collide with assumed international obligations. In this context the article explores this impact of the COVID 19 over the how states define their national security concepts. In this context a special attention will be given, as an example, to the industry sector in the context of the green deal, as European states will be pioneering in implementing new standards in climate protection policies that will affect certain sectors of the economy. Rethinking the national security agenda will certainly face aspects which impose the protection of certain sectors that have a higher negative impact over climate change.

The Reform of the Common European Agricultural Policy - An Opportunity for Effective Agri-environmental Policy Instruments?

The European Commission has put together a reform package for a demanding, targeted and efficient agri-environmental and climate protection policy including newly introduced Eco-Schemes and other measures to promote rural areas. The two types of measures used are anchored in two different support systems, which requires considerable administrative effort. Agricultural animal husbandry in particular has received a great deal of attention at present: A high consumption of meat is regarded as harmful to the environment and the husbandry conditions often contradict animal welfare. In order to change consumer behaviour, the creation of a uniform, easily understandable and binding state animal welfare label is regarded as central. Ultimately, however, stricter animal welfare measures can lead to loss of income and welfare for producers and the economy.

Applying institutional theory to the analysis of energy transitions: From local agency to multi-scale configurations in Australia and Germany

While new institutionalism has received considerable attention in recent years to conceptualise socio-technical dynamics in energy transitions, challenges remain in its application to context-specific inter-country comparisons. In this paper, we propose for purpose of such a comparison the application of an institutional framework to the analysis of actors’ agency in renewable energy development occurring within the institutional configuration of two countries’ respective energy systems. For the analysis, institutional configurations are seen as being structured through institutional modes and through multiple regulatory scales from the local to the national. The approach is applied to wind and photovoltaic projects in two local case studies considered to be at the vanguard of climate protection policy in Germany and (Western) Australia. While in the German case, institutional configurations bring about a consistency across institutions at local, state and national scales, enabling the realisation of most RE projects, the Australian case exhibits in-consistencies between the scales, serving to both explicitly and implicitly constrain local actors. The analysis offers insights into how institutions combine to shape local contexts, influence local actor agency and thus affect energy transition. The approach presented here enables the comparison of system-specific configurations and dynamics and sheds light on how actors can gain agency within these. The results indicate that the inclusion of modes and scales in institutional frameworks helps to nuance and refine comparative research on energy transitions.

Influence of Climatic Conditions of Russia and the Countries of the Near East on Lighting Equipment

The digital economy assumes an increase in the role and importance of the lighting engineering science in the industrial countries. Nowadays, the development of a country is largely characterized by its “light supply” with minimum energy consumption. In modern Western Europe, for example, it is impossible to separate climate protection policies from energy policy. In the countries of the Middle East, there is a rapid development of the construction industry as many residential and public buildings are being built, and energy consumption issues are acute. The article studies the influence of the light climate of Russia and the countries of the Middle East on the development of construction lighting equipment, which enables to optimize energy consumption, create comfortable working and leisure conditions.

Opportunities for mutual implementation of nature conservation and climate change policies: A multilevel case study based on local stakeholder perceptions

Abstract This paper assesses EU nature conservation and EU climate protection policies within the context of their local implementation in Vienna/Austria in order to gain insights into the decision-making process as well as to show the extent of achievements and experienced difficulties. In this connection, this paper also investigates based on published knowledge and the perceptions of stakeholders the awareness of nature conservation measures as climate-change adaptation and possibly ways of improvement. In order to address these issues, additionally to an in-depth literature review, 16 experts working in Vienna in the field of either nature conservation or climate protection were interviewed. The transcriptions of these interviews were then used in a qualitative content analysis. The findings show that the vast majority of the interviewed stakeholders see EU climate policy and nature conservation policy separately. Furthermore, the implementation of EU climate and nature conservation policy in Vienna is indicated as a “learning by doing” process. There the currently limited cooperation between stakeholders can be improved. Our study also finds that the awareness of different stakeholder groups of the possibility to use nature conservation as a measure against climate change is limited.

Ekonomski instrumenti smanjenja emisije gasova sa efektom staklene bašte u poljoprivredi i šumarstvu

A signifcant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture and forestry can be achieved with adequate economic instruments. There are also other measures on disposal, such as good agricultural practice and organic production that involve the use of agronomic and biotechnological knowledge and skills with the purpose to produce healthy and safe food, with the preserving the environment and production resources. In the paper we analyze the previous experience in the application of economic instruments for the reduction of greenhouse effect in Agriculture and Forestry, in the broad and narrow sense, both in the domestic and international context. Special attention is given to the experiences in the implementation of the so-called flexibility mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. As a result of these experiences, in the period after 2012, new instruments have been created, mainly on a voluntary basis, which does not inspire confdence in their effectiveness. It has been noted that the system of economic instruments for the promotion of agricultural production in Serbia is in contradiction with the objectives of the climate protection policy. Changes are proposed in terms of abolishing direct benefts per hectare and the livestock units, as well as introduction of incentives for energy effciency, renewable energy sources, and specifcally for the organic production. Punitive measures must, once and for all, stop the harmful and dangerous practice of burning crop residues on felds.

How to make them walk the talk: governing the implementation of energy and climate policies into local practices

Abstract. Urban policy mobility has become a lively field of research in recent years. One important argument has been that policies do not travel from place to place unmodified, but are transformed in the process of their implementation. Drawing on a research project on adaptations of climate protection policies in German cities we elaborate how discourse studies and work on governmentality can be brought into resonance with the policy mobility debate. We suggest that these theoretical concepts can be used to explain why, despite the growing number of laws and recommendations in this context, local adaptations of climate policies vary significantly between different cities. We argue that the concept of governmentality is particularly well suited to grasping the discrepancies between discursively produced guidelines and actual planning practices and to conceptualising these planning practices as effects of competing and often conflicting technologies of government.

The World Challenges the Climate: An Overview on Italy, Delays and Mobilization’s Need

Climate change is a global problem that have to be faced globally through mitigation, i.e. the GHG reduction and, locally, through adaptation strategies, since urban areas are the place where biggest impacts are recorded. The alert is serious in Italy: analyzing temperature data can be seen that the Italian peninsula is getting warmer faster than the all planet and all globe mainland. Furthermore, in the last years, extreme events frequency increased due to the hydrogeological vulnerability, wrong urbanistic actions and unauthorized building, which generally characterize the all country. This paper ponders on the European and Italian planning state of art, in climate protection policies terms, and propones a compass with the aim to orientate the ex-novo adaptation strategies’ introduction in Italy, which is still a country that finds hard adapting to these uncertain changes.

Assessing the impact of a carbon tax in Ukraine

Ukraine has one of the highest levels of CO2 emissions per gross domestic product (GDP) in the world. However, the country committed itself to reduce emissions from stationary sources. To this end, the Ukrainian government passed a law to impose a carbon tax on the use of energy commodities, with a current tax level of 0.26 Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH) per tCO2 (US$ 0.02 per tCO2). Against this background, it is questioned whether such a low tax level can be expected to have any impact on CO2 emissions at all and which tax level would be consistent with the policy goal of a 22% emission reduction compared with 2007. Thus, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Ukraine, this article assesses the impact of different carbon tax levels on the Ukrainian economy and the environment. The results confirm that the effects of the current tax level are negligible. In order to achieve the reduction target a carbon tax of around UAH 40 per tCO2 (US$ 3.46 per tCO2) would be necessary. Furthermore, there is also evidence for a strong double dividend.Policy relevanceSimilar to Ukraine, most of the former Soviet Union countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have traditionally been very energy intensive. Accordingly, they are also among the highest polluters in the world. However, the case of Ukraine shows that even a relatively low carbon tax could reduce the use of energy and emissions significantly. In this respect, the present article might serve as a motivation also for those countries to work on energy-saving and climate-protection policies.

Review of Climate Change Adaptation and Social Protection Policies of Ghana

Smallholder farming has become a significant livelihood coping strategy of the population in Ghana. However, in the last decade the upsurge of climate change and the effect of heat stress vulnerability on smallholder farmers in Northern Ghana are alarming. This article investigates the chances of using social protection and climate change adaptation policies towards the management of risks associated with heat stress emanating from climate change. It reviews salient literature on heat stress, social protection, and climate change policies and develops a model upon which both domestic and international interest in climate and social protection policies of Ghana and Sub-Sahara Africa can reduce or aggravate heat stress impacts on smallholder farmers both at their working environment and at household level. It exemplifies the efficacy of the strength of social protection and climate change adaptation policies in Ghana and its impacts on vulnerable rural smallholder farmers and how such situation is replicated in many parts of Africa. It outlines further measures that can be undertaken by governments and international donor agencies to revamp the destitution of smallholder farmers to climate change and heat stress in African region.

Beyond (and Within) City Limits: Climate Policy in an Intergovernmental System

AbstractThis analysis explores the role of city‐level and state‐level variables to explain why some cities make more progress on climate‐related policy implementation than others. Using multilevel modeling, we find little support for the influence of state factors on local government leadership among the 812 cities in the dataset, but local government institutional and community variables are strongly associated with climate policy initiatives. We argue for a rethinking of the notion of the limited and constrained city and suggest that, in the realm of climate protection and environmental policy, cities are leading a bottom‐up federalism. Moreover, where some political analysts and scholars have argued that climate protection and environmental policies may not be economically rational for cities to pursue, we theorize that cities are acting locally to further their self‐interest in an increasingly global economy.

Carbon footprint and emission determinants in Africa

Increasing economic activities and rapid demographic changes in a number of African countries may have consequential effects on environmental quality. In this paper, a multi-region input–output modeling framework is used to show that except Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Rest of North Africa, all other African countries/regions are net-importers of embodied emissions. With respect to the emission-intensive and trade exposed sectors, however, only Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe are rather net-exporters of embodied emissions. Secondly, panel regression techniques that allow cross-section dependence are used to investigate the determinants of CO2 emissions in Africa. The estimated elasticities for per capita income and energy intensity are positive, statistically significant and robust for both low- and middle-income African countries. The most active segment of the labor force (percentage of the population between age 14 and 64) and industrialization exert significant positive effects on CO2 emissions in middle income countries while the impact of urbanization, population and trade openness appears generally insignificant across income groups. The differential impacts of both economic and demographic variables on CO2 emissions may have implications for the design and implementation of development and climate protection policies.