Climate change mitigation is a wicked problem that cuts horizontally across sectors and vertically across levels of government. To address it effectively, governments around the world, in particular in the EU, have developed several generations of multi-sectoral national mitigation strategies (NMS) since the early 1990s. Although NMS became the main effort to systematically coordinate mitigation policies, few works have studied them comparatively so far. The present article fills this gap by analysing how the EU-15 group of countries operationalized climate protection through NMS. First, we introduce the three roles policy strategies usually aim to fulfil: besides being policy documents they also represent governance processes (supposed to coordinate sectoral implementation), and capacity-building efforts. Empirically, we then explore the rationale, origins and prevalence of NMS. Subsequently, we characterize them as policy documents (with regards to their contents and structures) and as governance processes that address capacity building only implicitly. Based on existing assessments we finally review some performance indications of NMS. We find that in particular second- and third-generation NMS aimed to take their governance function seriously but resembled ‘lacklustre bookkeeping' of emissions, targets and mitigation options. Instead of approximating NMS towards their obviously overcharging governance function, we suggest to recalibrate them towards their communication and capacity-building function in a way that goes beyond bookkeeping.
Policy relevance
The present article shows that NMS fail to effectively govern climate change mitigation across a broad range of sectoral policy domains. Since most European countries have adopted not one but up to three generations of NMS since the 1990s, this finding is highly relevant for them – and for all others aiming to adopt similarly broad strategies. Instead of piling one strategy on top of another irrespective of their implementation, and instead of abolishing mitigation strategies altogether, we recommend recalibrating them towards what they can realistically accomplish: effective communication and capacity building so that NMS can advance from lacklustre bookkeeping to actively promoting a government-wide climate change mitigation vision. The article can help governments to realise that renewing integrated strategies such as NMS without overhauling them comes close to flogging a dead horse. 相似文献
We propose that an international ‘Low-Emissions Technology Commitment’ should be incorporated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation process in order to promote innovation that will enable deep decarbonization. The goal is to accelerate research, development, and demonstration of safe, scalable, and affordable low-emissions energy technologies. Such a commitment should be based on three elements. First, it should operate within existing UNFCCC negotiations so as to encourage developed states to offer directed funding for energy research as part of their national contributions. Second, pledges should be binding, verifiable, and coordinated within an international energy-research plan. Third, expert scientific networks and participating governments should collaborate to design a coordinated global research and technology-demonstration strategy and oversee national research efforts. To this end an Intergovernmental Panel on Low-Emissions Technology Research might be established. This proposal offers some insurance against the risk that the political impasse in international negotiations cannot be overcome. The higher costs associated with low-emissions alternatives to fossil fuels currently creates significant economic and political resistance to their widespread adoption. To breach this impasse, a mechanism supporting accelerated energy research is needed that seeks to reduce future abatement costs, share experience and ‘learning-by-doing’ in first-of-a-kind demonstrations, and thus facilitate future widespread deployments. These actions will also assist in addressing inequalities in energy access.Policy relevanceOver the past decade, global fossil-fuel use and associated carbon emissions have risen steadily, despite the majority of nations agreeing, in principle, to work to limit global warming to less than 2?°C above pre-industrial conditions (IPCC, 2014 IPCC. (2014). Climate change 2014: Mitigation of climate change. In O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, … J. C. Minx (Eds.), Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 1–1415). Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://mitigation2014.org/report[Google Scholar]). Accelerated research, development, and demonstration of low-emissions technologies will be required for successful and economically efficient decarbonization of the global economy, but how can the current deadlock be broken? The UNFCCC does not contain adequate mechanisms to promote increased investment in research, so climate-governance institutions are not capturing the gains that could be achieved through a globally coordinated approach. Here, we outline reform proposals that would enhance both the economic effectiveness of global abatement efforts and the political feasibility of accelerated innovation. 相似文献