European governance and the low-carbon pathway: [1]
The European Union (EU) has set itself emission reduction targets of 40% by 2030 and 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. However, research finds that the current policy instrument mix needs to be strengthened considerably to reach these targets. This report addresses two key questions that are frequently raised in this context:
- How should the overlap between climate change mitigation and energy policies be addressed to strengthen EU climate action? and
- Are centralised or decentralised policy approaches more suitable to strengthen climate change mitigation?
The authors analyse the institutional structure (e.g. areas of EU competence, legal basis for action), the scientific debates (e.g. on policy integration or drivers for centralisation) as well as past and current political approaches to these issues. Based on this and focusing on rule setting in the context of evaluating centralisation trends, they developed a number of recommendations.
With regard to the first question the report concludes that:
- Structures and policy approaches should be such as to protect climate interests also in times when the focus of political attention shifts to other policy areas. This possibility to withstand the tides of political day-to-day trends is referred to as “political resilience”.
- In the context of centralisation of policies, policy makers should not only protect the freedom of frontrunners (be it single Member States, a group of Member States or even several different such groups) to engage in more ambitious climate action, but also protect or even strengthen the incentives for these frontrunners to do so.
- A separate and institutionally strong DG Climate Action with its own Commissioner within the EU Commission should be re-established, because this set-up is more resilient to the risk that political trends prioritise energy matters over climate.
- In addition, a “Vice President for Climate Action” should be appointed, to appropriately reflect the cross-cutting nature of climate policy and the far-reaching impacts of climate change and climate action on all sectors of industrialised societies
- The political prominence of climate action as a key policy objective should be strengthened, because the climate change mitigation objective is occasionally forgotten or sidelined by energy related objectives.
- Furthermore, climate change mitigation has to gain more prominence in the debate over the Energy Union for it to find an adequate response to the climate challenge and not be misled into fossil fuel expansion.
With regard to the second question, whether centralised or decentralised policy approaches are more suitable to strengthen climate change mitigation, the report finds that the success of a climate policy rather depends on other factors such as the specific policy design and the respective level of ambition. Hence, neither centralised nor decentralised approaches are per se more suitable for strengthening EU climate policy. The report provides recommendations under which conditions a centralised or a decentralised approach is more suitable:
- Decentralised solutions at Member State level can serve as policy laboratories and thus enhance the innovation and learning potential before introducing them at the European level.
- Centralised approaches should be used for the introduction of binding minimum targets for climate relevant issue areas such as greenhouse gas mitigation, renewable energy and energy efficiency. These measures are of crucial importance and should be set at European level, backed by coherent national targets. These binding minimum targets should be ambitious and outline the pathway for the transformation to a low-carbon economy until 2050 (e.g. in 5-year steps), in order to give a minimum of policy certainty and to adequately guide investments in infrastructures which will prevail for the next few decades, e.g. electricity grids. Targets should be supported by monitoring and review mechanisms to adequately adapt targets, for example, according to new scientific insights and technological inventions.
Attachment:
Citation:
Funding:
Year of publication:
Number of pages:
Table of contents:
1 |
Executive Summary |
8 |
2 |
Introduction |
11 |
2.1 |
Guiding parameters: EU emission reduction targets for 2030 and 2050 |
11 |
2.2 |
Status Quo – EU framework for energy and climate policy |
12 |
2.2.1 |
Legal foundation |
12 |
2.2.2 |
Areas of EU competence |
13 |
2.2.3 |
Categories of competences: the EU and Member States |
14 |
2.2.4 |
Decision-making |
14 |
2.2.5 |
Choosing the legal basis for action |
15 |
2.2.6 |
Competition law and State Aid rules |
15 |
3 |
Part I: How to address overlaps between climate and energy policies at the EU level |
18 |
3.1 |
The policy integration concept |
20 |
3.1.1 |
Brief historical background |
21 |
3.1.2 |
Different levels of integration – weak, strong, very strong level of integration |
21 |
3.2 |
Climate policy integration at the EU level |
22 |
3.2.1 |
Reflection on climate policy integration at the legal level |
22 |
3.2.2 |
Reflection on climate policy integration in official environmental, climate and energy-related documents |
24 |
3.2.3 |
Summary |
28 |
3.3 |
Overlaps between climate and energy: two examples for the current climate and energy debate |
29 |
3.3.1 |
A joint Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy and a new Vice President for Energy Union |
29 |
3.3.2 |
A policy framework for climate and energy in the period from 2020 to 2030 |
32 |
3.4 |
Prioritisation of climate change in the EU legal and institutional framework: possible options |
34 |
3.4.1 |
What priority do climate protection objectives have at the EU level? |
34 |
3.4.2 |
At which levels could the mitigation of climate change be prioritised? |
35 |
3.5 |
Conclusions and recommendations |
37 |
4 |
Part II: How to serve climate protection best: centralised versus decentralised policies? |
41 |
4.1 |
Guiding questions |
41 |
4.2 |
Definitions: Centralisation, plurilateral cooperation, decentralisation |
41 |
4.3 |
Advantages and disadvantages of centralisation and decentralisation |
43 |
4.4 |
Who can drive centralisation/decentralisation how and why? |
46 |
4.4.1 |
EU primary law |
46 |
4.4.2 |
State actors who can drive centralisation/decentralisation of policies |
47 |
4.4.3 |
Drivers for centralisation - international relations perspectives |
48 |
4.5 |
Centralisation and decentralisation as defining struggle in the EU |
49 |
4.5.1 |
Brief history of centralisation trends in climate policies |
51 |
4.5.2 |
Recent developments |
53 |
4.6 |
Detailed look at core policies from a centralisation/decentralisation perspective |
55 |
4.6.1 |
EU Emission Trading Scheme |
56 |
4.6.2 |
Prominent renewable energy policies, with a focus on electricity |
58 |
4.6.3 |
Development of the electricity grid infrastructure |
65 |
4.6.4 |
Target setting |
68 |
4.7 |
Conclusions and recommendations |
70 |
4.7.1 |
What should be considered in the context of a climate policy choice and design? |
72 |
4.7.2 |
Policies that should be centralised |
79 |
4.7.3 |
Centralised policies and international politics |
84 |
5 |
Annex: The subsidiarity principle |
88 |
5.1 |
Meaning and scope |
88 |
5.2 |
Enforcement of the subsidiarity principle |
89 |
5.3 |
The subsidiarity principle and centralisation/decentralisation |
90 |
5.4 |
Conclusions |
91 |
6 |
Literature |
93 |
7 |
Interviews |
105 |
7.1 |
Single Interviews |
105 |
7.2 |
Interview Series |
105 |