European governance and the low-carbon pathway:

Analysis of challenges and opportunities arising from overlaps between climate and energy policy as well as from centralisation of climate policies

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:

 

  1. How should the overlap between climate change mitigation and energy policies be addressed to strengthen EU climate action? and
  2. 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: 

Bausch, Camilla et al.. 2014. European governance and the low-carbon pathway: Analysis of challenges and opportunities arising from overlaps between climate and energy policy as well as from centralisation of climate policies. CECILIA2050 WP4 Deliverable 4.2. Berlin: Ecologic Institute.

Funding: 

European Commission 

Authors: 

Dr. Camilla Bausch, Ecologic Institute; Ennid Roberts, Ecologic Institute; Lena Donat, Ecologic Institute; Christine Lucha, Ecologic Institute

Year of publication: 

2015

Number of pages: 

108

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