TY - JOUR A1 - Leipprand, Anna A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Pahle, Michael T1 - Starting low, reaching high? Sequencing in EU climate and energy policies JF - Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions N2 - In order to achieve the UNFCCC Paris Agreement goals, climate policies worldwide require considerable ratcheting-up. Policy sequencing provides a framework for analysing policy process dynamics that facilitate ratcheting-up. We apply a sequencing perspective to two key EU climate and energy policies, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), to comparatively test the empirical relevance of sequencing for single policies – in addition to sequencing across policies, which has been the focus of sequencing theory so far – and to uncover specific mechanisms. Our results confirm that sequencing, based on triggering positive and controlling negative feedback, is relevant both within and across policies. Policy choices that may facilitate ratcheting-up include tools to control costs, the possibility to centralise and harmonise in a multi-level governance context, options for compensation of reluctant actors, and the encouragement of learning processes. KW - Policy sequencing KW - Policy feedback KW - Energy policy KW - Climate policy KW - Emissions trading Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2020.08.006 VL - 37 SP - 140 EP - 155 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jakob, Michael A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Steckel, Jan Christoph A1 - Urpelainen, Johannes T1 - Actors, objectives, context: A framework of the political economy of energy and climate policy applied to India, Indonesia, and Vietnam JF - Energy Research & Social Science N2 - Devising policies that facilitate a transition to low-carbon energy systems requires a close understanding of the country-specific political economy of energy and climate policy. We develop a generalized AOC (‘Actors, Objectives, Context’) political economy framework to inform and enable comparison of country-specific case studies of how economic structure, political institutions, and the political environment shape policy outcomes. Our actor-centered perspective is built on the assumption that those policies are implemented that best meet the objectives of actors with the greatest influence on policy decisions. Applying the framework in practice includes four basic steps: i) identifying the societal and political actors most relevant for the formulation, implementation and enforcement of energy and climate policies; ii) spelling out these actors’ underlying objectives; iii) assessing the economic, institutional, discursive and environmental context which determines how certain objectives matter for certain societal actors; and iv) analyzing the dynamic interactions among these factors leading to aggregate policy outcomes. Context factors determine how societal actors influence political actors engaged in formal public policy formulation, implementation and enforcement, and how the dynamic interplay of different political actors’ interests results in energy and climate policy outcomes. The framework can accommodate a wide range of theoretical perspectives. We illustrate how the framework enables conducting comparable energy and climate policy country case studies, using the example of coal use in India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Finally, we discuss how the framework can contribute to the identification of entry points that could bring about policy change. KW - Political economy KW - Policy design KW - Climate and energy policy KW - vested interests KW - Coal Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101775 VL - 70 SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller-Hansen, Finn A1 - Callaghan, Max W. A1 - Lee, Yuan Ting A1 - Leipprand, Anna A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Minx, Jan C. T1 - Who cares about coal? Analyzing 70 years of German parliamentary debates on coal with dynamic topic modeling JF - Energy Research & Social Science N2 - Despite Germany’s Paris Agreement pledge and coal exit legislation, the political debate around carbon-intensive coal remains heated. Coal power and mining have played an important, yet changing role in the history of German politics. In this paper, we analyze the entire parliamentary debate on coal in the German parliament (Bundestag) from its inception in 1949 to 2019. For this purpose we extract the more than 870,000 parliamentary speeches from all protocols in the history of the Bundestag. We identify the 9167 speeches mentioning coal and apply dynamic topic modeling – an unsupervised machine learning technique that reveals the changing thematic structure of large document collections over time – to analyze changes in parliamentary debates on coal over the past 70 years. The trends in topics and their varying internal structure reflect how energy policy was discussed and legitimized over time: Initially, coal was framed as a driver of economic prosperity and guarantee of energy security. In recent years, the debate evolved towards energy transition, coal phase-out and renewable energy expansion. Germany’s smaller and younger parties, the Greens and the Left Party, debate coal more often in the context of the energy transition and climate protection than other parties. Our results reflect trends in other countries and other fields of energy policy. Methodologically, our study illustrates the potential of and need for computational methods to analyze vast corpora of text and to complement traditional social science methods. KW - Coal transition KW - Energy policy KW - Parliamentary debates KW - Topic modeling KW - Computational text analysis Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101869 VL - 72 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Edenhofer, Ottmar A1 - Flachsland, Christian ED - Voges, Sefan T1 - Laudato si‘. Die Sorge um die globalen Gemeinschaftsgüter T2 - Christlicher Schöpfungsglaube heute. Spirituelle Oase oder vergessene Verantwortung? Y1 - 2020 SN - 9783786732266 SP - 35 EP - 49 PB - Matthias Grünewald Verlag CY - Mainz ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Pahle, Michael A1 - Kosch, Mirjam A1 - Knopf, Brigitte A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Edenhofer, Ottmar T1 - Eckpunkte und no-regret Maßnahmen für die Weiterentwicklung der CO2-Bepreisung auf deutscher und europäischer Ebene. Ariadne-Hintergrund. N2 - Dieses Papier beschreibt Empfehlungen zur Weiterentwicklung des nationalen Brennstoff-Emissionshandelsgesetzes (BEHG) – und wie ein reibungsfreier Übergang zur europäischen Ebene gestaltet werden kann. Bei der Einführung und Ausgestaltung eines EU-Emissionshandelssystem für Gebäude und Straßenverkehr (EU ETS-II) bestehen derzeit noch diverse Unsicherheiten. Unabhängig von den Entscheidungen auf europäischer Ebene identifizieren wir jedoch vier No-Regret Maßnahmen zur Weiterentwicklung des BEHG, die in allen Fällen förderlich sind: 1. Zeitliches Vorziehen und Anhebung des Preiskorridors plus Versteigerung: Die Einführung eines Preiskorridors und die Versteigerung von Zertifikaten sollte auf das Jahr 2023 vorgezogen werden. Zudem sollte der Preiskorridor angehoben und verbreitert werden, um den neuen nationalen Klimazielen Rechnung zu tragen. 2. BEHG Emissionsmengen analog zu Sektorzielen: Die EU-Kommission hat im Fit-for-55 Paket eine Erhöhung des deutschen ESR-Ziels auf 50% vorgeschlagen, was auch ungefähr den nationalen Zielen im Rahmen des Klimaschutzgesetzes (KSG) von 2021 entspricht. Um zu einem früheren Zeitpunkt Verbindlichkeit zu schaffen, sollten daher die BEHG-Emissionsmengen aus den KSG Sektorzielen abgeleitet werden. 3. Direkte Pro-Kopf-Rückerstattung: Für den zu erwartenden Fall deutlich steigender CO2-Preise sollte die Bundesregierung schon vor 2023 die institutionellen Voraussetzungen für die Umsetzung des Klimagelds wie im Koalitionsvertrag beschrieben schaffen. 4. Nationaler CO2-Mindestpreis: Bis spätestens 2025 sollte ein Mindestpreis zur eventuellen Ergänzung eines EU ETS-II vorbereitet und ggf. implementiert werden. Dadurch kann im Fall anfänglich niedriger Preise im EU ETS-II garantiert werden, dass der CO2-Preis in Deutschland weiterhin kontinuierlich ansteigt. Neben diesen Maßnahmen auf nationaler Ebene, sollte sich die Bundesregierung in den Fit-for-55 Verhandlungen einsetzen (1) für die Flexibilität zwischen EU ETS und ESR sowie (2) für ein graduelles Linking zwischen ETS-I und ETS-II. Mit beiden Maßnahmen können die sehr hohen Preisunterscheide reduziert und die Effizienz der Klimapolitik erhöht werden. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/publikation/hintergrund-weiterentwicklung-co2-bepreisung/ ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Kühner, Ann-Kathrin A1 - Jakob, Michael A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - Positionen deutscher Stakeholder zu einem europäischen CO2-Grenzausgleich. Ariadne-Hintergrund. N2 - Die Sorge um „Carbon Leakage“ ist ein zentrales Hindernis für eine ambitionierte deutsche und Europäische Klimapolitik und hat in der Vergangenheit zu intensiven politischen Konflikten geführt. Um angesichts der ambitionierten Klimaziele des Green Deal Carbon Leakage in Zukunft zu verhindern, hat die Europäische Union in ihrem „Fit für 55“-Paket ein CO2-Grenzausgleichssystem (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, CBAM) vorgeschlagen. Über den Gesetzesvorschlag der Kommission wird momentan im zuständigen Umweltausschuss des EU-Parlaments beraten. Die Entscheidung des EU-Parlaments wird dann an den Rat der Europäischen Union, nun unter dem Vorsitz Frankreichs, übermittelt und dort weiter diskutiert. Die Verordnung soll im Januar 2023 in Kraft treten. Angesichts der Sorgen und politischen Konflikte um mögliches Carbon Leakage hat die Frage der Unterstützung und Ablehnung der verschiedenen spezifischen Designelemente eines EU CBAM durch verschiedene Stakeholdergruppen eine hohe politische Relevanz. Vor diesem Hintergrund haben wir mehr als 80 der zentralen Vertreterinnen und Vertreter der deutschen Fachdebatte aus Wirtschaft, Zivilgesellschaft und Wissenschaft sowohl nach ihren grundlegenden Einstellungen als auch zu spezifischen Details der Ausgestaltung eines CBAM befragt. Dabei zeigt sich, dass in Deutschland ein CBAM unter den wichtigsten Stakeholdergruppen durchschnittlich befürwortet wird. Als Hauptdiskussionspunkte identifiziert wurden(1) das Auslaufen der kostenlosen Zuteilung von Emissionsrechten bei Einführung eines CBAM, (2) die Anwendung eines CBAM nur auf Importe (und nicht auch auf Exporte), (3) die Frage ob und für welche Länder Ausnahmen gelten sollten und (4) die Verwendung der CBAM-Einnahmen. KW - Centre for Sustainability Y1 - 2022 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/publikation/hintergrund-positionen-deutscher-stakeholder-zu-einem-europaischen-co2-grenzausgleich/ ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Knodt, Michèle A1 - Rodi, Michael A1 - Flath, Lucas A1 - Kalis, Michael A1 - Kemmerzell, Jörg A1 - Leukhardt, Falko A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - Mehr Kooperation wagen. Wasserstoffgovernance im deutschen Föderalismus. Interterritoriale Koordination, Planung und Regulierung. N2 - Die Notwendigkeit einer stärkeren Kooperation zwischen Bund und Ländern in der Energiewende wird im Koalitionsvertrag der neuen Bundesregierung explizit hervorgehoben. Im Bereich des Wasserstoffes buchstabiert der Koalitionsvertrag hier jedoch keine konkreten Schritte aus, obwohl dem Energieträger mit der im Juni 2020 verabschiedeten Nationalen Wasserstoffstrategie eine zentrale energiepolitische Bedeutung zugewiesen wurde. Die rechtlichen und politischen Rahmenbedingungen für die Koordination wasserstoffpolitischer Maßnahmen und die Umsetzung der Nationalen Wasserstoffstrategie im deutschen Föderalismus wurden dabei bis dato noch wenig beachtet. Die vorliegende Ariadne-Analyse diskutiert die Möglichkeiten der vertikalen Koordination von Bund und Ländern sowie der horizontalen Koordination zwischen den Bundesländern. Die Analyse zeigt: Bestehende Modi der Koordination reichen entweder nicht aus oder werden durch divergierende Ziele nicht genutzt. Für eine effektive Umsetzung der Nationalen Wasserstoffstrategie und der Wasserstoffstrategien einzelner Länder bedarf es neuer Formen der Bund-Länder-Koordination. Wir skizzieren deshalb drei komplementäre Optionen zur Steigerung der vertikalen und horizontalen Koordinationskapazitäten: erstens die Festlegung grundlegender Standards der Herstellung und Nutzung von Wasserstoff, zweitens eine stärkere Koordination der Bedarfsplanung und drittens die Institutionalisierung der Kooperation von Bund und Ländern. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/publikation/analyse-wasserstoffgovernance-im-deutschen-foderalismus/ ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Raiser, Kilian A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Çalı, Başak T1 - Understanding pledge and review: learning from analogies to the Paris Agreement review mechanisms JF - Climate Policy N2 - This article draws lessons for the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement’s pledge and review mechanisms from the performance of comparable review mechanisms established under other international treaties. The article employs systematic evidence synthesis methods to review the existing literature on international review mechanisms in the human rights, trade, labour, and monetary policy fields and identifies six common factors influencing their performance. Applying these findings to the Paris Agreement, the analysis finds that its review mechanisms incorporate many of these factors. In particular, they combine both expert and peer review, allow for repeated interaction and capacity building, and facilitate the regular and transparent provision of information. The comparative analysis also highlights two major deficiencies of the Paris Agreement: the absence of procedures to assess the adequacy of national pledges and actions taken to implement them, and resource constraints in carrying out a complex and arduous review process. Active engagement of non-state actors with review mechanisms is identified as a potential remedy to these shortcomings. However, the overall experience of other regimes suggests that, on their own, review mechanisms provide few incentives for states to undertake significant policy changes. Rather, the political context of each regime conditions the performance of review mechanisms. We therefore conclude that the Paris Agreement’s review mechanisms alone are unlikely to bring about the necessary ratcheting up of climate policy ambitions. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2059436 N1 - This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Climate Policy. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2059436 SP - 1 EP - 25 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Edmondson, Duncan A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - aus dem Moore, Nils A1 - Koch, Nicolas A1 - Koller, Florian A1 - Gruhl, Henri A1 - Brehm, Johannes A1 - Levi, Sebastian T1 - Assessing Climate Policy Instrument Pathways: An Application to the German Light Duty Vehicle Sector T2 - Bewertung klimapolitischer Instrumentenmix-Pfade: Eine Anwendung auf leichte Nutzfahrzeuge in Deutschland KW - Centre for Sustainability Y1 - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-47130 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/publikation/background-assessing-climate-policy-instrument-pathways-an-application-to-the-german-light-duty-vehicle-sector/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-4713 N1 - This publication is also available in German at the link above. PB - Kopernikus-Projekt Ariadne CY - Potsdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Zwar, Claudia A1 - Edenhofer, Jacob A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - Introducing and applying the Climate Institutions Analysis Framework (CIAF): A comparative analysis of climate institutions in Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia using the CIAF N2 - Climate institutions - including framework legislation and advisory bodies - have proliferated globally as part of countries' responses to climate change. They have received growing attention amid a broader 'institutional turn' in the study of climate politics. We lack conceptual tools, however, to analyse these meso-level institutions and disentangle the mechanisms driving their effects on climate policymaking. To fill this gap, we develop the Climate Institutions Analysis Framework (CIAF) and use it to qualitatively analyse climate institutions in Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia. We demonstrate how cross-country variation in effects stems from interactions between institutions and 'intervening variables' specific to countries' contexts. Across our sample, most institutions address agenda-setting and knowledge-related strategic challenges; few deliver ex-ante accountability and none compensation. Our framework is relevant for comparative political economy analyses of meso-level political institutions, and, alongside our results, offers lessons for policymakers seeking to create or improve climate institutions. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/jf8ah_v1 PB - SocArXiv ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Adolphsen, Ole A1 - Feist, Marian A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Geden, Oliver A1 - Görlach, Benjamin A1 - Jakob, Michael T1 - Deutschlands Klimaaußenpolitik: Kontext – Rückschau – Weiterentwicklung KW - Centre for Sustainability Y1 - 2024 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/publikation/analyse-deutschlands-klimaaussenpolitik-kontext-rueckschau-weiterentwicklung/ U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.48485/pik.2024.017 PB - Kopernikus-Projekt Ariadne CY - Potsdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Edenhofer, Jacob A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - Introducing the Climate Politics Framework (CPF): An application to German climate policy N2 - This paper introduces the Climate Politics Framework (CPF), a novel and comprehensive approach to analyzing climate policymaking. The CPF sets out four fundamental problems—pervasive collective action challenges, distributional dynamics, long-term policy, and deep uncertainty—that shape both elite and mass-level climate politics. These, in turn, influence the stringency and design of climate policy platforms, which consist of institutions, policy instruments as well as framing and rhetoric. These platforms can both cause emissions reductions—the main dependent variable of interest—and address strategic challenges in the climate policy process (e.g. agenda-setting, coordination, compensation, and commitment), thereby altering political dynamics over time. Applying the CPF to Germany, based on elite interviews and a literature review, we analyze key episodes and structural features of German climate policy over the past four decades. The CPF offers both an academic contribution—by synthesizing disparate strands of the climate politics literature—and, with a view to future applications, a practical tool for policymakers and stakeholders to diagnose political barriers and identify pathways for effective climate policymaking. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/qkbj3_v1 PB - Center for Open Science ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Feist, Marian A1 - Kühner, Ann-Kathrin A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - Selling CBAM: Diplomacy for the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism Y1 - 2024 UR - https://ariadneprojekt.de/en/publication/analysis-selling-cbam-diplomacy-for-the-european-unions-carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.48485/pik.2024.010 PB - Kopernikus-Projekt Ariadne CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kühner, Ann-Kathrin A1 - Jakob, Michael A1 - Flachsland, Christian T1 - German stakeholder perceptions of an EU carbon border adjustment mechanism N2 - The European Commission has proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) that would apply the carbon price prevailing in the EU emissions trading system to import-related emissions. We conducted a survey to study perceptions of an EU CBAM among German key stakeholders from industry, civil society, and research in July 2021. We find that substantial support for CBAM exists as well as the expectation that the mechanism will eventually be introduced. We identified divergent views on key design options among stakeholder groups. Stakeholders from industry generally favour the continuation of free allocation of emissions allowances, rebates for exporters from the EU, coverage of only scope 1 emissions, and use of revenues for domestic spending. Stakeholders from civil society prefer phasing out free allocation, coverage only of imports, an emissions scope including all indirect emissions, exempting low-income countries and countries that do implement non-price-based climate policies, and the use of revenues to finance green transformation in low-income countries. Respondents from research would generally rather see free allocation being phased out, emissions coverage of scope 1 and 2, exemptions for low-income countries and countries that do implement non-price-based policies with comparable effects in relevant sectors and a transfer of revenues to support clean technologies in low-income countries and green technologies in the EU. Our survey design allows us to identify three cross-stakeholder group clusters, one containing stakeholders who are comparably more hesitant towards CBAM, a second one with respondents most in favour of introducing CBAM, as well as a 'middle ground' cluster which contains views that are often in between the other two. We also compare the survey responses to the design of the Commission's CBAM proposal to identify the most likely points of political disagreement. KW - Centre for Sustainability Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac9f23 VL - 17 PB - Environmental Research Letters ER -