Strategic Designs for Long-term Climate Policy Instrumentation: Governance by Planning or Incentives

This book provides insight into the development of effective climate policy instrumentation in two divergent and mutually exclusive directions.

Examining the role of political philosophies, the book explains why current climate policy is ineffective and unable to halt rapidly rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2, and suggests strategies for ending the current stalemate in climate governance. Drawing on examples from real-world case studies and challenges, the author first sets out an instrumentation approach based on a command and control strategy which involves identifying the technologies and behavior key to meeting the required emissions reductions, such as energy efficient homes and zero-emission cars. The second strategy concerns institutional rearrangement, creating incentives and options which will allow for decentralized climate action. This approach would transform and strengthen current emission trading systems, such as the EU ETS, into a price stabilized system covering all fossil fuels, and ultimately as an emission tax, as well as creating an open electricity market. These approaches not only highlight that fundamental changes in climate policy instrumentation are now vital, but that consistent strategies such as those laid out by the author are necessary if we are to avoid costly and ineffective alternatives.

Exploring key issues such as the relationship between instrumentation and broader political philosophy, as well as applying a systems oriented design methodology for effective instrumentation, this book will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in climate change and environmental politics.

Gjalt Huppes is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University, the Netherlands.