Understanding Catch-Up Governance in EU Climate and Energy Governance

While relative to other jurisdictions the EU is quite advanced in its climate policies, its climate policy development is caught in a pattern of ‘catch-up governance’. The dynamics of EU climate and energy policy improvements have continually fallen short of the EU’s own long-term policy ambitions, including the goal to ‘decarbonise’ the economy by 2050. As policy develops and improves, it consistently demonstrates ambition that is insufficient under the decarbonisation goal. Research has yet to reveal convincing explanations for this pattern of ‘catch-up governance’. In this paper, we explore the pattern with reference to EU climate and energy policy development over time, and attempt to identify important underlying drivers. Empirically, we focus on the development of EU policies to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. In addition to demonstrating the pattern of catch-up governance, we identify key explanatory factors that relate back and take on board different schools of thought. In particular, these factors relate to (1) the persistent disconnect between scientific assessment and political decision-making; (2) the multitude of interests in the political process; (3) the institutional constraints on policy development at the EU level; and (4) the multitude of competing policy interests and objectives (such as balancing public budgets). By identifying the conditions upon which catch-up governance relies, we identify and discuss possible conditions for breaking free of the pattern to ensure effective climate policy towards 2050, including by: enhancing the status of science; increasing the amount and variety of winners of strong policy; pursuing ‘positive’ or ‘incentivising’ policy measures rather than restrictions; enhancing coherence across policy objectives, among others. While addressing the specific field of climate and energy policy, the analysis and findings speak to broader research on EU environmental policy, where policy analyses have often highlighted disappointing policy outputs.