Analysing Climate and Energy Policy Integration: The Cases of Mexico and Indonesia Compared

One of the main challenges faced by climate policy makers today is to design and implement policies capable of transferring climate policy goals into sectoral actions towards transformational pathways. Hence, climate policies need to be of cross-cutting character, lead to coherence with sectoral goals and reconcile diverging sectoral interests. Mexico undertook significant efforts to reform its energy sector, including goals for clean energy and energy efficiency and effective mechanisms via the law for energy transition (2015). Furthermore, Mexico introduced a complex climate governance system, including ambitious mitigation goals. On the other hand, Indonesia so far did not implement a major energy sector reform, and continues to rely on a state-led development approach with coal as the main form of energy source and with modest achievements in the area of renewable energy development. Both countries however have set climate policy goals for the reduction of GHG emissions of a similar order. I applied concepts of climate policy integration to analyse whether an integration between policy subsystems of energy and climate change occurred in terms of political discourse and negotiation, policy goals and instruments, and implementation via the public administration; and to identify the factors are at work that lead to climate policy integration. The research design is a most different case study, which compares two cases with similar outcomes as dependent variables, but with different combination of independent variables. In the case of Mexico it was found that on the level of political discourse and negotiation, an integration process between energy and climate subsystems occurred, influenced by the availability and market maturity of clean energies, mitigation scenarios and external events, such as the 21st UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 21). However, a combination of decisions on integrated climate-energy policy outputs and preparing the public administration system for the implementation of integrated policies is needed to enable appropriate institutional mandates, budgets and instruments in order to avoid institutional fragmentation. In this regard, we identified a major shortcoming in the political-administrative system, preventing higher levels of climate policy integration. In the Indonesian case, the analysis has shown that during the presidency of Bambang Yudhoyono the discourse was more integrated on political levels and eventually resulted in the establishment of new “super-structures” for the coordination of climate and sectoral policies, but a lack of integrated policy instruments prevented effective implementation. During the current presidency of Joko Widodo, the political discourse shows little signs of integration, and previously established super-structures were abolished. However, newer developments point to a slight change in the discourse and resulting policy instruments such as a newly proposed bill on renewable energy development. The comparative analysis shows that both levels – political and administrative – need to work together so that climate policy integration can be successful and that sector dynamics have a profound impact in terms of policy windows which can be used by policymakers for the integration of climate with the energy sector.