Climate Policy Integration and Mainstreaming: EU Energy and Development Policies

In this paper, we take stock of EU efforts to mainstream or integrate climate policy objectives into energy and development policy domains. We assess both climate mitigation integration and adaptation integration efforts. Building on literature we argue that integration or mainstreaming takes place in a highly fragmented way and we apply a novel analytical framework to understand this fragmentation. The paper proceeds as follows. First, we review recent literature on policy integration and mainstreaming in climate mitigation and adaptation policy. These are often treated separately in literature: where adaptation is the focus, the term ‘mainstreaming’ is most often used, but with mitigation, literature discusses ‘integration’. Second, building on the review, we outline an analytical framework that highlights three main variables of interest cutting across both adaptation and mitigation studies: (1) institutional set-up; (2) framing; and (3) political commitment. Third, we discuss the development of adaptation and mitigation efforts in two cases of EU policy: development and energy, by tracing developments since 2009 (when the EU implemented its integrated climate and energy policy package). Fourth, we apply the analytical framework to understand the different approaches and changes over time, drawing out interactions among the variables. We conclude that by studying both adaptation and mitigation policy integration/mainstreaming, the relative importance of the explanatory variables becomes clearer.