Developed states share a common responsibility for producing the bulk of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, despite the threats posed by catastrophic climate change, the development of an ‘ecological state’ in response to climate change varies greatly. Why is this the case? Under the microscope are the 23 Annex II (‘developed’) states, including the UK, the USA, France, Germany and Australia. This paper draws from the literature on welfare state development by employing ‘fuzzy set’ methods to determine how variables interact with one another to produce weak or strong climate change policy. In so doing, the states’ unique configurations of variables regarding both governance- including political structure and partisan affiliation- and structural conditions- such as pre-existing energy sources and EU membership- are examined. It is argued that it is not necessarily the presence or absence of these variables that matters, but how they intertwine as causal configurations. By employing comparative methods, unique combinations of variables can be assessed in terms of their significance regarding the formulation of effective policy. The results hold profound implications for locating the commonalities shared by current policy pioneers, as well as determining if and how laggards can catch up in the future. Moreover, the analysis provides an insight into whether the development of the ecological state is primarily due to structural conditions rather than agential preferences for certain policies.
