The Ripple Effect of Crisis on Climate Policy-Making

A general concern regarding current climate policies is that they are considered not ambitious enough to reduce CO₂ emissions and to effectively address the challenges posed by climate change. This calls for increased attention to the factors that enable climate policy change. In many policy areas, radical change is often triggered by crisis events. However, the connection between crises and changes in climate policy remains highly contested. Some scholars argue that crisis events—such as extreme weather occurrences—serve as focusing events that present unique opportunities for policy change, while others contend that their impacts are minimal at best. These ambivalent findings arise from several factors, including a limited focus on individual policy areas or cases, such as energy policy or climate adaptation, and an emphasis on “objective” crisis measures like the occurrence of disasters. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of whether crisis events serve as catalysts for policy changes. To do so, we bring together novel data on climate policy changes in 21 OECD countries that provide a comprehensive perspective on policy shifts in various areas, including both climate mitigation (transport, energy, industry, etc.) and climate adaptation (water management, climate-resilient planning and building, agriculture, and forestry, among others). In addition, our analysis examines the salience of crisis events within national newspapers, shedding light on how media framing influences public crisis perception and the corresponding policy responses.