Public Agencies in National Climate Governance

The scholarly attention given to domestic climate governance has increased in recent years, positioning it as important for effective long-term climate action. One strand of this emerging literature focuses on the institutionalization of climate governance in state structures. Research indicates that institutionalization of climate responsibilities in ministerial structures contribute to emissions reductions, partly due to improved policy implementation. Usually, it is public agencies that are responsible for implementing policies, but so far, there has been little attention given to their role in domestic climate governance. Some research has been conducted about environmental public agencies, but this has been concerned mostly with what causes differences in autonomy for these agencies or the effect of broader measures of agency structure in an American context. In Europe, more attention has been given to the role of expert climate councils. However, these usually have more unclear mandates and lower capacity regarding finances and employees, than public agencies. Additionally, research suggests that having more autonomous agencies may help insulate them from political conflict that could hinder effectiveness, but this claim has so far been extrapolated from studies which have mostly used survey data. Moreover, exploring this claim by analyzing public agencies involved in climate governance, which to my knowledge has not yet been done, provides the opportunity to explore the effect of autonomous agencies for governance in general. Additionally, because climate governance today involves various implementation gaps, more information about the role of public agencies as implementing institutions becomes necessary. In order to contribute with more knowledge about these issues, this paper analyzes a novel dataset with information about the autonomy and tasks of public agencies responsible for climate governance by analyzing a novel dataset with information about 31 European countries from the early 2000s to 2024. The dataset includes information on the existence of dedicated climate agencies, climate sub-units within environmental and energy agencies, and various measures of autonomy and climate-related tasks performed by these agencies, which has not been analyzed in an encompassing matter before. The paper is not concerned with the origins of organizing climate governance in a particular way, but rather the effect such organizations may have on climate action. By analyzing this data, the article aims to identify trends in agency responsibilities and autonomy in addition to the implications these trends have for domestic climate governance effectiveness. Overall, the paper contributes with new information about the role of the state in climate governance, as well as information about autonomy for public agencies’ role in policy implementation. It contributes both to the emerging literature on domestic climate governance as well as the well-established literature on public agencies in general.