The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022 yielded no promising results with regard to the Paris Agreement’s goal of curbing emissions to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°C. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that in order to reach this target, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to decrease to net-zero by 2050. This requires a massive, economy-wide transformation in both the Global North and the Global South. And while extreme weather events, including droughts, wildfires and flooding continue to increase globally, the 'climate crisis' is only one of many. Countries are facing multiple crises, including the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the global repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These and other crises take up political, financial and societal resources, and they interact with governmental and societal responses to climate change.
As of 2022, some 90% of states have adopted targets that aim for either achieving net-zero emissions in the coming decades or for phasing out specific fossil fuel technologies, or both. This is a major development, but the road to carbon neutrality is long and winding, while the urgency of radical action to tame dangerous climate change is ever more apparent. Political science can make an important transformative contribution by identifying the obstacles for achieving carbon neutrality and suggesting most efficient governance arrangements to unlock the political and broad societal acceptance for increasing climate ambitions.
The Section will map current and ongoing research on the politics of climate action and transformation towards carbon neutral societies and economies. Its Panels will be chaired by senior and junior researchers. Following a pre-call for Panels from among the ECPR Research Network on Energy Politics, Policy, and Governance, Section Chairs gathered eight Panel proposals fitting the Section's general theme:
1 Internal climate politics of the European Union
Chairs: Sandra Eckert, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Karina Shyrokykh, Stockholm University
2 The role the EU can play as a policy lab and international climate governance leader
Chairs: Elin Lerum Boasson, University of Oslo, Sebastian Oberthür, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
3 Climate policy mixes for decarbonization in the Global South
Chair: Germán Bersalli, RIFS Potsdam
The Section will also engage with the concept of climate justice and new ways of approaching inherent economic, political and societal structures that limit transformation:
4 Transformational approaches to the climate crisis
Chairs: Katrina Cano, KU Leuven, Valeria Zambianchi, KU Leuven & University of Utrecht
An important question, in light of the alarmingly low speed at which emissions reductions are implemented, is how to ramp up global efforts in ambitious climate action. Here, our Section seeks to map the ground for current and future research, allowing for a meaningful comparison between policy mixes and learning across cases and contexts:
5 Defining and operationalizing climate policy progress
Chair: Johan Lilliestam, RIFS Potsdam
We also zoom in on the ongoing global UNFCCC negotiation process and the ‘global stocktake’ planned for the climate summit in Dubai shortly after the ECPR General Conference:
6 Scrutinizing national pledges and changes in climate policy ambition on the international forum
Chair: Sonja Thielges, RIFS Potsdam & SWP Berlin
The Section will also explore the societal forces for and against ambitious climate action:
7 New forms of protest and civil disobedience: ‘system change, not climate change’
Chairs: Patrick Scherhaufer, Aron Buzogány, BOKU Vienna
8 ‘Delay as the new denial’: entrenched interests responsible for climate obstruction
Chair: Kacper Szulecki, NUPI / University of Oslo
