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Commission has injected a “just transition”
narrative, with the promise of realigning the
politics of climate policy.
Institutional changes can create feedback
effects that support consensus or that un-
dermine it ( 13 ). In Brazil, a plan to limit
Amazonian deforestation, in part through
greater investment in the capacity of the en-
vironment ministry, led to swift pushback
by mobilized “ruralists” who stood to lose
from stronger environmental enforcement.
Yet it also activated large agribusiness who
sought market access tied to stricter en-
vironmental controls, creating a positive
feedback effect. An Indian solar mission as
part of a climate action plan
provided space for solar inter-
ests in the policy process.
Strategy development
Deep decarbonization requires
transformational rather than
incremental change. This re-
quires, among other things, the
ability to define sectoral trans-
formative pathways and de-
velop NDCs that are backed by
institutional capacity to estab-
lish targets and policies, moni-
tor progress, and calibrate them over time.
Many countries may not have established
the domestic institutions needed to imple-
ment the implied approach of the Paris
Agreement. They may have mechanisms to
set targets, but these mechanisms are fre-
quently ad hoc and not rooted in domestic
climate processes aimed at long-term stra-
tegic transformation. For example, the US
approach oscillates with political control
of the White House. Other countries have
created ad hoc processes run by the head
of government, such as the presidency in
Brazil and the prime minister’s offices in
India and Australia. Although these efforts
may be informed by a long-term strategy
as articulated in an NDC, they are not
institutionally embedded and frequently
lack the benefit of consistent analysis, re-
view, and structured opportunities to re-
vise strategies.
UK, Germany, and China are examples
of exceptions, where purpose-built mecha-
nisms and responsibilities for strategy
development, monitoring, and iterating
targets exist, which are also law-backed
in the first two cases. The UK approach is
built around setting 5-year budgets, backed
by the analytical capacity of the Climate
Change Committee; Germany sets annual
sectoral targets with a mandated review
and policy adjustment process; and China’s
approach relies on a politically powerful
national leading group and 5-year plans,
backed by a climate change department.
INTERACTION WITH NATIONAL CONTEXT
Climate institutions are underdeveloped in
part because countries do not start with a
blank slate or a free hand in creating insti-
tutions. Instead, interests and ideas around
climate change, operating in the context of
existing institutions, interact to generate dis-
tinct “varieties of climate governance” ( 9 ).
Although there are several factors at play,
cross-country comparative analysis suggests
two variables that are particularly useful in
mapping these varieties: the extent of politi-
cal polarization around climate change, and
the narrative frame through which climate
politics are debated. Political consensusaround climate action supports the creation
of purpose-built institutions, whereas such
institutions are hard to support when cli-
mate politics are polarized. Institutions are
differently formed if they are informed by a
primary political narrative of greenhouse gas
reductions versus by a narrative that embeds
mitigation within other pressing domestic
goals, such as job creation, energy security,
or green growth.
Low political polarization with mitigation
as a dominant objective is most likely to cre-
ate the conditions for new purpose-built in-
stitutions created to strategically chart and
achieve a mitigation course over time. The
UK and, since passage of its 2019 Climate
Change Act, Germany, fall in this category,
with explicit legally backed emission reduc-
tion mandates. These conditions hold in
China, too; polarization is low under condi-
tions of “authoritarian environmentalism,”
and China has explicitly embraced a mitiga-
tion and carbon neutrality narrative.
Political contestation around mitigation-
centric narratives may lead to emergent cli-
mate institutions, but these are likely to be
unstable and subject to political shifts. In
Australia and the United States, efforts to
build mitigation-focused institutions have
foundered, as evidenced by the ebb and flow
of such institutions as coordinating offices
in the US White House and the Australian
Climate Change Commission. Where politics
are contested, the specifics of domestic polit-
ical institutions matter to climate outcomes.For example, multiple veto points in the US
political system led to the Senate blocking
climate legislation, but the Supreme Court
provided an alternative route to confer the
power to regulate greenhouse gases on the
Environmental Protection Agency through
layering. In Australia, despite conflictual
politics, relatively stable renewable energy
promotion organizations were created that
avoided conflict by sharing benefits rather
than imposing costs.
In some countries, climate mitigation de-
bates are subordinated and linked to other,
local, more politically salient narratives.
Where these are tied to deeply contested
sectors, such as electricity in
South Africa and forests in
Brazil that have great miti-
gation salience, progress on
mitigation may occur seren-
dipitously through shifts in
sectoral politics and result in
latent climate institutions.
Examples include shifts in
forest governance in Brazil in
the 2000s or renewable energy
in South Africa in the 2010s.
Under such conditions, cli-
mate outcomes may depend on
strengthening sectoral institutions.
Where mitigation is embedded within
other objectives, and political polarization is
low because climate politics operates below
the radar, opportunistic climate institutions
may emerge. Opportunistic institutions are
designed to maximize instances in which
mitigation agendas can be made comple-
mentary to other agendas, such as energy se-
curity and air pollution, as in India. Because
there is little domestic impetus for emergent
climate institutions, they may be more likely
to result from international pressures. But
for the same reason, these institutions are
frequently unstable, as in India.
Those seeking a more active state role in
accelerating climate action face a conun-
drum. Strategic climate institutions capable
of driving economy-wide low-carbon trans-
formation require the stringent conditions
of national political consensus around a
mitigation agenda; building such institu-
tions under conditions of political contes-
tation and/or embedded climate narratives
risk instability and failure. Other contexts
are conducive only to more limited climate
institution–building.
The way forward lies in recognizing that
more limited climate institutions consistent
with domestic political context can still help
shift political narratives and create conditions
for future strategic institutions. In India, the
creation of sectoral “missions” for solar and
energy efficiency have led to concrete policy
gains but have additionally contributed to“The way forward lies in recognizing that more
limited climate institutions consistent
with domestic political context can still help
shift political narratives and create
conditions for future strategic institutions.”
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