The evolution of ideas in global climate policy

From carbon pricing to green industrial policy, economic ideas have shaped climate policy. Drawing on a new dataset of policy reports, we show how economic ideas influenced climate policy advice by major international organizations, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature climate change 2020-05, Vol.10 (5), p.434-438
Main Authors: Meckling, Jonas, Allan, Bentley B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/844/2175
706/689/454
Adaptation
Banking
Climate
Climate Change
Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts
Climate policy
Climatic analysis
Complementarity
Deployment
Diversification in industry
Earth and Environmental Science
Economic analysis
Economic development
Economic growth
Economics
Environment
Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice
Environmental policy
Environmental protection
Financial institutions
Global climate
Industrial policy
Innovation
Innovations
International cooperation
International economic organizations
International organizations
Keynesian theory
Market prices
Markets
Protection
Subsidies
Sustainable development
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Summary:From carbon pricing to green industrial policy, economic ideas have shaped climate policy. Drawing on a new dataset of policy reports, we show how economic ideas influenced climate policy advice by major international organizations, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, from 1990 to 2017. In the 1990s, the neoclassical notion of weak complementarity between environmental protection and growth dominated debates on sustainable development. In the mid-2000s, economic thought on the environment diversified, as the idea of strong complementarity between environmental protection and growth emerged in the green growth discourse. Adaptations of Schumpeterian and Keynesian economics identified investment in energy innovation and infrastructure as drivers of growth. We thus identify a major transformation from a neoclassical paradigm to a diversified policy discourse, suggesting that climate policy has entered a postparadigmatic period. The diversification of ideas broadened policy advice from market-based policy to green industrial policy, including deployment subsidies and regulation. This analysis of global climate policy reports shows how economic ideas have shaped climate policy. The authors find a shift from neoclassical dominance to a more diversified discourse, which has expanded policy choices beyond market-based policies to include green innovation and industrial policy.
ISSN:1758-678X
1758-6798
DOI:10.1038/s41558-020-0739-7