Climate policy during times of governmental change: Can EU climate frontrunners maintain their position when climate-skeptic governments are on the rise?
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2024-08-09
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nl
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This research has aimed to answer the question to what extent radical governmental changes can influence climate policy of EU-frontrunners, by finding out how the policy preferences, bindingness of EU policy, and public support towards climate legislation influence the establishment of ambitious climate policy. Therefore, a comparative qualitative study has been done between Finland and the Netherlands, since both frontrunner countries have experienced a recent shift towards a more climate-skeptic government. For this purpose, current and previous policy documents have been analyzed of both countries, as well as party manifestos and progress reports of national and EU climate legislation. During the analysis, these documents were compared now to previous governments and plans and goals that were set out, to estimate how the change will affect the countries’ climate policies. Additionally, two interviews were conducted to gain further insights in initial effects and motivations for the parties within the new government formations. For Finland, policy preferences appeared to be the most determining factor to ensure ambitious climate policy implementation. Despite the governmental change, the whole government overall is still extremely pro-climate, making it unlikely that climate policy will be watered down on the short term. The current Dutch government is generally more climate skeptic, with the PVV leading the coalition. Here, policy preferences also appear most determining. However, the bindingness of EU legislation ensures that the Netherlands will still implement climate policies if they do not want to get faced with high fines. Overall, it will not be likely that Finland and the Netherlands will stop putting out ambitious climate policies, mainly because they bound themselves to EU reduction targets and because policy preferences overall are still positive towards climate action. It can however happen that the presence of climate skeptic parties will slow down the implementation of climate policy, and these parties will try their best to shift the public opinion towards more climate skepticism. This in turn can influence both countries’ position as frontrunner, and thus eventually the EU’s position as a global climate leader.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen