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Climate policy

innovation: sources,

patterns and effects

Dave Huitema and Andrew Jordan

Our common future under climate

change, Paris, 9 July 2015

International Gridlock

Picture of Obama

And now?

• Policy innovations needed! Much ‘new’

and necessary policy will have to come

from outside/around the international

regime

• But, our understanding of the sources,

pathways and effects of policy innovation

in these ‘polycentric’ venues remains

incomplete

Polycentric governance?

COST Action INOGOV

• Locus – state led governing through the

relatively formal apparatus of policy

making

• Focus – innovation in climate policy

The state: isn’t that the

‘cancer of Westphalia’!?

Locus: the state

Townsend, T. et al. (2013) How national legislation can help to solve climate

change. Nature Climate Change, 3, May, 430-432.

Fit with polycentric

governance? • “(…) larger, general-purpose

governmental units (…) are responsible for

(…) the oversight of appropriate

exercises of authority within smaller

units of government”

• (…) information of what worked well in

one in one setting can be transmitted to

others who may try it out in their settings”

(E. Ostrom, 2005: 283)

Has the centre of gravity

shifted?

Focus: innovation

• Middle range concept, no theory of innovation as

such – but other theories have a view

• A core aspect or function of ‘governing’ – but not

the only one! Avoid pro innovation bias

• Fruitfully examined across the policy cycle –

invention, adoption/implementation, evaluation

• And across different aspects of policy:

instrument settings, through to whole policy

fields

Focus: innovation triangle

Adoption/diffusion: emulation,

exploitation

Effects: effective, impactful

and lasting?

Novelty:

Invention, recombination, exploration

INOGOV outputs – so far

• Special issues Environmental Politics.

‘Innovations in climate policy: the politics of

invention, diffusion and evaluation’ (Jordan and

Huitema eds., Aug ‘14). Global Environmental

Change. ‘Policy innovation in changing

environment: sources, patterns and effects’

(Jordan and Huitema eds., Dec ‘14).

• Workshops, e.g. on Policy experiments in

Climate Governance (Helsinki, March 2015),

and Entrepreneurship in Climate Governance

(Amsterdam, May 2015)

Empirical findings: invention

• New strategies visible, e.g. carbon disclosure,

accounting, liabilities

• Role of entrepreneurs important – positive and

negative motivations

• Quite some ‘experimentation’ raise interesting

ethical and normative questions

Empirical findings: diffusion

• ‘Innovation journeys’- difference first time

adoption and later modulations, influence

entrepreneurs.

• Cultural factors influential.

• Balance of external and internal drivers.

Empirical findings: impacts

• Long term versus short term assessment

• Innovation does not equal performance

• Evaluation has a role in framing problems, in

policy design, and the consolidation process.

Conclusions/some gaps

• Policy innovations do happen!

• Leader states, entrepreneurs and experiments

• Long term trends (‘waves’) in innovations

• Role of international organizations in diffusion

• Innovation very political, also in evaluation

• Catalytic and failed inventions/diffusion?

• Relation between international regime and

national regimes?

Join us!

• Innovations in Climate Governance: Sources

Patterns and Effects (INOGOV), IS1309

• Network funding, +/- 650,000 Euros; 27 COST

countries plus 7 others

• Workshops, summer schools, special issues,

books, dissemination, academic exchange

• Interested? WWW.INOGOV.EU

Outputs: SI EP (August ‘14) Instrument constituencies and the supply side

of policy innovation. Jan-Peter Voß and Arno Simons

Policy invention as a process of evolutionary

tinkering and codification David Jacobs

Climate policy innovation: a socio-technical

transitions perspective

Paul Upham, Paula Kivimaa, Per

Mickwitz, and Kerstin Åstrand

Kindred Spirits or Intergovernmental

Competition? Daniel Matisoff and Jason Edwards

Innovation in climate adaptation policy Anja Bauer and Reinhard Steurer

Evaluation, assessment and policy innovation Mikael Hildén

The innovativeness of national policy portfolios André Schaffrin, Sebastian

Sewerin, Sibylle Seubert

Climate policy innovation: developing an

evaluation perspective.

Mikael Hildén, Andrew Jordan, Tim

Rayner

Outputs: SI GEC (January ‘15)

Domestic Politics and the Diffusion of

International Policy Innovations

Sophie Biesenbender and Jale

Tosun.

Why are Policy Innovations Rare and So Often

Negative?

Michael Howlett

Evaluating the Effects of Policy Innovations

Graeme Auld, Alexandra Mallett,

Bozica Burlica, Francis Nolan-

Poupart, and Robert Slater

Climate policy innovation in the South

Martin Stadelmann and Paula

Castro

The adoption and diffusion of climate change

adaptation policies across Europe

Eric Massey, Robbert Biesbroek,

Dave Huitema, and Andrew Jordan

(*)

Policy Invention and Entrepreneurship

Elin Boasson and Jørgen Wettestad

(*)