1. The Politics of Climate Policy
Insights from Political Science and Public Policy
Jonas Meckling
Energy and Environment Policy Lab
University of California, Berkeley
AHEAD workshop, October 2, 2017

2. Climate policy and distributive politics
Climate policy in time
Climate policy as a portfolio

3. 1. Climate policy and distributive politics
From “collective action” to “distributive conflict” frame.
Creating benefits to mobilize supporters, reducing costs to soften opposition.
“Who gets what, when, how”
—Harold Lasswell 1936

4. 1. Climate policy and distributive politics
Costs
Concentrated
Diffuse
Benefits
Cap-and-trade
w/revenue distribution
Feed-in tariff, tax credits
w/o revenue distribution
H 1: The more concentrated benefits and the fewer concentrated costs a policy provides, the more political support it will mobilize.

5. 2. Climate policy in time
Achieving policy durability and policy expansion, as retrenchment and repeal are real risks.
Policies that grow interest group coalitions through feedback and positive reinforcement are key.
H 2: Policies that expand markets for low-carbon technologies and lead to “sticky” capital investments are most likely to be durable and to expand.

6. 2. Climate policy in time
Source: Meckling, Sterner, Wagner 2017.

7. 3. Climate policy as a portfolio
Targeted sectoral policies allow policymakers to better link emission reductions to other issues, thus creating near-term benefits.
The more issue linkage occurs, the broader the support coalition.
Climate policies are policy mixes that can be understood as a set of political bargains.
Co-benefits
Source: Watts et al
H 3: Several targeted climate policies are more likely to craft a stable and broad support coalition than one overarching climate policy.

8. Policy feedback and climate policy Cultivating a green political landscape. Biber (2013). The green spiral: policy-industry feedback and international negotiations. Kelsey (2014). Can green sustain growth? Zysman and Huberty (2014). Winning coalitions for climate policy. Meckling, Kelsey, Biber, Zysman (2015). Who wins in renewable energy? Evidence from EU and US. Kelsey and Meckling (2017). Institutions and distributive politics When do states disrupt industries? Electric cars in DE and US. Meckling and Nahm. The power of process: state capacity and climate policy. Meckling and Nahm. Bridging political and economic perspectives Policy sequencing toward decarbonization. Meckling, Sterner, Wagner (2017). What stands in the way becomes the way. Pahle, Burtraw et al. (2017).