New article in Science - National Climate Institutions Complement Targets and Policies
Navroz Dubash
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to share a new Policy Forum article in Science that lays out the role of national climate institutions as a complement to targets and policies. The article is co-authored by Navroz K. Dubash, Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Christian Flachsland, Kathryn Harrison, Kathryn Hochstetler, Matthew Lockwood, Robert MacNeil, Matto Mildenberger, Matthew Paterson, Fei Teng, and Emily Tyler, and is available through free access HERE.
We were motivated to study this topic because national institutions for climate governance get far less attention than policy or targets. Yet institutions are necessary to ensure that net-zero pledges, decarbonization targets and financial mobilization commitments, such as those made by nations at the ongoing COP26, go from aspiration to implementation. National climate institutions do the crucial work of coordinating action and ambition across sectors, building consensus among differing interest groups, and developing strategies to meet targets.
Based on an analysis of institutional development in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, South Africa, UK, and the US, we argue that countries do not have a free hand in designing climate institutions. They are instead deeply dependent on national context. Recognizing the inherent relationship between national politics and climate institutions could help shift political narratives and create conditions for future strategic institutions. Acontextual 'best practice' notions about structuring institutions are less useful than shaping the circumstances in which institutions evolve. A detailed set of country cases that inform this analysis are available (open access) in Environmental Politics.
We look forward to your comments.
Warm regards,
Navroz K. Dubash (on behalf of the authors)
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New Delhi 110 021, India
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