Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction and overview
- 1 Climate change policy in the European Union: an introduction
- Part II The evolving governance context: the European Union
- Part III Climate policy in the European Union: understanding the past
- Part IV Climate policy in the European Union: future challenges
- Part V Climate policy in the European Union: retrospect and prospect
- Index
- References
1 - Climate change policy in the European Union: an introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction and overview
- 1 Climate change policy in the European Union: an introduction
- Part II The evolving governance context: the European Union
- Part III Climate policy in the European Union: understanding the past
- Part IV Climate policy in the European Union: future challenges
- Part V Climate policy in the European Union: retrospect and prospect
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction: climate change enters the political mainstream
In recent years, climate change has shifted from being a marginal political issue to one that has – depending on one's point of view – potentially transformative and/or calamitous consequences for virtually all policy areas. The change in its political status has been remarkably rapid but also substantial. So when the global economy slipped into a deep recession in the late 2000s, climate change remained alongside economic growth, employment and crime as a key political issue in the majority of industrialised states. As part of this political transformation, new actors have entered the debate. Whereas before, climate change had mainly preoccupied environmental ministries and their associated policy networks, it now attracts the sustained attention of political core executives: prime ministers, presidents and their inner cabinets. Since 2005, climate change has been a standing item at all G8 summits, and has been regularly debated at United Nations (UN) General Assembly sessions and in countless European Council meetings comprising the Heads of State of the European Union (EU). The issue of climate change has, in short, entered the political mainstream.
Having struggled for years to persuade politicians to take the issue seriously, environmental actors are now finding themselves under intense pressure to deliver policy solutions that are sufficiently coordinated with their counterparts in ‘non-’ environmental sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Change Policy in the European UnionConfronting the Dilemmas of Mitigation and Adaptation?, pp. 3 - 26Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
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