Focus on any part of the climate policy process and one theme is unlikely to be far away: complexity.
Scientific evidence has been fundamental to climate change becoming established as a public policy issue. The science is complex, “indistinguishable from magic (or gobbledygook)” for most. Policy responses to the issue have also proved complex. The Climate Change Levy became complex as subsequent Agreements were negotiated to give rebates to energy-intensive sectors. Ironically, these were in part driven by the perceived unfairness of the Levy’s basis on existing pollution measures, intended to reduce the amount of additional administration required for the Levy. Complexity is also a hallmark of market-based initiatives such as the well-established EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the soon to be introduced Carbon Reduction Commitment Efficiency Scheme. The intricacies of the latter have been recognised by the Environment Agency who are administering the Scheme and adopting a ‘softly-softly’ approach in its early stages with a three-year introductory period where no cap on emissions will be enforced. This theme of complexity is perhaps unsurprising. Closer working between a number of traditionally discrete government silos may be expected to make policy formulation and implementation more difficult. The trend from government to governance manifested in the proliferation of partnership working can be seen as a result of tackling cross-cutting ‘wicked issues’. For climate change policy, it may also be worth considering whether the issue’s social construction as a highly specialised scientific issue has contributed to greater complexity in public policy responses. Complexity in policy implies greater potential for diversity in the ways policy practitioners understand a particular policy. This lends weight to the focus on policy meaning provided by an interpretive, decentred approach to public policy. Policies are not monolithic, but are interpreted in different ways. Complexity may make implementation more difficult, by enabling radically different interpretations to co-exist alongside each other within a policy network. Alternatively, complexity could be seen as a deliberate strategy, providing cover for actors holding irreconcilable differences in values and enabling them to work together. What is clear at this very early stage of thinking about climate policy is that complexity, and how it is dealt with by policy actors, is likely to form a key backdrop to the research. Further reading: Davies J.S. (2009). The limits of joined-up government: towards a political analysis. Public Administration. 87(1), 80-96. Available at:http://blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.01740.x
A.Smith (2004). Policy transfer in the development of UK climate policy. Policy & Politics. 32(1), 79-93. Available at
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/pap/2004/00000032/00000001/art00006
Hi Warren, interesting conversation starter. I wonder how much of this complexity is a result of the deliberate bounding of science away from the political sector both in general, and with regard to climate change. Take the IPCC. By in-effect trying to "de-politicise" the science process (and further bounding that within the different working groups) has the UNFCCC set "science" up for a fall. It seems that integrating this science back into the political sphere is next to impossible. Similarly look at the UK and the issues with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Ministers demand "good science", but when they get answers they don’t want to hear, or even more questions instead of answers, the toys go flying out of the pram. Is there an answer? I’m not sure how you sort the complexity issues, but certainly the co-production of science idiom would to me offer some sort of way in which to insert some cross sector trust back into the process.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hi Cian, thanks for stopping by and leaving such a thoughtful comment. The depoliticising of policy is certainly prevalent in climate change; the Committee on Climate Change being a domestic example. As with the IPCC, the emphasis is on the ‘independence’ and ‘expertise’ on offer. In recent years, the IPCC has gone beyond their purely scientific remit to produce documents ‘for policymakers’, which is where some of the problems over use of ‘grey literature’ has arisen.<br> <br> A big issue here is the extent to which scientific opinion is allowed to dictate policy; it’s fair to say that many people who accept the scientific case for action on climate change do not accept what some would describe as a strong case for the widespread use of GM crops (e.g. <a href="http://bit.ly/b81IUz">Rob Hopkins</a>). That’s not to say that they would be wrong, but that values, acknowledged or not, are always going to play a part in one’s attitude to scientific evidence. (BTW, I hadn’t come across ‘co-production of science’ before – useful background to the stuff around the construction of climate change as an issue.)<br> <br> Just starting to consider the role of complexity in all this and whether it links in with the policy responses to climate change; hopefully it’s something I’ll be returning to. The key for my research is how those involved at the sharp end of policy deal with the proliferation of climate initiatives that now exist. <br> <br> As a PS, it’s worth checking <a href="http://johannhari.com/2009/12/10/our-leaders-are-staging-a-scam-in-copenhagen">this article by Johann Hari</a> – very critical of how complexity obfuscates scrutiny in international climate negotiations. In general, I think the implications of runaway complexity in public policy for political (dis)engagement are worthy of consideration.<br> <br> <br></body></html>