Katarina Buhr

The Inclusion of Aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme: Temporal Conditions for Institutional Entrepreneurship

Recent literature on institutional entrepreneurship has examined the enabling conditions under which actors may influence institutional arrangements. Whereas conditions at field level and among actors have been highlighted, scholars have paid little attention to how and why the field is amenable to change at certain times and how actors act upon these conditions in a timely fashion. This paper examines the temporal conditions for institutional entrepreneurship. I propose that a collective of time-aware institutional entrepreneurs opens a window of opportunity for policy breakthrough by relating its activities to temporally favorable conditions of the multidimensional institutional process. These theoretical propositions are illustrated through an empirical case study of how aviation was targeted for its climate change impact by inclusion in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

Frames of Climate Change in Side Events from Kyoto to Durban

Addressing climate change is challenging because of its diverse meanings regarding the implications of science, values, risk, and governance. Climate change frames are central organizing ideas that allow us to identify why climate change is a problem of global concern, who is responsible, and the ways in which and by whom it should be governed. UN climate change conferences gather diverse actors for debating climate policy, allowing us to study the frames they represent and how they evolve. They examine the official side events at these conferences, considering the topics of all 2,214 side events from 1997 through 2011. The results show a prominence of the action and conformity frames, indicating that actors reluctant to change have not been engaged; a tendency to favor the social progress frame over the economic frame; that topical changes were not solely the result of new organizations being admitted; a rise in non-climatic issues indicating large potential for bandwagoning; and a symbiotic relationship between negotiations and side events.

Expectations on corporate climate action under regulatory uncertainty

Purpose - In absence of extensive regulation, expectations can be a noteworthy institutional pressure driving corporate climate change action. The purpose of this study is to explore expectations o ...

The ambitions in Copenhagen Pledges: Country case studies of drivers and barriers

The climate pledges under the Copenhagen Accord have been evaluated by researchers in quantitative terms, but less attention has been provided on insights into what drove countries and what political barriers impeded countries to submit a pledge and the ambitiousness of the pledges. This article therefore highlights what the drivers and barriers are under the Copenhagen Accord and assesses whether the political considerations can be expected to differ from the positions under a binding climate regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. By means of case studies the research finds that the political origin differs and in general views that the Accord is viewed as adding to transparency and legitimacy of the negotiations. Moreover, while the pledges can be viewed as a separate regime, it should be complemented by emissions trading to spur increased ambition. The research also identifies that the pledges are commonly viewed as binding and that barriers are increasingly viewed as drivers seeing that costs of climate action is viewed as lower than inaction.