Renewable energy policies and household solid fuel dependence

What effects do domestic and international policies have on household solid fuel consumption? Previous studies analyze some of the policies that national governments and international organizations have implemented to reduce solid fuel dependence, but these studies tend to examine one policy and/or one country at a time. In contrast, this article seeks to provide a more systematic analysis of whether and to what extent domestic and international policies can encourage transition to less polluting fuels. Using data on the proportion of population using solid cooking fuels, and domestic and international programs promoting renewable energy, we evaluate the association between renewable energy policies and household solid fuel dependence. Our statistical tests show that such policies, regardless of their domestic or international origins, matter in explaining the level of solid fuel dependence. As the number of domestic policies increases, the share of population using solid fuels tends to decline. International efforts to promote renewable energy are also linked to reduced solid fuel dependence in countries where such international programs are implemented.     

Rivers as municipal infrastructure: Demand for environmental services in informal settlements along an Indonesian river

In many developing world cities, where municipal infrastructure lags urban growth, lower-income communities may compensate by relying on local waterways to meet basic needs for water, sanitation, and recreational space. Access to these environmental services is possible because residents settle in floodplains, but thus entails elevated exposure to several water-related hazards, especially flooding. We examine this complex relationship in the neighborhoods of Bukit Duri and Kampung Melayu on the Ciliwung River in Jakarta, Indonesia. Based on a spatially referenced household survey, we analyze and map the patterns of use of six environmental services provided by the river: direct sanitary use, recreation, harvesting plants, groundwater use, solid waste disposal, and sewage disposal. Using spatial interpolation and regression methods, we identify the most probable areas where services are being used and analyze possible influences on this behavior. We find that proximity to the river significantly influences households’ behavior toward the river, as do infrastructure-related variables and neighborhing households’ behavior, while household demographic factors appear less significant. These results indicate that many households rely on multiple environmental services, and that residents most reliant on these services are also at greater risk of water-related hazards, service disruption (e.g., a decline in water quality), and potentially, eviction. This pattern of floodplain development is prevalent in many low-income countries, and a better understanding of how informal settlements rely on environmental services can be used to assess their vulnerabilities and inform more sustainable courses of development.     

Air conditioning and global inequality

As global temperatures go up and incomes rise, air conditioner sales are poised to increase dramatically. Recent studies explore the potential economic and environmental impacts of this growth, but relatively little attention has been paid to the implications for inequality. In this paper we use household-level microdata from 16 countries to characterize empirically the relationship between climate, income, and residential air conditioning. We show that both current and future air conditioner usage is concentrated among high-income households. Not only do richer countries have much more air conditioning than poorer countries, but within countries adoption is highly concentrated among high-income households. The pattern of adoption is particularly stark in relatively low-income countries such as Pakistan, where we show that the vast majority of adoption between now and 2050 will be concentrated among the upper income tercile. We use our model to forecast future adoption, show how patterns vary across countries and income levels, and discuss what these patterns mean for health, productivity, and educational inequality.     

Linkages between climate change and sustainable development

Climate change does not yet feature prominently within the environmental or economic policy agendas of developing countries. Yet evidence shows that some of the most adverse effects of climate change will be in developing countries, where populations are most vulnerable and least likely to easily adapt to climate change, and that climate change will affect the potential for development in these countries. Some synergies already exist between climate change policies and the sustainable development agenda in developing countries, such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport and sustainable land-use policies. Despite limited attention from policy-makers to date, climate change policies could have significant ancillary benefits for the local environment. The reverse is also true as local and national policies to address congestion, air quality, access to energy services and energy diversity may also limit GHG emissions. Nevertheless there could be significant trade-offs associated with deeper levels of mitigation in some countries, for example where developing countries are dependent on indigenous coal and may be required to switch to cleaner yet more expensive fuels to limit emissions. The distributional impacts of such policies are an important determinant of their feasibility and need to be considered up-front. It follows that future agreements on mitigation and adaptation under the convention will need to recognise the diverse situations of developing countries with respect to their level of economic development, their vulnerability to climate change and their ability to adapt or mitigate. Recognition of how climate change is likely to influence other development priorities may be a first step toward building cost-effective strategies and integrated, institutional capacity in developing countries to respond to climate change. Opportunities may also exist in developing countries to use regional economic organisations to assist in the design of integrated responses and to exploit synergies between climate change and other policies such as those designed to combat desertification and preserve biodiversity.     

The threat to climate change mitigation posed by the abundance of fossil fuels

This article analyses the trends in primary demand for fossil fuels and renewables, comparing regions with large and small domestic fossil fuel reserves. We focus on countries that hold 80% of global fossil fuel reserves and compare them with key countries that have meagre fossil fuel reserves. We show that those countries with large domestic fossil fuel reserves have experienced a large increase in primary energy demand from fossil fuels, but only a moderate or no increase in primary energy from renewables, and in particular from non-hydro renewable energy sources (NHRES), which are assumed to represent the cornerstone of the future transformation of the global energy system. This implies a tremendous threat to climate change mitigation, with only two principal mitigation options for fossil-fuel-rich economies if there is to be compliance with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement: (1) leave the fossil fuels in the ground; and (2) apply carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Combinations of these two options to exploit their respective possibilities synergistically will require strong initiatives and incentives to transform a certain amount of the domestic fossil fuel reserves (including the associated infrastructure) into stranded assets and to create an extensive CCS infrastructure. Our conclusion is that immediate and disruptive changes to the use of fossil fuels and investments in non-carbon-emitting technologies are required if global warming is to be limited to well below 2°C. Collective actions along value chains in business to divert from fossil fuels may be a feasible strategy.

Key policy insights

• The main obstacle to compliance with any reasonable warming target is the abundance of fossil fuels, which has maintained and increased momentum towards new fossil-fuelled processes.

• So far, there has been no increase in the share of NHRES in total global primary energy demand, with a clear decline in the NHRES share in India and China.

• There is an immediate need for the global community to develop fossil fuel strategies and policies.

• Policies must account for the global trade flow of products that typically occurs from the newly industrialized fossil fuel-rich countries to the developed countries.

     

Natural gas and climate finance

Should energy projects to extend the use of natural gas be considered for funding under public climate finance commitments? This article provides an overview of evidence for and against climate finance for natural gas projects. The argument focuses on a case study, the UK’s International Climate Fund (ICF). This synthesis concludes that gas-related projects will rarely be eligible for funding under public climate finance, save a few exceptions in which they provide energy access to households directly. Although gas power plants have generally lower emissions than those which use other fossil fuels such as coal, their impact will depend on the material constraints to calculate emissions reductions, the context of implementation, and the political economy of the target country. Three case studies demonstrate that energy access projects need to be understood as providing a whole range of sustainable benefits, from improving local health to reducing emissions. Overall, gas-related projects are complex interventions that require context-specific knowledge of both the effects of technology and the possible business models that can work in context.

POLICY RELEVANCE

This article investigates whether projects related to natural gas constitute an appropriate use of public climate finance, with a particular focus on the UK’s International Climate Fund. Policy makers in developed countries will decide in the coming years how to use public climate finance; that is, the fraction of overseas development assistance (ODA) for climate change mitigation and adaptation. In the UK, for example, the ICF is the most important instrument to provide climate finance for developing countries. In 2013, the UK set out a clear position ‘to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, except in rare circumstances.’ This ban has fostered debate about whether similar positions should follow for other fossil fuels such as natural gas, specifically in the context of ICF funding. Similar debates are taking place in other countries such as Germany and Norway, and are informing the implementation of international facilities such as the Green Climate Fund.     

Linkages between climate change and sustainable development

Abstract

Climate change does not yet feature prominently within the environmental or economic policy agendas of developing countries. Yet evidence shows that some of the most adverse effects of climate change will be in developing countries, where populations are most vulnerable and least likely to easily adapt to climate change, and that climate change will affect the potential for development in these countries. Some synergies already exist between climate change policies and the sustainable development agenda in developing countries, such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport and sustainable land-use policies. Despite limited attention from policy-makers to date, climate change policies could have significant ancillary benefits for the local environment. The reverse is also true as local and national policies to address congestion, air quality, access to energy services and energy diversity may also limit GHG emissions. Nevertheless there could be significant trade-offs associated with deeper levels of mitigation in some countries, for example where developing countries are dependent on indigenous coal and may be required to switch to cleaner yet more expensive fuels to limit emissions. The distributional impacts of such policies are an important determinant of their feasibility and need to be considered up-front. It follows that future agreements on mitigation and adaptation under the convention will need to recognise the diverse situations of developing countries with respect to their level of economic development, their vulnerability to climate change and their ability to adapt or mitigate. Recognition of how climate change is likely to influence other development priorities may be a first step toward building cost-effective strategies and integrated, institutional capacity in developing countries to respond to climate change. Opportunities may also exist in developing countries to use regional economic organisations to assist in the design of integrated responses and to exploit synergies between climate change and other policies such as those designed to combat desertification and preserve biodiversity.

© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Exploring national decarbonization pathways and global energy trade flows: a multi-scale analysis

The role of fossils fuels in national economies will change radically over the next 40 years under a strong climate regime. However, capturing this changing role through national-based analyses is challenging due to the global nature of fossil fuel demand and resulting trade patterns. This article sets out the limitations of existing national-scale decarbonization analyses in adequately capturing global conditions and explores how the introduction of a global modelling framework could provide vital insights, particularly for those countries that are dependent on fossil fuel exports or imports.

The article shows that fossil fuel use will significantly decline by 2050, although gas will have an important transition role. This leaves large fossil fuel exporters exposed, the extent of which is determined by mitigation action in different regions and especially by the pathways adopted by the larger Asian economies. We find that global-scale models provide critical insights that complement the more detailed national analyses and should play a stronger role in informing deep decarbonization pathways (DDPs). They also provide an important basis for exploring key uncertainties around technology uptake, mitigation rates and how this plays out in the demand for fossil fuels. However, use of global models also calls for improved representation of country specifics in global models, which can oversimplify national economic and political realities. Using both model scales provides important insights that are complementary but that can challenge the other’s orthodoxy. However, neither can replace the other’s strengths.

Policy relevance:

In recent years, how global fossil fuel markets will evolve under different climate regimes has been subject to much debate and analysis. This debate includes whether investments in fossil fuel production still make sense or will be exposed in the future to liabilities associated with high carbon prices. This is important for governments who need to develop coherent policy in relation to fossil fuel sectors and their role as drivers of economic growth and in providing for domestic energy needs. This article argues that national analyses need to be fully cognizant of the global-scale transition, which can be informed by using a multi-scale modelling approach.     

Global implications of joint fossil fuel subsidy reform and nuclear phase-out: an economic analysis

This paper uses the OECD’s global recursive-dynamic general equilibrium model ENVLinkages to examine the mid-term economic consequences and the optimal energy supply mix adjustments of a simultaneous implementation of i) a progressive fossil fuel subsidy reform in emerging and developing economies and ii) a progressive phase out of nuclear energy, mostly affecting OECD countries, China and Russia. The analysis is then transposed in the context of climate change mitigation to depict the corresponding implications for CO2 emissions, to assess the interactions between the two energy policies, and to derive how the associated costs are affected by the different policies. The phase-out scenario projects a nuclear capacity halved by 2035 as compared to the Baseline, corresponding to $120 billion losses in value-added of the nuclear industry for that year. The nuclear phase-out leaves GDP and real household consumption marginally affected in energy importing countries. A multilateral subsidy reform is more likely to affect international fossil fuel prices and alter patterns of global energy use. The fossil fuel subsidy reform, when implemented together with nuclear phase-out, more than offsets negative consequences on household consumption but still leads to a decrease in global CO2 emissions. The combined policies help save the equivalent of current energy consumption in the Middle East. Combining a climate policy, an effective fossil fuel subsidy reform, even with a lower nuclear share in the power mix, brings about multiple benefits to OECD countries which reduce their energy bill and achieve large climate change mitigation at lower cost.     

Mobility endowment and entitlements mediate resilience in rural livelihood systems

In economically marginal rural areas, choice in livelihood strategy such as decisions to move location mediates levels of individual and household resilience under conditions of environmental change. It is widely recognised that endowments associated with mobility and the entitlement to mobility are unevenly distributed across populations. This paper integrates these insights and conceptualises location choice as a set of mobility endowments and mobility entitlements. Through focussing on endowments and entitlements, the paper explores how choice affects the ability to be mobile and its role in mediating levels of resilience to livelihood shocks associated with changing environmental conditions. The research design involves measuring the impact of different climatic perturbations in rural locations in Anhui Province, China. Mixed methods of rural appraisal, life history interviews, and a household survey generate objective and perceived elements of individual and household responses to risks. These data are augmented by biophysical observations on the nature of the climatic perturbations. The results show that mobility endowments and mobility entitlements are important in determining the impact of mobility on resilience. The life history interview data highlight significant individual agency within the structures that impact on individual choices. Further, individuals and households who possess the ability to decide and to subsequently enact decisions about mobility, are shown to be more resilient compared to other individuals and households that lack such ability. Moreover, households practicing short-term, circular mobility are more resilient than those households that practice long-term mobility. The study confirms that, in these instances, choice and the ability to enact those choices mediates resilience and highlights the implications of location decisions but also the conditions in which those decisions are made.     

Assessing decarbonization pathways and their implications for energy security policies in Japan

For countries without sufficient fossil fuel resources such as Japan, climate policies in the mid- to long term need to satisfy requirements not only for decarbonisation but also for energy security in the context of limitations on renewable energies and nuclear power. This study assesses the feasibility of decarbonization pathways to 2050 and their effects on energy security, considering the latest energy and climate policies in Japan using the AIM/Enduse model. The analysis illustrates that deep decarbonization by 2050 is technically feasible even without nuclear power based on three elements: energy efficiency improvements, low-carbon electricity and electrification in end-use sectors. These decarbonization pathways, in the long term, could also contribute to enhanced energy security, reducing import dependency to less than a half of the total primary energy and reducing import bills for fossil fuels by around 70% compared with the current level. Notably, renewable energies could play a strategically significant role in satisfying both climate and energy security requirements. In the mid-term (to 2030), however, although GHG emissions are reduced by 14–20% from 1990 levels, import dependency is relatively stable at today's levels, particularly without the restart of nuclear power. Given the limited potential for renewable energies in the mid-term, it is suggested that the availability of nuclear power will have negative impacts on carbon intensity and energy security, and policies to enhance the security of fossil fuels, including diversification of fuel sources and supply routes, will be required for the foreseeable future.

Policy relevance

Considering the scarcity of indigenous fossil fuel resources and the uncertain availability of nuclear power in Japan, renewable energy could play a strategically significant role in replacing unabated fossil fuels, which would contribute to satisfying both climate and energy security requirements in the long term. However, the renewable energy potential is insufficient to eliminate the requirement for fossil fuels by 2030; therefore the unavailability of nuclear power would affect energy security considerably. Thus, policies in the mid-term would still require enhancement of the energy security of fossil fuels, including the diversification of fuel sources and supply routes, as well as alleviation of the impacts of price volatility.     

Potential Scale-Related Problems in Estimating the Costs of CO2 Mitigation Policies

The scale-related problem addressed here relates to a difficulty in substituting away from fossil fuels as part of a policy designed to mitigate climate change. The replacement of fossil fuels by renewable forms of energy is a widely advocated means of reducing the build-up greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, the substitution, on a large-scale, of renewable, non-fossil fuel energy sources for fossil fuels requires using vast amounts of land to produce energy. It is shown that, with the exception of nuclear energy, almost all non-fossil fuel energy sources are highly land using, or land-intensive. In particular, the widespread substitution of renewables such as biomasses, wind, solar, and hydro for fossil fuels would require adapting large amounts of land to energy production, land which may have good alternative uses. Thus, the economic feasibility of producing, globally, relatively small amounts of renewable energies is not a good indicator of the feasibility of producing them on a large scale. This implies that substantial reduction in the use of fossil fuels requires the discovery and development of new non-land intensive energy technologies.     

Energy inequities within developing countries : An important concern in the global environmental change debate

A major theme of development during the half century since the end of World War II has been that of closing the affluence gap between the richer and poorer countries of the world. It is thus not surprising that a principal focus of the worldwide discussions on global environmental change during the past decade has been the issue of equity between countries. The evolving concept of sustainable development has drawn attention to the need of maintaining some equity between generations. In contrast, there has been relatively little attention paid to issues of equity within countries. In many parts of the world, the disparities within countries are as large as those between the developing and the industrialized countries, and these inequities need to be addressed much more explicitly than has been the case so far. In this paper, differences in energy use in South Asia between the low income and middle class households for cooking, transportation, and electricity, are used as illustrations of the disparities within countries. These have implications in terms of the impact of each group on the global environment, as well as on the local environment.     

Environmental stress and agricultural landownership in Africa

We examine how weather variability affects agricultural landownership rates in Africa, where at least half of the population depends on agriculture to earn a livelihood. In the absence of effective adaptation strategies, households that experience difficulties farming due to environmental stress might leave their land. With implications for demography – through migration – and political instability – when affected populations express grievances – changing landownership patterns could make existing development challenges on the continent even more difficult. We test our hypothesis that drier than average growing seasons will reduce landownership rates using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Our DHS dataset includes interviews with 850,961 households in 35 African countries between 2005 and 2017. Compared to regions experiencing weather near the historical average, those with five consecutive dry growing seasons before the DHS experienced a 6.93% decline in the landownership rate. For every additional dry growing season during the five years before each survey, the landownership rate fell by 1.38%. A host of robustness checks support our general conclusion that drying conditions are associated with lower landownership rates.     

Estimates of CO2 from wood fuel based on forest harvest data

Wood continues to be a major fuel source for vast numbers of the world's people. Even in the highly industrialized countries, use of wood and wood wastes as fuel produces a small (in comparison to fossil fuels) but non-negligible amount of CO₂. Although information on the worldwide harvest and use of wood is not as complete or as reliable as fossil fuel data, this paper uses what is available and develops annual estimates of CO₂ emissions for the period 1968–1983. Woods are separated into two types, coniferous and non-coniferous, and average content and carbon amounts are estimated for each type. Wood utilization is divided into several categories, e.g., fuelwood, lumber, poles, and use of wood wastes as fuels in the lumber and paper industries is included. Results are given for major world regions. In recent years the worldwide CO₂ emissions from wood used as fuels is estimated to be about one-tenth as much as CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels. This does not include fires in the forests, either associated with forest clearing or those from natural causes.     

Solar-hydrogen electricity generation in the context of global CO2 emission reduction

The relative costs and CO₂ emission reduction benefits of advanced centralized fossil fuel electricity generation, hybrid photovoltaic-fossil fuel electricity generation, and total solar electricity generation with hydrogen storage are compared. Component costs appropriate to the year 2000–2010 time frame are assumed throughout. For low insolation conditions (160 W m^–2 mean annual solar radiation), photovoltaic electricity could cost 5–13 cents/kWh by year 2000–2010, while for high insolation conditions (260 W m^–2) the cost could be 4–9 cents/kWh. Advanced fossil fuel-based power generation should achieve efficiencies of 50% using coal and 55% using natural gas. Carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by a factor of 2 to 3 compared to conventional coal-based electricity production in industrialized countries. In a solar-fossil fuel hybrid, some electricity would be supplied from solar energy whenever the sun is shining and remaining demand satisfied by fossil fuels. This increases total capital costs but saves on fuel costs. For low insolation conditions, the costs of electricity increases by 0–2 cents/kWh, while the cost of electricity decreases in many cases for high insolation conditions. Solar energy would provide 20% or 30% of electricity demand for the low and high insolation cases, respectively. In the solar-hydrogen energy system, some photovoltaic arrays would provide current electricity demand while others would be used to produce hydrogen electrolytically for storage and later use in fuel cells to generate electricity. Electricity costs from the solar-hydrogen system are 0.2–5.4 cents/kWh greater than from a natural gas power plant, and 1.0–4.5 cents/kWh greater than from coal plant for the cost and performance assumptions adopted here. The carbon tax required to make the solar-hydrogen system competitive with fossil fuels ranges from $70–660/tonne, depending on the cost and performance of system components and the future price of fossil fuels.Leakage of hydrogen from storage into the atmosphere, and the eventual transport of a portion of the leaked hydrogen to the stratosphere, would result in the formation of stratospheric water vapor. This could perturb stratospheric ozone amounts and contribute to global warming. Order-of-magnitude calculations indicate that, for a leakage rate of 0.5% yr^–1 of total hydrogen production -which might be characteristic of underground hydrogen storage - the global warming effect of solarhydrogen electricity generation is comparable to that of a natural gas-solar energy hybrid system after one year of emission, but is on the order of 1% the impact of the hybrid system at a 100 year time scale. Impacts on stratospheric ozone are likely to be minuscule.     

Biomass strategies for climate policies?

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of the BEAP linear programming model that has been developed to study the optimal use of biomass and land for greenhouse gas emission reduction, notably the competition between food production, biomass production for energy and materials and afforestation. The model results suggest up to 100 EJ biomass use in case of global policies (about 20% of global primary energy use). The biomass is used for industrial and residential heating, transportation fuels and as a feedstock for plastics. In the electricity markets competing emission reduction options are more cost-effective than biomass. In case the Kyoto protocol is continued beyond 2010 the developed countries can rely in 2020–2030 on afforestation and land use change credits from developing countries, without any major use of other emission reduction strategies. However, in case of a planning perspective of more than half a century bioenergy is preferred instead of afforestation. The results indicate a limited impact on global agricultural trade, but food demand may be affected by CO₂ policies.     

Whose carbon is burnable? Equity considerations in the allocation of a “right to extract”

Carbon emissions—and hence fossil fuel combustion—must decline rapidly if warming is to be held below 1.5 or 2 °C. Yet fossil fuels are so deeply entrenched in the broader economy that a rapid transition poses the challenge of significant transitional disruption. Fossil fuels must be phased out even as access to energy services for basic needs and for economic development expands, particularly in developing countries. Nations, communities, and workers that are economically dependent on fossil fuel extraction will need to find a new foundation for livelihoods and revenue. These challenges are surmountable. In principle, societies could undertake a decarbonization transition in which they anticipate the transitional disruption, and cooperate and contribute fairly to minimize and alleviate it. Indeed, if societies do not work to avoid that disruption, a decarbonization transition may not be possible at all. Too many people may conclude they will suffer undue hardship, and thus undermine the political consensus required to undertake an ambitious transition. The principles and framework laid out here are offered as a contribution to understanding the nature of the potential impacts of a transition, principles for equitably sharing the costs of avoiding them, and guidance for prioritizing which fossil resources can still be extracted.     

The new global growth path: implications for climate change analysis and policy

In recent years the world has moved to a new path of rapid global growth, largely driven by the developing countries, which is energy intensive and heavily reliant on the use of coal—global coal use will rise by nearly 60% over the decade to 2010. It is likely that, without changes to the policies in place in 2006, global CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion would nearly double their 2000 level by 2020 and would continue to rise beyond 2030. Neither the SRES marker scenarios nor the reference cases assembled in recent studies using integrated assessment models capture this abrupt shift to rapid growth based on fossil fuels, centred in key Asian countries. While policy changes must and will occur, the realism of the reference case is critical for analysis and policy formulation. Using such a reference path will have significant effects on impact and damage estimates, on the analysis of achievable stabilisation paths and on estimates of the costs of achieving stabilisation at a given GHG concentration level. Use of a realistic reference path is also essential for the international negotiations, arising out of the COP13 meeting in Bali, to achieve widely desired stabilisation goals: both the level of emission reductions to be achieved, and the preferred distribution of those reductions over countries and regions, will be heavily influenced by the reference case assumed.     

Drivers of national climate policy

Patterns of national climate policy performance and their implications for the geopolitics of climate change are examined. An overview of levels of emissions performance across countries is first provided. Substantial changes in emissions trends over time are documented, notably with GHG emissions trajectories, which are shaped less and less by the developed/developing country divide. Various patterns of policy convergence and divergence in the types of policies states implement are then surveyed. Four broad types of explanation that may account for these trends are then explored: (1) variation in the institutional form of country-level governance regimes, (2) patterns of dependence on fossil fuel energy, (3) broad systemic differences among states (specifically in their population densities, carbon intensity, and per capita incomes, and (4) variations in the traditions of economic intervention by states. The article contributes to the growing body of work on comparative climate policy, and provides a first attempt at exploring the comparative politics of instrument choice. The analysis challenges the continued importance of a North–South divide for the future of climate policy, thus reinforcing a sense of the ‘new geopolitics’ of climate change. Some of the implications of the analysis for debates about the form of future international agreement on mitigation policy are also explored.

Policy relevance

The article contributes to the understanding of the variety of institutional conditions under which policy makers develop policy and thus the constraints and opportunities for the design of international agreements under these conditions.