Knowledge in Climate Policy Integration: How non‐governmental organizations re‐frame the sciences of indirect land‐use changes for policy‐makers

Abstract

In political debates about indirect land‐use changes (iLUCs) caused by biofuel development, environmental non‐governmental organizations (ENGOs) have demanded that the formulation of policies should be based on scientific evidence. However, scientific knowledge cannot become the basis of climate policy integration without agency input. Against this backdrop, this article analyses how the characterization of iLUCs alters as ENGOs mediate the knowledge of iLUC‐associated research into European Union (EU) policy‐making. After outlining the methodology of the frame analysis, I demonstrate how the different fields of scientific inquiry characterize iLUCs as contingent, uncertain and diverse. However, ENGOs re‐frame this phenomenon as determined, certain and unified. ENGOs transform the complexity of iLUCs into a form that is compatible with the EU's modality of approaching biofuels as a question of the decarbonization of transport. Finally, there was an opportunity through appraising iLUCs to revisit the criticized governance of biofuels, but which was not grasped by the EU. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

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