The European Green Deal: What Prospects for Governing Climate Change With Policy Monitoring?

Abstract

The European Green Deal (EGD) puts forward and engages with review mechanisms, such as the European Semester and policy monitoring, to ensure progress towards the long-term climate targets in a turbulent policy environment. Soft-governance mechanisms through policy monitoring have been long in the making, but their design, effects, and politics remain surprisingly under-researched. While some scholars have stressed their importance to climate governance, others have highlighted the difficulties in implementing robust policy monitoring systems, suggesting that they are neither self-implementing nor apolitical. This article advances knowledge on climate policy monitoring in the EU by proposing a new analytical framework to better understand past, present, and potential future policy monitoring efforts, especially in the context of the EGD. Drawing on Lasswell (1965), it unpacks the politics of policy monitoring by analysing <em>who </em>monitors,<em> what</em>,<em> why</em>,<em> when</em>,<em> and with what effect(s)</em>. The article discusses each element of the framework with a view to three key climate policy monitoring efforts in the EU which are particularly relevant for the EGD, namely those emerging from the Energy Efficiency Directive, the Renewable Energy Directive, and the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (now included in the Energy Union Governance Regulation), as well as related processes for illustration. Doing so reveals that the policy monitoring regimes were set up differently in each case, that definitions of the subject of monitoring (i.e., public policies) either differ or remain elusive, and that the corresponding political and policy impact of monitoring varies. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of the findings for governing climate change by means of monitoring through the emerging EGD.

Masters of the machinery: The politics of economic modelling within European Union energy policy

“…This matters for energy transitions because "low scenario projections such as the IEA's are likely to deter investments in innovation and development that would otherwise occur" (Carrington and Stephenson, 2018;2214). Modelling can also be a tool within wider negotiations of power; for example, of EU authority relative to member states (Schoenefeld, 2021).…”

“…For example, in Schoenefeld's aforementioned (2021) paper, 'politics' mainly concerns such matters as the relative influence of monitoring agencies, with non-governmental actors receiving relatively little attention, and corporate/industrial actors not mentioned. Schoenefeld states (regarding the European Green Deal policy package) that policy monitoring might become either a "paper tiger" (in other words, an ineffectual process) or a crucial institutional condition steering a low-carbon transition (Schoenefeld, 2021;376). The assumption here is that if monitoring has effects, these will be positive, and that all actors involved share an agenda around low-carbon transitions.…”

“…Aykut (2019) reports that in the 1970s, activist groups used new modelling techniques to propose alternative future-visions, enabling new forms of political intervention. Interestingly, Schoenefeld notes that "the EU has often sought to depoliticise monitoring and avoid, for example, ranking countries to enable naming and shaming" (Schoenefeld, 2021;375); in contrast, NGOs often adopt exactly this ranking approach as a tool for political pressure; e.g. Guertler et al (2015).…”

“…These decisions are crucial because they feed into all other aspects of model design. One modeller explained the importance of question framing: Schoenefeld (2021) highlights the question of whether only territorial greenhouse gas emissions (not the full footprint) are included within the scope of a model. In our findings, the definition of which impacts to include emerged as an especially important aspect of framing questions.…”

“…Such debates matter for energy transitions, and a sizeable political science literature explores the politics of evidence within energy/climate policy. This includes recent work on the EU, for example, on: how (re) framing energy efficiency has consolidated EU authority (Dupont, 2020); the politics of policy-monitoring in relation to the European Green Deal (Schoenefeld, 2021) and power-relations inherent in notion of 'valid' evidence (Royston and Foulds, 2021). This work suggests that evidence in energy policy is always political.…”