The Politics of Climate Change (18 page)

Combating climate change demands long-term policies: how are these to be kept at the forefront of political concern? What can be done to keep global warming firmly on the political agenda? Agenda-setting theory helps supply some of the answers.
¹⁹
It concerns how and why different policy questions figure prominently in the programmes of governments while others tend to recede into the background or even disappear altogether. How far a given set of problems receives public and policy attention does not just depend upon its objective importance, but upon a range of other factors too. In democratic countries, numerous areas of concern at any one time jostle for attention in the public sphere. Very often, transient issues outweigh more permanent and profound ones in terms of the attention they receive in the political arena.

Three aspects of the political agenda can be identified. First, there is the ‘public agenda', which refers to issues felt to be most important by voters at any specific point in time. Second, the ‘governmental agenda' is about the questions that are under debate in parliament and surrounding agencies. Finally, the ‘decision agenda' refers to a more limited set of policies that are actually being enacted. Each of these dimensions is limited in terms of the numbers of issues that can be considered at any particular moment. Hence, there is competition between items that press for attention.

According to John Kingdon, the leading author in the field, who coined these terms, the political agenda at a given time is the result of the interaction of different ‘streams' of concerns, which he labels problems, policies and politics. They sometimes converge, but also often flow on largely independently of one another, with their own rules and conventions, personnel and dynamics. What actually gets done depends upon the points at which they connect, which canny political players manage to exploit. There is much more chance that an issue will command the interest of policy-makers at such a point – a window of opportunity opens. Kingdon's now classic work,
Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies
, starts with a resounding quote from Victor Hugo, ‘Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.'
²⁰
But how can we know when the time for an idea has come? Why do those in and around government, at any particular point, attend to some issues and not others?

The problem stream comes to the attention of policy-makers, Kingdon says, through indicators, focusing events and feedback. Indicators are measuring devices that reveal the scale of the problem in question. They allow a process to be monitored. Thus a continuing issue may actually become a ‘problem' when a change is witnessed, as when unemployment or crime rates go up. Shifts in indicators may be enough to push an item onto the agenda, but issues are more likely to attract attention when propelled into the limelight as a result of dramatic events that bring them into focus. A focusing event may be anything that catches the headlines, such as a particularly violent crime.

Feedback concerns the responses of different groups, or the public at large, to particular policy programmes. It is almost always negative feedback that highlights a given problem – policies or practices that are working well don't get reported. Nor do they tend to spark the interest of the public, which is most often stimulated when things go wrong or are seen to be going wrong. How events and reactions to them become framed – for example, how far a given problem is seen as open to government intervention or not – is of great importance in determining actual outcomes.

Work in the policy stream tends to be continuous. It goes on
without much day-to-day reference to what moods may grip the public, and is pursued by specialists and experts within policy communities. Such work generates many possible policy proposals, but only a few ever make it onto the concrete political agenda. They are quite often ‘solutions' waiting for problems – that is to say, they provide avenues for political intervention when the need for it arises as driven by a specific focusing event or set of events. The availability of ‘solutions' is very important. Problems which do not come with potential courses of remedial action attached are not likely to get onto the agenda. Rather, they are accepted as situations that have to be lived with, and normally do not rate highly among the worries expressed by the public.

Organized interest groups of one kind or another play a role in shaping public opinion and limiting or opening out space for governmental action. However, what Kingdon calls the ‘national mood' has a major impact upon when, where and how the problem, policy and political streams converge. For instance, when the mood is ‘anti-government', voters may simply tune out from whatever strategies the government of the day might propose.

Some windows of opportunity are predictable – annual budgets, for example, usually provide an opportunity for a new departure. Most, however, are not, and policy entrepreneurs must therefore be prepared to grasp the opportunity when it presents itself, or to mobilize to block it. Public enthusiasm for a given policy agenda rarely lasts long, even when an issue is of continuing and manifest importance. In fact, studies show, it most often turns to disillusionment or indifference when the problem is not one that admits of a simple solution. Cynicism, unwillingness to make sacrifices, the perception that the costs are too great, or simply boredom can supplant the initial burst of public concern and support. With a constant search for novelty, and a distaste for ‘yesterday's news', the media undoubtedly play a substantial role in public shifts in attention.

The implications for climate change policy are clear and significant. Public support for such policy is not likely to be constant and can only form a general backdrop to effective policy action. I have argued that anxiety about future risk
can't be used as the sole motivator of public opinion, and that conclusion is backed up by studies of other risks and how people respond to them. For instance, concern about terrorism tends to move up and down the list of major public concerns depending exactly upon the factors identified by Kingdon – for instance, whether or not there has been a focusing incident of some kind. Worries not linked in the public mind with clear modes of response quickly slip down people's ratings of what disturbs them most. Talk of impending catastrophe – whatever the risk in question – has little impact and indeed may induce an attitude of fatalism that blunts action. Fatalism in response to risk is a common reaction, visible in many who choose to pay no heed to health warnings about their lifestyle habits.

A cross-party concordat, as discussed below, would give a firm anchor for climate change as a continuing preoccupation of the ‘policy stream'. A diversity of groups in civil society – also discussed below – will certainly continue to press to keep necessary reforms and innovations going. Yet public support will be needed and it cannot be only latent. Based on Kingdon's work, Sarah Pralle suggests a number of ways in which public interest and concern can be charged and recharged. Indicators, if they are straightforward and easy to grasp, could have an important role; and with the continued advance of climate science, they are certainly abundant. A few key indicators, especially where they can be linked to focusing events, should be highlighted. However, they shouldn't be of the doom and gloom variety, but linked to potentially positive outcomes – to efforts that groups and communities are making to lessen the threats.

Problems that relate to people's immediate experience are most likely to be taken seriously. Rightly or wrongly, hurricane Katrina and the 2003 European heat waves made the impact they did upon the consciousness of citizens in the developed countries because they were ‘close to home'. Only a small proportion of people in the industrial countries currently agree with the statement, ‘My life is directly affected by global warming and climate change.'
²¹
They are also far more likely, on average, to be taking concrete measures to reduce their own carbon consumption. Most important of all, policy entrepreneurs should always connect problems with potential
remedies or solutions. However, those solutions themselves must have ‘salience' – they have to supply the motivation to act. One hundred books on one hundred ways to reduce your carbon footprint will have less effect than just one that is geared to what people are positively motivated to do.

Many have bemoaned the convergence of parties towards the centre ground in contemporary politics, but in the environmental field at least this could be a major advantage. Equating being in the political centre with an absence of radicalism only applies in the case of traditional left–right issues. As I have argued earlier, if one doesn't think in this way, it is entirely possible to have a ‘radicalism of the centre' – indeed, in terms of climate change and energy policy it is an essential concept.

What does a ‘radicalism of the centre' mean? It means, first of all, gaining widespread public support for radical actions – that is, for the conjunction of innovation and long-term thinking which is the condition necessary for responding to climate change. It implies the reform of the state. Climate change and energy security are such serious issues, and they affect so many other aspects of the political field, that a concern with them has to be introduced across all branches of government. Most of the industrial states are coming to recognize this, although progress on the ground tends to be slow. Climate change is generally allocated to the environment ministry, which, in turn, is rarely one of the most powerful in influencing government. Such ministries are quite often separate from those dealing with transport and energy, health or overseas development. Power lies mostly where the money is: in the Treasury or finance ministry. Yet from now on, where the money is will be influenced enormously by climate change and energy questions, so it is in everyone's interest that these issues achieve the primacy of place they deserve.

It is normal and acceptable for political parties to claim that they, rather than their opponents, are the ones to turn to for firm action on global warming. Yet beyond a certain
area, and beyond the rhetoric of immediate party politics, there has to be agreement that the issue is so important and all-encompassing that the usual party conflicts are largely suspended or muted.

The disastrous situation in American politics, discussed in the previous chapter, shows what happens where there is political polarization around climate change. Fortunately, the US here is very much the exception rather than the rule insofar as the vast majority of countries in the world are concerned.

How a cross-party consensus might be achieved was explored in a British context in a comprehensive report on the issue produced by an all-party group in Parliament. The group tried to reach a consensus about consensus and, to a significant degree, it succeeded in so doing. The objective was to investigate ‘the potential of a cross-party consensus on climate change to try to look beyond the tendency of politics to dwell in the terrain of competition for short-term advantage'.
²²
Is a consensus desirable and, if so, what form should it take?

A wide range of opinions was solicited for the inquiry. Some argued that a consensus would in fact be undesirable, since it would be likely to stifle debate and the critical examination to which all political proposals and policies should be subject. Moreover, they pointed out, a consensus could potentially lead to a loss of public attention and awareness for the issue. In addition, reaching shared agreement might mean opting for the lowest common denominator (much as has happened in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto negotiations).

However, while recognizing the force of these points, the large majority of contributors accepted that a consensus across the parties was not only possible, but necessary. There was more agreement about the need for a consensus on targets for emissions reductions than upon how they should best be reached. Yet many emphasized the importance of overall agreement about means as well as ends. Policies initiated by one government in areas such as fiscal measures or investment in R&D and technology would have to have a core of stability across changes of government.

Cross-party agreement has to be robust, since there will be a clear temptation for parties to sacrifice longer-term goals
in pursuit of immediate political advantage, especially when unpopular decisions have to be taken. A consensus that focuses only on goals, even if it involves a general agreement on targets, is likely to be too weak to be effective. The chairman of the committee, Colin Challen, MP, expressed the point forcefully:

Until a binding consensus is reached, there will always be the danger that any party proposing the really tough measures necessary to tackle the problem will face . . . the strong likelihood that another party will present the electorate with a ‘get out of jail free card' for their own electoral advantage. . . . There seems little point in drawing together a consensus that is merely promoting motherhood and apple pie. It is clear that the purpose of the consensus is to overcome the severe tension between short-term electoral politics and long-term climate change goals, a tension which has to date resulted in the triumph of short-termism.
²³

The committee concluded that a consensus doesn't have to be ‘all or nothing' in order to work. It should concentrate upon targets and upon a long-term policy framework that would offer a reasonable chance of meeting the targets. Examples already exist where a cross-party consensus has been formed and clear results have been produced – such as that which helped lead to a settlement in Northern Ireland.

A main recommendation was that an independent body be set up to monitor progress towards targets; and that the prime minister of the day should be held directly responsible for the cross-party consensus process. Such an agency was in fact later set up, in the shape of the Climate Change Committee, coupled with the introduction of legal obligations on the part of successive governments to make specific progress towards the targets (see above, pp. 84–6). Several other countries, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Japan, have set up similar programmes to try to create and preserve cross-party agreements.