Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-1 (section)

=== 1.4.5 Political Economy ===

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The politics of interest (most especially economic interest) of key actors at sub-national, national and global levels can be important determinants of climate (in)action ( [[#O’Hara--2009|O’Hara 2009]] ; [[#Lo--2010|Lo 2010]] ; [[#Tanner--2011|Tanner and Allouche 2011]] ; [[#Sovacool--2015|Sovacool et al. 2015]] ; [[#Lohmann--2017|Lohmann 2017]] ; [[#Clapp--2018|Clapp et al. 2018]] ; [[#Newell--2018|Newell and Taylor 2018]] ; [[#Lohmann--2019|Lohmann 2019]] ). Political economy approaches can be crudely divided into ‘economic approaches to politics’, and those used by other social scientists ( [[#Paterson--2018|Paterson and P‐Laberge 2018]] ). The former shows how electoral concerns lead to weak treaties ( [[#Battaglini--2016|Battaglini and Harstad 2016]] ) and when policy negotiations cause status-quo biases and the use of inefficient policy instruments ( [[#Austen-Smith--2019|Austen-Smith et al. 2019]] ) or delays and excessive harmonisation ( [[#Harstad--2007|Harstad 2007]] ). The latter emphasises the central role of structures of power and production, and a commitment to economic growth and capital accumulation in relation to climate action, given the historically central role of fossil fuels to economic development and the deep embedding of fossil energy in daily life ( [[#Newell--2010|Newell and Paterson 2010]] ; [[#Huber--2012|Huber 2012]] ; [[#Di%20Muzio--2015|Di Muzio 2015]] ; [[#Malm--2015|Malm 2015]] ).

The economic centrality of fossil fuels raises obvious questions regarding the possibility of decarbonisation. Economically, this is well understood as a problem of decoupling. But the constraint is also political, in terms of the power of incumbent fossil fuel interests to block initiatives towards decarbonisation ( [[#Jones--2009|Jones and Levy 2009]] ; [[#Newell--2010|Newell and Paterson 2010]] ; [[#Geels--2014|Geels 2014]] ). The effects of climate policy are key considerations in deciding the level of policy ambition and direction and strategies of states ( [[#Lo--2010|Lo 2010]] ; [[#Alam--2013|Alam et al. 2013]] ; [[#Ibikunle--2014|Ibikunle and Okereke 2014]] ), regions ( [[#Goldthau--2015|Goldthau and Sitter 2015]] ), and business actors ( [[#Wittneben--2012|Wittneben et al. 2012]] ), and there is a widespread cultural assumption that continued fossil fuel use is central to this ( [[#Strambo--2020|Strambo and Espinosa 2020]] ). Decarbonisation strategies are often centred around projects to develop new sources of economic activity: carbon markets creating new commodities ( [[#Newell--2010|Newell and Paterson 2010]] ); investment generated in new urban infrastructure ( [[#Whitehead--2013|Whitehead 2013]] ); and/or innovations in a range of new energy technologies ( [[#Fankhauser--2013|Fankhauser et al. 2013]] ; [[#Lachapelle--2017|Lachapelle et al. 2017]] ; [[#Meckling--2018|Meckling and Nahm 2018]] ).

Onefactor limiting the ambition of climate policy has been the ability of incumbent industries to shape government action on climate change ( [[#Newell--1998|Newell and Paterson 1998]] ; [[#Jones--2009|Jones and Levy 2009]] ; [[#Geels--2014|Geels 2014]] ; [[#Breetz--2018|Breetz et al. 2018]] ). Incumbent industries are often more concentrated than those benefiting from climate policy and lobby more effectively to prevent losses than those who would gain ( [[#Meng--2019|Meng and Rode 2019]] ). Drawing upon wider networks ( [[#Brulle--2014|Brulle 2014]] ), campaigns by oil and coal companies against climate action in the United States of America and Australia are perhaps the most well known and largely successful of these ( [[#Pearse--2017|Pearse 2017]] ; [[#Brulle--2020|Brulle et al. 2020]] ; [[#Mildenberger--2020|Mildenberger 2020]] ; [[#Stokes--2020|Stokes 2020]] ), although similar dynamics have been demonstrated in Brazil and South Africa ( [[#Hochstetler--2020|Hochstetler 2020]] ), Canada ( [[#Harrison--2018|Harrison 2018]] ), and Norway and Germany ( [[#Fitzgerald--2019|Fitzgerald et al. 2019]] ), for example. In other contexts, resistance by incumbent companies is more subtle but nevertheless has weakened policy design on emissions trading systems ( [[#Rosembloom--2020|Rosembloom and Markard 2020]] ), and limited the development of alternative-fuelled automobiles ( [[#Levy--2003|Levy and Egan 2003]] ; [[#Wells--2012|Wells and Nieuwenhuis 2012]] ).

The interaction of politics, power and economics is central in explaining why countries with higher per-capita emissions, which logically have more opportunities to reduce emissions, in practice often take the opposite stance, and conversely, why some low-emitting countries may find it easier to pursue climate action because they have fewer vested interests in high-carbon economies. These dynamics can arise from the vested interest of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) ( [[#Wittneben--2012|Wittneben et al. 2012]] ; [[#Polman--2015|Polman 2015]] ; [[#Wright--2017|Wright and Nyberg 2017]] ), the alignment and coalitions of countries in climate negotiations ( [[#Gupta--2016|Gupta 2016]] ; [[#Okereke--2016|Okereke and Coventry 2016]] ), and the patterns of opposition to or support for climate policy among citizens ( [[#Baker--2015|Baker 2015]] ; [[#Swilling--2016|Swilling et al. 2016]] ; [[#Heffron--2018|Heffron and McCauley 2018]] ; [[#Ransan-Cooper--2018|Ransan-Cooper et al. 2018]] ; [[#Turhan--2019|Turhan et al. 2019]] ).

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