Carbon Reduction Commitment

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) was originally conceived to start operating as a Ôcap and tradeÕ scheme in April 2010. Organisations were required to purchase allowances for their carbon dioxide emissions, a limited number being available from government with the ability to buy additional allowances from other

Figure 2. The development of UK climate policy

Source: CCC (2011, p.103)

organisations if the initial allocation was insufÞcient (Environment Agency, 2010, pp.

4-5). The scheme regulates the largest public and private sector organisations which fall below the threshold for membership of the similarly market-based EU Emissions Trading Scheme or are not covered by Climate Change Agreements, covering most of EnglandÕs upper tier local authorities.

The schemeÕs name was changed before launch to add the words Ôenergy efÞciencyÓ, suggesting a perception that the Þnancial beneÞts of action must be emphasised rather than an appeal to reducing emissions for their own sake. The CRC was Òdesigned to raise awarenessÓ for improving energy efÞciency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions (Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2010a). This echoed the successes attributed to the Climate Change Levy introduced in 2001, with the policy being at its most effective prior to full implementation as industry hurried to increase efÞciency in order to reduce the cost of the Levy once it was introduced (Ekins and Etheridge, 2006, p.2080; House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 2008b, p.11). Financial beneÞts are also provided by returning permit revenues to organisations according to their

performance compared with other participants during the year (Environment Agency, 2010, p.4). The potential for bad publicity from poor performance has the potential to spur greater high-level action within an organisation than uncertain Þnancial beneÞts.

This policy design provided the basis for local authoritiesÕ planning on how best to respond to the CRC. However, the scheme was altered signiÞcantly in the early stages of the Þeldwork for this research project. The Þrst Comprehensive Spending Review under the new Cameron Government removed the trading element, signiÞcantly increasing the likely costs to local authorities (HM Treasury, 2010, p.62;

Williams, 2010). The implications of this for local authorities are examined in section 6.6.3 (see pages 225-228).

2.8 Conclusion

This chapter has set out the historical context for researching subnational climate policy, from its emergence as a global issue in 1988 to its prominent position in public policy twenty years later. The developing strategic role of local authorities within the broader realm of environmental policy in the late 1980s became more concrete and widespread following the arrival of LA21. This development of local capacity and space for environmental policy was a precursor for the localisation of climate change as a policy issue. This extension of sustainable development from being primarily a global agenda to one having a strong local dimension was mirrored by later developments in climate change mitigation, which moved from being an issue driven by scientiÞc evidence and global negotiations to one also of interest to local policy-makers. Climate change Þtted well with the existing growth in local environmental concerns as it was typically painted as an environmental issue by national government, with climate policy documents being issued by governmentÕs environmental departments (Department of the Environment, 1994, 1997; DEFRA,

2006a, 2006b). However, without clear guidance on the local relevance of climate change as a policy issue, a piecemeal approach developed within local authorities with a large gap developing between the most active councils and the 'long tail' who were doing little or nothing to engage with the issue.

While the Blair Government provided new impetus in the shape of greater prioritisation and stronger targets for emission reductions, there remained a

disregard for the role of local authorities in climate policy. In the continued absence of central government setting a clear role for local authorities, the Nottingham Declaration developed as a 'bottom-up' symbol of local government's commitment to the issue. The Blair Government was clearer on the responsibilities of the new regional organisations for sustainable development in conjunction with strategic issues such as economic growth, planning and transport. As with local authorities, an initial focus on sustainable development created the conditions for climate change to emerge as a regional policy issue. Within the East Midlands, this led to the formation of a new climate change partnership between a small number of regional actors which developed a regional Programme of Action.

Almost twenty years after climate change Þrst became prominent within global policy, its climb up the policy agenda was such that it became by far the dominant environmental issue within the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, a set of documents which provided the context for the NIs and new local government performance framework. This marked the Þrst instance of explicit top-down

direction to local authorities on climate policy in the form of indicators by which the carbon dioxide emissions of local areas and local authorities could be measured.

These provided a focus for local government action and targets for emissions reduction were enthusiastically adopted by local authorities across England and particularly within the East Midlands where all Local Strategic Partnerships made reducing emissions a core priority. This provides a key context for researching the work done by East Midlands councils in implementing climate policy, particularly with the focus being placed on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions rather than other areas over which local authorities potentially hold more inßuence.

More generally, the waxing and waning of sustainable development as a policy issue echoes Downs's issue-attention cycle, which proposed that environmental issues begin with expert knowledge, gain notoriety with public discovery before gradually falling in priority as the scale of the problem becomes clear and newer issues vie for a limited supply of public attention (1972, pp.39-42). The emergence of climate change overtook sustainable development as the environmental issue of primary concern to policy-makers in the 2000s as UK media coverage of climate change grew signiÞcantly (Boykoff, 2011, p.26). As local authorities begin to face the

difÞculties of implementing policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, exacerbated by signiÞcantly reduced budgets (Travers, 2011, pp.8-9), climate change may suffer a similar decline in attention as sustainable development and other environmental issues have done previously (Lockwood, 2011).

The 2008 Climate Change Act continued the trend for scientiÞc evidence providing the primary input for climate policy, setting policy goals and timeframes

commensurate with modelling by climatologists looking to keep global temperature increases below levels seen as dangerous to society. While this appeared a rational approach, it risked understating the difÞculties of introducing measures which would bring about unprecedented decarbonisation across all areas of public policy. It is argued that this constituted a Òknowledge-driven model ... [where] ... it is assumed that research leads policyÓ, scientists providing the initial impetus before government investment brings a policy to fruition (Young et al., 2002, p.216, original emphasis).

This rational-scientiÞc approach to policy-making again raises the question of the extent and effectiveness of climate policy implementation.

In summary, focusing on carbon dioxide emissions as an indicator of progress places climate policy at something of a disconnect from more everyday issues of public policy. The late 2000s marked a period of enthusiasm for action to achieve signiÞcant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions but without strong guidance from the centre on how subnational actors could meet such ambitions. With the use of carbon-intensive energy intrinsic to almost every aspect of society there was the potential for policy-makers to address a plethora of sources for carbon dioxide emissions.

These various interpretations of climate policy could become further complicated by the emphasis on partnership working between local and regional actors. Rather than bringing about an agreement between partners on addressing climate change (Bulkeley and Kern, 2006, p.2255), partnerships may provide only a "shallow

consensus" displacing a discussion of the more fundamental economic and social implications of carbon reduction targets (Davies, 2009, p.81). Whereas sustainable development explicitly ties together the environmental, social and economic, climate policy rests far more on evidence from the scientiÞc world, leaving a gap with the socio-political world of public policy. Multiple, diverse interpretations can be

expected to ßourish in each approach, but in sustainable development, the inclusion of social concerns holds out a greater prospect for such interpretations to be considered as part of the policy-making process. The rational-scientiÞc approach to evidence and targets embodied within climate policy implies that such

interpretations are more likely to be seen as deviant than diverse, leading to the perception of an implementation ÔgapÕ.

The next chapter develops these ideas further, with a review of the interpretive approach in the social sciences, a broad view of how this has been applied in the public policy literature, and a speciÞc examination of Bevir and RhodesÕs decentred approach and the its links to implementation studies.

3. Interpretation and policy: a