IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v10y2022i1p246-255.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Process of Including Shipping in EU Emissions Trading: Multi-Level Reinforcement Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Jørgen Wettestad

    (Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway)

  • Lars H. Gulbrandsen

    (Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway)

Abstract

As part of the EU Green Deal initiative in 2019, the EU Commission decided to develop a proposal to include emissions from shipping in the EU emissions trading system. This occurred only one year after the Commission had heralded the emissions reduction agreement negotiated in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a significant step forward—thereby signalling support for the IMO process. We apply a multi-level reinforcement perspective to explain this apparent policy volte-face, resulting in a Commission proposal in July 2021 which is now moving through institutions in the EU. Such a perspective notes the “friendly” competition for leadership among central actors at various levels in the EU—particularly the Commission, the European Parliament, and leading member states. We find, first, that the inclusion of shipping is in line with the broadening ambitions of the Commission since the start of the emissions trading system. Second, until 2019, the Parliament carried the regulatory torch. A turning point in the policymaking process was the inclusion of the shipping issue in Ursula von der Leyen’s programme for getting accepted by the Parliament and elected as Commission leader in 2019. From then on, the Commission again took the lead. Third, despite the 2018 IMO agreement, progress there was deemed slow, which further motivated EU policymakers to act unilaterally.

Suggested Citation

  • Jørgen Wettestad & Lars H. Gulbrandsen, 2022. "On the Process of Including Shipping in EU Emissions Trading: Multi-Level Reinforcement Revisited," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 246-255.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:246-255
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v10i1.4848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4848
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4848?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:246-255. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.