IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ieaple/v15y2015i2p217-236.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The blending of discourses in Sweden’s “urge to go ahead” in climate politics

Author

Listed:
  • Mathias Zannakis

Abstract

This paper investigates what made possible Sweden’s “urge to go ahead” in climate policy, an issue particularly interesting given the problem with non-compliance in the climate regime. The material reveals that there was tension regarding how great burden Sweden should shoulder and to what extent emissions reductions should be made domestically. Despite this tension, Sweden decided to have a more ambitious national target (−4 %) than required by the EU burden sharing agreement (+4 %), which allocated the EU’s Kyoto Protocol targets within EU-15. It was also decided that emissions reductions should not account for the flexible mechanisms or carbon sinks. Importantly, the national −4 % target was over-implemented (−16 % in 1990–2011). These decisions were institutionalized until the center-right government in 2009 formulated the 2020 targets. Using argumentative discourse analysis, I conclude that what made possible Sweden’s comparatively ambitious climate policy was the discourse coalitions (although different in character) formed around primarily two story lines that were blended: Opportunity (in line with the discourse on ecological modernization) and Ecological Justice (in line with the discourse on civic environmentalism). However, the latter was de-emphasized by the center-right government that came to power in 2006, reflecting the influence of a Sacrifice story line and the increased importance of the norm of cost-efficiency. Convincing others about the truthfulness of the Opportunity story line would possibly be effective for making others willing to commit to obligations and actually implement them. However, the diminishing importance of the Ecological Justice story line may affect negatively how Sweden is viewed internationally. If the overarching aim is to get as many countries as possible to commit to and comply with quantitative commitments within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, then it might not only be of importance whether Sweden can “deliver” but possibly also how one delivers. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Mathias Zannakis, 2015. "The blending of discourses in Sweden’s “urge to go ahead” in climate politics," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 217-236, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ieaple:v:15:y:2015:i:2:p:217-236
    DOI: 10.1007/s10784-013-9235-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10784-013-9235-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10784-013-9235-0?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801.
    2. Kander, Astrid, 2005. "Baumol's disease and dematerialization of the economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 119-130, October.
    3. Dryzek, John S. & Stevenson, Hayley, 2011. "Global democracy and earth system governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1865-1874, September.
    4. Steven Sarasini, 2009. "Constituting leadership via policy: Sweden as a pioneer of climate change mitigation," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 14(7), pages 635-653, October.
    5. Sevasti-Eleni Vezirgiannidou, 2009. "The Climate Change Regime Post-Kyoto: Why Compliance is Important and How to Achieve it," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 9(4), pages 41-63, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clint T. Lewis & Ming-Chien Su, 2021. "Climate Change Adaptation and Sectoral Policy Coherence in the Caribbean," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-22, July.
    2. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    3. John M. Gowdy, 2013. "Valuing nature for climate change policy: from discounting the future to truly social deliberation," Chapters, in: Roger Fouquet (ed.), Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, chapter 25, pages 547-560, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Lederer, Markus, 2011. "From CDM to REDD+ -- What do we know for setting up effective and legitimate carbon governance?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1900-1907, September.
    5. Savona, Maria & Ciarli, Tommaso, 2019. "Structural Changes and Sustainability. A Selected Review of the Empirical Evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 244-260.
    6. Luca Coscieme & Paul Sutton & Lars F. Mortensen & Ida Kubiszewski & Robert Costanza & Katherine Trebeck & Federico M. Pulselli & Biagio F. Giannetti & Lorenzo Fioramonti, 2019. "Overcoming the Myths of Mainstream Economics to Enable a New Wellbeing Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-17, August.
    7. Renat Perelet, Serguey Pegov and Mikhail Yulkin, 2007. "Climate Change. Russia Country Paper," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2007-12, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    8. Ahmed Bilal Awan & Muhammad Zubair & Praveen R. P. & Ahmed G. Abokhalil, 2018. "Solar Energy Resource Analysis and Evaluation of Photovoltaic System Performance in Various Regions of Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-27, April.
    9. Stéphane Hallegatte, 2008. "A Proposal for a New Prescriptive Discounting Scheme: The Intergenerational Discount Rate," Working Papers 2008.47, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    11. Strand, Jon, 2011. "Carbon offsets with endogenous environmental policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 371-378, March.
    12. Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo, 2014. "The social rate of discount, climate change and real options," CEIS Research Paper 309, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 18 Feb 2014.
    13. John Tomaney & Andy Pike & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2010. "Local and Regional Development in Times of Crisis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(4), pages 771-779, April.
    14. Simon Dietz & Frederick van der Ploeg & Armon Rezai & Frank Venmans, 2021. "Are Economists Getting Climate Dynamics Right and Does It Matter?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(5), pages 895-921.
    15. Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Public economics as if time matters: Climate change and the dynamics of policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 4-17.
    16. Lotze-Campen, Hermann & von Witzke, Harald & Noleppa, Steffen & Schwarz, Gerald, 2015. "Science for food, climate protection and welfare: An economic analysis of plant breeding research in Germany," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 79-84.
    17. Frederick Ploeg & Aart Zeeuw, 2019. "Pricing Carbon and Adjusting Capital to Fend Off Climate Catastrophes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 29-50, January.
    18. Valentina Bosetti & Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Sustainable Cooperation In Global Climate Policy: Specific Formulas And Emission Targets," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 1-34.
    19. Li, Jun & Colombier, Michel & Giraud, Pierre-Noël, 2009. "Decision on optimal building energy efficiency standard in China--The case for Tianjin," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2546-2559, July.
    20. Janet J. McIntyre‐Mills, 2008. "Systemic ethics: expanding the boundaries of rights and responsibilities," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 147-150, March.

    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:spr:ieaple:v:15:y:2015:i:2:p:217-236. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.