Explaining Success and Failure in Climate Policies Developing Theory through German Case Studies

While many scholars have described and explained climate policies in rich industrialized countries, few have explored the policy outcomes, that is, the changes in greenhouse gas emissions. This is surprising since presumably environmental outcomes are one of the main ultimate concerns of those interested in environmental policy, and fairly reliable greenhouse gas emissions data are readily available. Explanations of changes in emissions will probably be different from explanations of climate policies since not all climate policies contribute equally to improvements, some improvements are not due to climate policies, and other factors may counteract the effects of even the most successful policies. Hence, this article focuses initially on environmental outcomes (changes in greenhouse gas emissions) and then on their causes, including climate policies, other government interventions, the factors that shape policymaking and policy implementation, and other dynamics that affect emissions, such as socioeconomic trends. It contributes to theorizing about environmental outcomes in areas of persistent environmental problems through a comparative analysis of nine cases within one country, defined mainly in policy and sectoral terms. This approach complements and helps to overcome the limitations of cross-national, large-N studies. As the world’s sixth largest greenhouse gas emitter and a leader in reductions, Germany is a good country to study in order to develop and test theories of these phenomena. It reduced its emissions by 26 percent from 1990 to 2009 and is on track to surpass its ambitious Kyoto commitment of a 21 percent reduction by the 2008–2012 period. Because its emissions reductions exceed those of all other Western countries except Britain, Germany is usually seen as a climate policy success, but closer examination shows a mixture of partial successes and failures. Both are grist for the theoretical mill.