Item talk:Q1171

Rationale

The global impacts of climate change demands governments to intervene. Policy instruments are the tools and techniques used to achieve predetermined goals, and are crucial for achieving climate goals. A detailed understanding of their effectiveness is essential to assess policy outcomes. Despite extensive data on legislative frameworks, there is a lack of systematic, cross-nationally comparable data on specific instruments. Through the development of structured data on policy instruments, we hope to enable deeper insights into the techniques governments use to tackle climate change.

Concept methodology

This classification is developed in close collaboration with the Climate Change Laws of the World team at the LSE Grantham Research Institute. Through cross-sectoral desk-based research, we identified a set of policy instruments, including but not limited to those for adaptation and mitigation. We then grouped them using the four categories of Hood & Margetts (2007) NATO schema of tools of government.

We adapted and defined Hood & Margetts NATO categories as follows:

• Economic instruments ("Treasury") - These instruments have the power over money, taxation, and spending, and market incentives to drive climate action. Examples are carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, and fossil fuel subsidy removal.
• Regulatory instruments ("Authority") - These set boundaries on behaviour through formal rules and enforcement. Examples include emissions disclosure laws, fossil fuel bans, and spatial planning laws.
• Information instruments ("Nodality") - These tools give power of governments over information. In climate policy, they raise awareness, promote transparency, and drive innovation through mechanisms such as eco-labelling and energy efficiency standards.
• Organisation and governance instruments ("Organisation") - These strengthen institutional capacity for climate action by establishing new bodies, roles, or strategic frameworks, and include institutional mandates, participation and stakeholder engagement, and accountability and enforcement.

We have included "target" in our set of policy instruments as fifth category. While a target itself is not inherently a policy instrument but rather a policy goal, it can function as one if it influences policy implementation and compliance. For this reason, we have included it. The methodology for "target" has been developed separately, which you can find on the discussion page.

References & acknowledgements

We are thankful for the expertise and contributions of: Kate Higham, Tiffanie Chan, and Emily Bradeen at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Dr. Silvia Weko and Dr. Aksornchan Chaianong at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Dr. Leonardo Nascimento at NewClimate Institute, and Wim Nieuwenhuizen and Mirre Berkhof at Wageningen University & Research. They all contributed greatly to the development and structuring of this taxonomy and its sub-concepts.

[1] Hood, C., and H. Margetts. (2007). The tools of government in the digital age. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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[4] Sterly, S., Jongeneel, R., Pabst, H., Silvis, H., Connor, J., Freshwater, D., Shobayashi, M., Kinoshita, Y., Van Kooten, C., Zorn, A. (2018). Research for AGRI Committee - A comparative analysis of global agricultural policies: lessons for the future CAP. European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, Brussels.

[5] OECD. (n.d.). OECD Policy Instruments for the Environment. In Policy Instruments for the Environment (PINE) Database. Retrieved February 10, 2025, from https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/policy-instruments-for-the-environment-pine-database.html

[6] Nachtigall, D. et al. (2022). The climate actions and policies measurement framework: A structured and harmonised climate policy database to monitor countries' mitigation action. OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 203, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2caa60ce-en.