| Kommentar |
Be it Greta Thunberg and the "Fridays for Future" movement, the planned deforestation of the Hambach forest by the energy conglomerate RWE, the polling level of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, the proposed introduction of a CO-2 tax, the ”Jahrhundertsommer” 2018 (by the way, the warmest year since the beginning of weather recordings), or electromobility, ”Flugscham” and coal phase-out: climate policy is on everyone's lips. Reason enough to engage more intensively with this booming policy field in the setting of a seminar. Regarding the content, three central aspects will be in the forefront: issues, actors and conflicts. As a theoretical introduction, we first want to address the question of how climate policy can be defined and how it can be distinguished from other policy fields, especially environmental policy. What are the most important treaties (e.g. Kyoto Protocol, Paris Climate Agreement), strategies and instruments as well as the central questions addressed in this policy area? It goes without saying that the phenomenon of global warming and its complex causes and consequences will play a central role as well. In addition to these issues, the seminar will also focus on the central actors involved in climate policy. To meet the transnational and global character of climate policy, a multi-level perspective will be adopted which focuses on the state, federal, European and also the international level. For this reason, in addition to the political parties, the Federal Government, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, central institutions of the European Union and the United Nations are taken into consideration, too. Finally, the central areas of tension and lines of conflict will be addressed: What influence do wealthy lobbying groups from the industrial and energy sector have? What are the obstacles to a more active as well as effective climate policy and why is it so difficult to reach a consensus on the "most important issue we face" (UN Secretary-General Guterres in 2018)? To answer questions like these analytically, central policy analysis tools - such as the concept of the policy cycle or the veto player theory - will be introduced and applied to concrete empirical cases in the course of the seminar. |
| Literatur |
- Dryzek, John S./ Norgaard, Richard B./ Schlosberg, David (Eds.) (2011): The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, New York: Oxford University Press.
- Maslin, Mark (2014): Climate Change. A Very Short Introduction, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Michaelowa, Axel (2008): German climate policy between global leadership and muddling through, in: Compston, Hugh (Ed.): Turning down the heat, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 144-163.
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