The European Climate Law: Strengthening EU Procedural Climate Governance?

In 2021, the European Union (EU) adopted the so-called European Climate Law (ECL), enshrining in law the 2050 climate-neutrality objective and upgraded 2030 emission reduction target. The ECL bears the hallmarks of what we term ‘procedural climate governance’, which comprises the regulatory frameworks, instruments, institutions and processes that shape substantive climate policies and their implementation. This article identifies seven key functions of procedural climate governance—target-setting; planning; monitoring and evaluation; climate policy integration; scientific expert advice; access to justice; and public participation—and uses these for critically assessing the ECL. We argue that while the ECL has significantly strengthened important aspects of EU procedural climate governance, further reforms are needed for the EU to develop and implement the substantive policies towards a climate-neutral and climate-resilient economy and society and to bolster public support and ownership of the transition. The upcoming reviews of the ECL and the Governance Regulation provide a critical opportunity for strengthening procedural climate governance in the EU

The interface between expert knowledge and politics in a coproduction model

The myth that expert knowledge should precede politics can be broken down into three related and equally flawed assumptions. The first is ontological and opposes knowledge and politics as two antithetical spheres. According to this dichotomy, expert knowledge is perceived as being ideally consensual, neutral, and universal, while politics is deemed essentially conflictual, partial, and contextual. The second assumption is normative and argues for a strict division of labor, according to which experts should supply and policymakers consume knowledge. The third assumption is analytic and results from the tension between the previous two. It explains governance failures by the tendency of policymakers to follow their political interests rather than knowledge-based solutions. On the face of it, GEG provides an easy case for the linear model since relevant environmental knowledge is often scientific knowledge, which is supposed to be the quintessential of consensual, neutral, and universal knowledge. Yet, a close look at GEG reveals that scientific evidence is not a pre-condition for political action.SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe