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Mind the climate policy gaps: climate change public policy and reality in Portugal, Spain and Morocco

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Abstract

The IPCC 1.5 °C report argues for a 50% cut of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Dangerous gaps lie between what is required to reach the 1.5 °C objective, what governments have pledged and what is happening in reality. Here, we develop ‘climate policy gap’ graphics for Portugal, Spain and Morocco to help reveal this divide and quantify the under-reaction between diagnosis and action, through layers of political intended and unintended miscommunication, insufficient action and the power of the fossil fuels industries. The climate policy gaps for the three nations reveal overshoots on even the most ambitious levels of emissions reductions pledged when compared with trajectories compatible with 1.5 °C or even 2 °C limits. This research suggests that there is a built-in feature of under-reaction in climate policy, which staves off any emission pathways compatible with stopping a temperature rise above 1.5 °C by 2100. It shows that the climate policy gap is a political and methodological tool that reveals systemic shortcomings of government climate action. Its visibility identifies benchmarks and sectors that should be activated to close these gaps in response to the growing popular demands for climate justice.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Tim O’Riordan from the University of East Anglia for his invaluable suggestions and critiques of this article, which have made it a much more coherent and solid piece in the giant puzzle that is climate policy and climate politics.

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (MCTES) under Grant PD/BD/114049/2015

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Aníbal de Bettencourt, 9, 1600-189, Lisbon, Portugal

    João Camargo & Luísa Schmidt

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y de la Comunicación, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao, Spain

    Iñaki Barcena

  3. Instituto D. Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Pedro M. Soares

  4. Departmento de Cambio Climatico de Ecologistas en Acción, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Andaluz

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  1. João Camargo
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  2. Iñaki Barcena
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  3. Pedro M. Soares
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  4. Luísa Schmidt
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  5. Javier Andaluz
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Contributions

João Camargo conceived the idea for the article and designed its structure, was responsible for the literature review, for the key climate legislation analysis for Morocco, for the compilation of historical greenhouses gas emissions in the last 30 years in the three countries, for the comparison between pledges and emissions, for the future development pathways for Portugal and for the development of the Climate Policy Gaps for the three countries. Iñaki Barcena and Javier Andaluz were responsible for the key climate legislation analysis and future development pathways for Spain. Pedro Matos Soares was responsible for climate context and future climate impacts for the three countries. Luísa Schmidt was responsible for key climate legislation analysis and future development pathways for Portugal. All the authors participated in discussion and conclusions.

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Correspondence to João Camargo.

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Camargo, J., Barcena, I., Soares, P.M. et al. Mind the climate policy gaps: climate change public policy and reality in Portugal, Spain and Morocco. Climatic Change 161, 151–169 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02646-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02646-9

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