Beyond Mere Coordination: A Macroeconomic Interest-Group Lens on Climate Policy Performance

Anna Hehenberger

The climate policy performance of individual countries varies widely despite the universal urgency of climate action. These differences are usually understood as a matter of successful or failed coordination. However, the focus on coordination obscures the dramatic restructuring of economic and social systems that adequate climate policy entails. It is only when this is considered that the distributional conflicts at the heart of climate policy become apparent. The study identifies the actors involved in these conflicts and the economic interests that they represent through the systematic analysis of the macroeconomic context of a country. This systematic analysis builds upon and refines the growth models typology to study why some countries are climate policy leaders while others remain laggards. Engaging in comparative political economy research, the project compares advanced economies and explores their climate policy performance as a product of their economies’ emissions intensity, the coalitions they give rise to, and the influence these coalitions exert on climate policy.