LIST OF PANELS

In 2018, the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argued carbon neutrality (a balancing of carbon emissions production, with carbon removal or elimination) needs to be achieved by 2050 in order to keep global warming under control. In response, countries, regions and cities across the world have made ambitious and high profile commitments to achieving carbon neutrality locally. However, the pathways to delivering on these targets remain unclear. Moreover, while many countries have had mandated climate change targets for decades, progress towards reducing emissions has been slow, suggesting the need to examine the assumptions that underpin these targets and the ways their interpretation in practice fosters action and inaction.

From a governance perspective, much of the attention on low-carbon or carbon-neutral futures to date has been on supporting and understanding the uptake of technological innovations or the development of governance structures and mechanisms that can deliver these innovations (for example through Transition Management and Living Labs). These approaches have undoubtedly made a significant contribution to developing pathways towards carbon-neutral futures. However, there has been little analysis of the ways in which the actors involved in setting and implementing these targets understand their opportunities and responsibilities to do so. Moreover, there has been little analysis of the ways in which dynamic interactions across and between types of governance actors (e.g. public and private), policy areas (e.g. transport, energy, manufacturing, housing), and scales of governance and public policy (local through to supra-national) can shape, lock-in, inform, and transform attempts to deliver on carbon neutrality.

This panel therefore seeks to cast empirical light on the barriers and opportunities for achieving carbon neutrality that may arise from different interpretations, interdependencies and interactions (or lack thereof) between different elements of complex governance systems. The panel also aims to develop and discuss diverse theoretical and analytical perspectives for understanding these issues through use of lenses from political and policy sciences.

This panel will explore the following research questions:

·       How are carbon targets interpreted at and across different levels of governance and different policy areas?

·       What are the implications of different framings and problematizations of climate neutrality for policy action?

·       To what extent do network arrangements (e.g. institutional, social, policy) affect attention on and policy responses towards achieving carbon neutrality?

·       To what extent do institutional and/or social arrangements affect sectoral (e.g. transport, energy, business, manufacturing) policy responses to the carbon neutrality agenda and why?

The panel welcomes papers that explore the barriers and opportunities to achieving carbon neutrality from a governance and public policy perspective. This panel aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore the ways in which dynamic interactions across and between types of governance actor (e.g. public and private), policy area (e.g. transport, energy, manufacturing, housing), and scales of governance and public policy (local through to supra-national) can shape, lock-in, inform, and transform attempts to deliver on carbon neutrality. Moreover, as well as advancing an empirical contribution, the panel aims to foster the development of theoretical and analytical frameworks for exploring carbon neutrality, through utilising lenses from political and policy sciences.

Therefore, this panel welcomes papers that utilise a range of different theoretical and analytical perspectives, including but not limited to networks theorising, multilevel governance, agenda setting, problem framing, interpretivism, and institutionalism. We also encourage a range of methodological approaches and research designs, both qualitative and quantitative, comparative and single case and from across a range of different policy areas/sectors (e.g from transport through to housing).

Papers are welcome which speak to any dimension of the following research questions, and indeed we are open to receiving contributions that may lay outside of these questions, but which are related:   

·       How are carbon targets interpreted at and across different levels of governance and different policy areas?

·       What are the implications of different framings and problematizations of climate neutrality for policy action?

·       To what extent do network arrangements (e.g. institutional, social, policy) affect attention on and policy responses towards achieving carbon neutrality?

·       To what extent do institutional and/or social arrangements affect sectoral (e.g. transport, energy, business, manufacturing) policy responses to the carbon neutrality agenda and why?