Climate change has been characterized as a “super-wicked problem” (Lazarus Reference Lazarus2009) requiring unprecedented and concerted responses across all sectors of economy and society. Since the enactment of the UK’s pioneering Climate Change Act in 2008, framework climate laws have become an increasingly common governance response to the challenge of achieving the scale of transformation required. They are defined by Nash and Steurer (Reference Nash and Steurer2019: 1053) as:

Framework climate laws have been enacted across a growing range of countries in Europe and beyond. As of October 2023, twenty European countries have enacted such laws. In addition, the European Union’s (EU) European Climate Law entered into force in July 2021.

The precise design characteristics of framework climate laws vary from country to country, but many share a range of core elements (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020a). Most framework climate laws include a long-term quantitative target for GHG emissions reduction. Many also include intermediate GHG targets or mechanisms for setting such targets, provisions for government to set out policy measures to achieve those targets, and mechanisms for monitoring progress. Framework climate laws also typically provide some structured arrangements for incorporating scientific and expert advice into the policy process, usually through the establishment of a climate council, though their composition and functions vary considerably. They also to a greater or lesser extent provide opportunities for public participation in climate policymaking, though again this differs significantly from case to case (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b).

The standard characterization of framework climate laws is that they serve to provide stability in terms of climate policymaking (Averchenkova and Nachmany Reference Averchenkova, Nachmany, Averchenkova, Fankhauser and Nachmany2018; Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020a). This they do through a variety of institutional mechanisms, including enshrining GHG emissions targets in law and enhancing the technocratic quality of policymaking by strengthening the role of scientific advice in policymaking. The aim of this chapter is to provide a more nuanced assessment of the characteristics and roles of framework climate laws. I argue that, while some common design elements of framework climate laws do indeed serve to bring stability to climate policy, in many important respects, framework climate laws depart from the ideal design type envisioned by the literature on time inconsistency, commitment devices, and non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs). Moreover, in some ways framework climate laws can actually serve to make explicit the political conflicts at the heart of climate policy. By placing more or less binding GHG constraints, framework climate laws can make explicit trade-offs and political choices, including between economic sectors, and can thus serve to politicize even as they depoliticize. Moreover, by seeking to introduce stability to climate policymaking in the sense of stability as policy lock-in, framework climate laws simultaneously and deliberately seek to undermine and challenge stability as the status quo.

The chapter draws on examples of framework climate laws principally in European countries, which are used to illustrate the argument. The chapter does not aim to provide a comprehensive analysis. It relies on a combination of primary research and secondary sources, particularly the detailed comparative analysis conducted by Ecologic Institute on climate laws in Europe (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020a). While the precise details of national climate laws differ, there are significant similarities between framework laws across jurisdictions. This is a somewhat surprising outcome, given the diversity of national circumstances, including political, legal, and institutional characteristics.

The chapter is structured as follows. The next section frames the discussion by providing a brief review of the literature on stability, delegation, and climate policy. The following four sections consider respectively four core design features typical of framework climate laws: enshrining targets in law, provisions for expert advice, arrangements for policy planning, and arrangements for monitoring and accountability. Across these elements, the chapter argues that, even as they aim to bring stability to climate policymaking, framework climate laws provide significant opportunities for the (re)politicization of climate policymaking.

12.1 Stability, Delegation, and Politicization in Climate Policy

Paterson, Tobin, and VanDeveer (Reference Paterson, Tobin and VanDeveer2022) point to two contrasting strands in the literature on climate policy and politics, which emphasize respectively the need for policy stability and the need for politicization of climate policymaking. In Chapter 1, they elaborate on these themes and develop the themes of stability and (re)politicization in respect of climate policymaking. They distinguish between four forms of stability. Among these is stability as policy lock-in, which is a standard way that framework climate laws have been understood. This characterization builds on a longer strand of public policy literature focusing on the delegation of powers by governments to institutions that are not directly elected and not managed by elected politicians (Thatcher and Stone Sweet Reference Thatcher and Sweet2002). As a core component of these broader trends, so-called non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs) have proliferated in many policy areas and have taken different institutional forms, including independent regulatory agencies that are tasked with promoting competition and independent central banks.

Much of the literature on delegation adopts a rationalist principal–agent framework, focusing on the decision to delegate. According to this account, principals (governments) delegate to NMIs to resolve commitment problems, tie the hands of their successors, overcome information asymmetries in complex areas of governance, enhance the efficiency of rulemaking, and avoid taking blame for unpopular policies (Elgie and McMenamin Reference Elgie and McMenamin2005; Thatcher Reference Thatcher2002; Wonka and Rittberger Reference Wonka and Rittberger2010). Among these drivers, the most prominent is the need for governments to be able to credibly commit to policies from which they have incentives to defect in the future, or the problem of time inconsistency. Kydland and Prescott (Reference Kydland and Prescott1977) were the first to identify the problem of time inconsistency in the context of economic policy. They proposed what they called “commitment devices” – “institutional arrangements that make it a difficult and time-consuming process to change the policy rules in all but emergency situations” – as a means of overcoming the problem of time inconsistency (Kydland and Prescott Reference Kydland and Prescott1977: 487). In other words, commitment devices are mechanisms aimed at bringing stability as policy lock-in.

The problem of time inconsistency, and the need for policy stability, has been the focus of some attention in the literature on climate policy. Helm, Hepburn, and Mash (Reference Helm, Hepburn and Mash2003), for example, start from the observation that responding to climate change requires large-scale irreversible investments (in energy systems, for example), and that the profitability of those investments is very sensitive to climate policy decisions. They argue that a credible carbon policy must clear two hurdles, namely the need for government to define clear rules for resolution of trade-offs and to convince investors that it will not renege on their policy promises ex post. On the basis of this analysis, they advocate for the establishment of an independent “energy agency” analogous to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England.

In their discussion of the challenges of implementing long-term climate policy, Hovi, Sprinz, and Underdal (Reference Hovi, Sprinz and Underdal2009) also identify the problem of time inconsistency, as well as challenges of translating broad support for general measures into support for specific policy interventions and the problem of international cooperation in an anarchical international system. Brunner, Flachsland, and Marschinski (Reference Brunner, Flachsland and Marschinski2012) highlight the trade-off between commitment and flexibility to adjust climate policy according to new information. They note in particular three areas of uncertainty in climate policy, namely the benefits of emissions abatement, the cost of emissions abatement, and international climate policy, pointing to the benefits of flexibility to update policy in light of new information.

Viewed from this perspective, framework climate laws can be viewed as mechanisms aimed at stabilizing climate policymaking, sending a clear signal to all sectors of economy and society about a collective and durable commitment to climate action (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 4). In the words of Averchenkova and Nachmany (Reference Averchenkova, Nachmany, Averchenkova, Fankhauser and Nachmany2018: 110–111), enshrining climate commitments into law can limit the possibility of policymakers to “backtrack from earlier policy commitment … Embedding targets in law, as opposed to setting them informally through white papers or statements, makes them more difficult to change procedurally and politically.” Similarly, Duwe and Evans (Reference Duwe and Evans2020a: 12) write of framework climate laws that:

As such, framework climate laws can be viewed as institutional mechanisms aimed at bringing stability as policy lock-in to climate policymaking. It is the contention of this chapter, however, that such a view misses some important characteristics of framework climate laws as they have been developed across a variety of jurisdictions, and that they in fact serve to politicize climate policy in important ways. In Chapter 1, Paterson, Tobin, and VanDeveer identify four forms of politicization. This chapter focuses in particular on politicization as partisan competition and politicization as broader sociopolitical change. In the following sections, I focus on four core design features typical of framework climate laws – enshrining targets in law, provisions for expert advice, arrangements for policy planning, and arrangements for monitoring and accountability.

12.2 Enshrining Climate Targets in Law

One common feature of framework climate laws is to enshrine climate change mitigation targets in law in order to introduce policy stability by indicating a clear direction of travel toward a decarbonized economy and society. These typically come in two varieties: medium-to-long-term targets (many around mid-century) and shorter-term targets (typically five to ten years). Most European framework climate laws have enshrined long-term quantitative targets for GHG emissions, and a majority have chosen net zero by 2050 as this goal (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 50–51). GHG targets can be expressed in a variety of ways (Hilson Reference Hilson2020). They can be binding or nonbinding. Most, but not all, European framework climate laws have enshrined a target for GHG emissions reduction in law (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 50–51). In Sweden, for example, GHG targets are not contained in the climate law itself but rather in a separate, nonlegislative “Climate Policy Framework for Sweden” (Nash and Steurer Reference Nash and Steurer2019; O’Gorman Reference O’Gorman, Robbins, Torney and Brereton2020). GHG targets can also be expressed as absolute or net emissions reductions. Many countries are aiming for “net zero” or some variation thereof, but national practice in regard to defining carbon sinks and reporting practices varies significantly (Hilson Reference Hilson2020).

The time frame of the long-term target has emerged as an important consideration. As Hilson (Reference Hilson2020: 211) puts it, “[b]ecause, of course, the substantive target of net zero is itself already ambitious, the battleground over ambition has become focused on when it should be achieved.” A majority of climate laws in Europe set net zero by 2050 as a central mitigation goal (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 50–51) but there are exceptions, with Sweden and Germany (the latter under its revised climate law) pledging net zero by 2045, and Finland by 2035. The majority of these targets, however, are in the medium-to-long-term, but they can have shorter-term effects by providing a benchmark against which nearer-term mitigation targets can be set and assessed. Only once we know where we want to get to by some date several decades hence is it possible to assess whether targets for 2025 or 2030, for example, are reasonable. In other words, a long-term target allows us to determine appropriate milestones on the way to that destination. That is not to say that a chosen pathway will necessarily involve a perfectly linear trajectory from today until the end point. There may be reasons, such as delayed carbon abatement of large-scale infrastructure investment, for limited backloading of emissions reduction over the coming decade, for example. But, absent a legally enshrined long-term goal, there is no benchmark against which intermediate targets can be assessed.

Intermediate targets are a second variety of target-setting in framework climate laws. These again often seek to bring stability to climate policymaking by “locking in” climate targets through legal means. The UK’s Climate Change Act of 2008, the first of its kind worldwide that has been held up as a pioneer, took a distinctive approach (Carter Reference Carter2014; Carter and Childs Reference Carter and Childs2018). As well as setting quantitative GHG reduction targets for 2020 and 2050 (34 percent and 80 percent respectively, relative to 1990 levels),Footnote ¹ the UK Climate Change Act also created a system of legally binding five-year carbon budgets – overall limits on permissible GHG emissions for a five-year period. These carbon budgets are set by government 11.5 years in advance and can only be amended for very limited, defined reasons.Footnote ² In a review of the UK Climate Change Act after ten years, Fankhauser and colleagues (Reference Fankhauser, Averchenkova and Finnegan2018) reported that the carbon budgets approach had transformed the UK power sector by providing a stable, long-term policy signal. However, they distinguished between stability over the overall target and stability in terms of particular policies. When making investment decisions, they noted, businesses and individuals look for certainty and stability about specific policy supports perhaps more than certainty about a broader direction of travel.

France has also adopted a carbon budget approach in climate legislation through the Energy Transition Act of 2015 and the Energy and Climate Act of 2019 (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020a: 20). Germany has employed a variation on the budget approach, by breaking down a national emissions pathway to 2030 into annual values for the country as a whole and for each main sector of the economy and assigning responsibility for achieving these targets to relevant ministers with limited flexibility allowed toward meeting them. Ireland’s 2021 Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act, which significantly strengthened an earlier climate law passed in 2015 (Torney Reference Torney2017), also introduced a system of carbon budgeting, modeled significantly on the UK Climate Change Act.

By enshrining GHG targets – either long-term or intermediate – in primary legislation, framework climate laws seem to operate as classic commitment devices, aiming to introduce policy stability over time. Primary legislation is procedurally more difficult and politically challenging to row back on compared with nonstatutory targets. However, even this most emblematic of stabilizing instruments contains within it the seeds of repoliticization. Enshrining targets in law opens up the possibility of legal remedy through the courts. There has been an increasing trend toward strategic climate litigation since 2015 along with key judgments by apex courts (Setzer and Higham Reference Setzer and Higham2021; UNEP 2023). Indeed, White and O Callaghan-White identify “a strong interventionist trend in the approach of domestic courts in Europe to the issue of climate change” and suggest that a “domino effect” in climate litigation that, they argue, will “heighten the sensitivity of policymakers and significantly increase the evaluation of government action (and inaction) on climate change” (White and O Callaghan-White Reference White and O Callaghan-White2021: 2). Recent high-profile successful climate litigation cases, including in the Netherlands, Ireland, and Germany, have focused on the adequacy of climate targets or the adequacy of government policy plans.

Pursuing legal action is an important avenue for citizens and environmental groups to challenge the adequacy of government policy responses to climate change. It is striking that a number of strategic litigation cases brought by citizen groups have included a significant element of popular mobilization, including the Urgenda case in the Netherlands and the case brought by Friends of the Irish Environment in Ireland (commonly known as Climate Case Ireland). Nonetheless, it is also arguably the case that a focus on legal remedy in the event of failure to meet GHG emissions targets is somewhat misplaced. As Reid (Reference Reid2012) argues in the case of the UK Climate Change Act, accountability of the government to parliament rather than through the courts is the primary accountability mechanism within that law.

12.3 Arrangements for Incorporation of Expert Advice

Another central element of many framework climate laws is the creation of expert bodies to input into climate change policymaking. Averchenkova and colleagues (Reference Averchenkova, Nachmany, Averchenkova, Fankhauser and Nachmany2018: 2) argue that independent expert bodies can “strengthen climate governance by introducing a long-term perspective, enhancing the credibility of climate targets and ensuring more evidence-based policymaking.” However, in contrast with other policy areas, such as monetary policy in which important policymaking functions are delegated to independent technical experts to insulate decisions from political control, independent expert bodies in climate policymaking are generally imbued with advisory rather than policy-setting powers. Moreover, not all instances of delegating climate policy to NMIs result in more ambitious climate policy. Burns and Tobin (Reference Burns and Tobin2020) find that delegated and implementing acts have been used to dismantle EU climate policy.

In national framework climate laws, independent scientific climate councils typically serve to play roles as watchdogs, advisors, and conveners (Evans and Duwe Reference Evans and Duwe2021). The watchdog role involves producing regular independent assessments of government action or inaction. The strength of this role is conditioned by the body’s available resources and also whether the government is required to formally respond to its recommendations. In Denmark, France, and the UK, for example, the government is required to respond to recommendations (Evans and Duwe Reference Evans and Duwe2021: 36). The advisor role entails provision of input to climate policy formation. In the UK, the Climate Change Committee plays an important role in providing advice on the setting of carbon budgets, which is enhanced by the fact that the Climate Change Committee makes the first recommendation to which the government must respond rather than the other way around. The Danish climate council is required to prepare a catalogue of possible climate policy instruments for consideration by the government. The third role is as a convener. Some climate councils engage in stakeholder outreach to varying extents. The most developed of these is the Danish climate council, which is tasked with managing a dedicated public and stakeholder dialogue mechanism.

In terms of the composition of advisory bodies, Evans and Duwe (Reference Evans and Duwe2021) distinguish between those composed essentially only of scientists and other academic experts and those composed of a wider range of stakeholders. In general, independent scientific climate councils are typically composed of external experts who do not represent particular interest groups or government departments or bodies (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b; Evans and Duwe Reference Evans and Duwe2021), though there are some exceptions such as Ireland, where the principals of some state bodies serve as ex officio members (Weaver, Lötjönen, and Ollikainen Reference Weaver, Lötjönen and Ollikainen2019). Such composition increases the perceived independence and objectivity of climate councils, and also enhances their role as “knowledge-brokers” by building bridges between scientific research and policymaking (Evans and Duwe Reference Evans and Duwe2021; Weaver, Lötjönen, and Ollikainen Reference Weaver, Lötjönen and Ollikainen2019). Some climate laws, such as the UK Climate Change Act, stipulate that the climate council should include a diversity of expertise. In a number of cases, including in Denmark, Finland, France, Sweden, and Switzerland, the councils themselves self-select their members, who are then officially appointed by government with varying degrees of governmental oversight (Evans and Duwe Reference Evans and Duwe2021: 34).

While climate advisory bodies play a variety of arguably important roles, all of this is some distance away from an ideal-type technocracy in which policymaking functions are delegated to independent experts with a view to bringing stability to climate policy. Indeed, Helm, Hepburn, and Mash (Reference Helm, Hepburn and Mash2003) considered a model in which an independent agency would be given policy autonomy to pursue any necessary measures to achieve a specified GHG emissions reduction goal and explicitly rejected it on the basis that no government would ever agree to such delegation. So it has proved to be in practice.

12.4 Arrangements for Policy Planning

As well as setting targets for various time horizons or provisions for how such targets must be set, framework climate laws also set out various requirements on governments to develop policy plans to meet those targets, incorporating both longer-term strategies and shorter-term implementation plans. Only some framework climate laws, including those of Finland, France, and Spain, set specific arrangements for longer-term strategic climate policy planning. Many more framework climate laws provide arrangements for more detailed climate policy development over shorter time frames, usually a ten-to-fifteen-year time horizon (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b). These processes are typically repeated on a regular cycle of four to five years, with the Finnish and Swedish framework climate laws linking these to regular electoral cycles (Nash and Steurer Reference Nash and Steurer2019). Some framework climate laws, such as Denmark’s, also provide for annual climate policy planning in their framework climate laws. It should also be noted that the EU governance framework for climate action (EU Regulation 2018/1999) requires member states to develop long-term climate strategies with a thirty-year time horizon and national energy and climate plans with a ten-year time horizon, both to be updated every five years.

Some framework climate laws also make provision for adaptation policy planning, including requirements to produce periodic climate risk assessments and planning frameworks for adaptation to climate change. The UK Climate Change Act requires the government to produce five-year risk assessments and adaptation plans, as well as providing for independent evaluation of risk assessments and plans. The French climate law requires asset owners and managers to report on climate change risks (World Bank 2020). The new European Climate Law requires all member states to adopt, implement, and regularly update national adaptation strategies and plans (Article 5).

Generally, the requirements set out in framework climate laws for policy planning are procedural in nature – stipulating in what way and over what time periods policymaking must occur – and do not extend to prescribing specific policy instruments. There are, however, some exceptions. The French climate law, for example, includes a range of specific policies, including amendments to existing legal codes covering carbon tax, CO₂ performance standards for thermal power plants, and renovation obligations. The Spanish climate law includes a ban on the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2040 (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 25). Some framework climate laws also make provision for climate mainstreaming and connecting the climate policy cycle with the annual budget process, including in France, Germany, and Sweden (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 26; World Bank 2020). The French climate law makes provision for mainstreaming climate action into all government policymaking. The French climate law also places climate reporting obligations on financial institutions. Such enshrining of sectoral targets and policies in primary legislation – as distinct from overall targets for GHG emissions reductions – act more strongly to bring stability to the policy landscape. For the most part, however, arrangements for policy planning in framework climate laws impose procedural obligations on governments. These procedural obligations are, nonetheless, anchored by the legally enshrined targets that underpin them. That is to say, the policy plans and instruments developed under the procedural requirements set out in framework climate laws are required to be consistent with the GHG reduction targets set out in law or put in place under the provisions of the law (in the case of carbon budgets and equivalent).

While such measures aim to bring stability in terms of policy design over time, they can in fact serve to destabilize the status quo, bringing to the fore partisan political conflict and inter-sectoral trade-offs. In Ireland, for example, the process of setting so-called sectoral emissions ceilings – the division of overall statutory carbon budgets into sectoral shares, which each sector would be responsible for delivering – generated hugely contentious political conflict over the relative share of the total emissions reduction effort that would be taken on by the agricultural sector, which is one of the most powerful interest groups in the Irish economy and society (Torney and O’Gorman Reference Torney and O’Gorman2019).

12.5 Monitoring and Accountability

Progress monitoring is a core component of framework climate laws, but whether these arrangements serve to bring stability or to repoliticize climate policy depends on the institutional form and requirements on government to respond. Typically, framework climate laws provide a basis for evaluation and feedback through some combination of government reporting along with evaluation from more or less independent advisory bodies (Nash and Steurer Reference Nash and Steurer2019). Key questions in this regard concern which institutions are given responsibility for monitoring and reporting, and what mechanisms are in place to require a response to monitoring reports. Different national climate laws vary in terms of which government entity is responsible for reporting. In Sweden, Germany, and Denmark, responsibility for annual progress reporting lies with government, whereas in France and the Netherlands it is the scientific expert body that reports. In the UK, both the government and the Climate Change Committee are required to issue annual progress reports (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 27).

Framework climate laws also vary in terms of what obligations the government is under to respond to progress reviews, and particularly whether and in what ways progress monitoring can trigger requirements for additional action to address shortfalls. However, Duwe and Evans (Reference Duwe and Evans2020b) caution that such provisions can become “a formality without consequences” unless there is a clear and defined sequence of steps that must be undertaken in such circumstances. The German Climate Protection Law provides perhaps the most elaborate version of such an arrangement. The country’s 2030 target introduced national emissions pathways for each sector of the economy, with responsibility for meeting sectoral targets assigned to the ministry most responsible for that sector. The federal government is required to report annually on GHG emissions in each sector. If this reporting shows that emissions for the preceding year have exceeded the sectoral emissions limits set out in the law, the responsible government ministry is required, within three months, to present an “immediate action program for the relevant sector” that “shall ensure compliance with the annual sectoral emission budgets in the subsequent years” (Federal Ministry of Justice 2019).

In the UK, the government is formally required to respond to the annual reports of the Climate Change Committee. In addition, in the event of a carbon budget not being met, the secretary of state must explain to parliament why the budget has not been met and set out proposals to compensate for excess emissions in future periods. In France, the government is required to respond within six months to the scientific advisory body’s annual report, and to indicate how any gaps shortfalls in emissions reduction will be addressed through additional actions. In the Netherlands, a two-yearly progress report on the climate plan can trigger additional policy actions if required. In Denmark, the government is required to consider the need for additional measures when developing its annual climate program (Duwe and Evans Reference Duwe and Evans2020b: 25). Under Ireland’s revised climate law, the Climate Change Advisory Council is mandated to publish an annual review of government progress, and in turn the government can be required to account to a parliamentary committee regarding the findings of the Advisory Council’s annual review (Torney Reference Torney2021).

There is, in short, a diversity of approaches to monitoring and accountability in framework laws. This diversity includes variation in terms of the degree to which different branches of government – parliament and executive – are assigned responsibility for ensuring that commitments are adhered to. This variation, in turn, is likely to shape the degree to which accountability mechanisms politicize climate policy by, for example, bringing it explicitly into the domain of parliamentary politics.

12.6 Conclusions

Framework climate laws have typically been viewed in the literature and by proponents as legal and institutional mechanisms to introduce greater stability into climate change policymaking. However, upon closer examination the picture is more nuanced in at least three ways. First, despite the appearance of depoliticization and technocracy, framework climate laws do not remove politics from climate change policymaking. Enshrining targets in law may hide politics but it does not remove it. Moreover, the functions of technocratic expert bodies in climate policy are quite different from how NMIs have been designed in other policy spheres. In a range of policy arenas, such institutions are granted executive decision-making powers, such as in the case of central banks and regulatory institutions. By contrast, climate change expert advisory bodies as established under framework climate laws are exactly that – advisory rather than executive in nature.

Second, by providing one form of stability, framework climate laws actively diminish another. Returning to the distinction made in Chapter 1, while framework climate laws seek to introduce stability to climate policymaking in the sense of stability as policy lock-in, they simultaneously and deliberately seek to undermine and challenge stability as the status quo. This perhaps unavoidably generates political conflict, mobilizing status quo actors to defend their interests through a variety of means and serving to (re)politicize climate policymaking by bringing difficult choices such as sectoral trade-offs to the forefront of the political arena.

A third way in which framework climate laws serve to (re)politicize climate policymaking is by providing new institutional openings for political mobilization. The degree to which these institutional openings are created depends to some extent on the institutional design of specific climate laws, but two broad trends can be observed. The first stems from the legalization of climate targets, which provides new routes for mobilization through judicial challenge. We have seen such mobilization occur in a number of different settings, with climate litigation becoming an increasingly prominent phenomenon, including challenges brought under framework climate laws as can be seen, for example, in Germany and Ireland. The second new opening for politicization through framework climate laws comes through the mechanisms of parliamentary accountability they introduce. By requiring governments to submit to parliamentary scrutiny, framework climate laws bring climate policymaking firmly into the partisan political sphere.

Overall, what emerges from this analysis is a complex picture in which framework climate laws serve both to stabilize and to destabilize climate policymaking and provide new openings for politicization in the spheres of parliamentary politics as well as civil society mobilization. These conclusions support the contention of the volume as a whole that the relationship between stability and politicization should be seen as much more complex than a simple binary view of the two concepts would suggest.