SPRU Electronic Working Paper No 75

Policy transfer in the development of UK climate policy for business

Dr Adrian Smith

Abstract

The science and politics of climate change has had a strong international dimension. It seems reasonable to expect proactive governments to be cosmopolitan in developing policy in this field. This paper analyses the influence of policy transfer in the development of UK climate policy for controlling business emissions of carbon dioxide. It finds cross-national lessons were drawn by advocates of different policy ideas during domestic policy debates. These informed government and provided policy instrument options, but key choices were influenced as much by interest-based bargaining. Policy instrument settings, crucial for policy outputs, were strongly influenced by industrial lobbying.

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11 October 2001