Introduces fossil fuel subsidies and the various attempts to address them on the domestic and particularly the international level, attempts that have taken off during the last ten years. The chapter outlines the different definitions of fossil fuel subsidies, definitions that have far-reaching political consequences, followed by an overview of the estimates of the size and scope of existing fossil fuel subsidies. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the domestic politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform, followed by an overview of the efforts to address fossil fuel subsidies of other institutions than the ones studied in this book, including the World Bank, the IEA, and non-state actors.

The 2-degrees target of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goal 7 on energy are intrinsically intertwined and highlight the urgency of an effective and integrated approach on climate change and energy. However, there are over a hundred international and transnational institutions with different characteristics and priorities that aim to address climate and energy-related targets. While prior research has contributed useful insights into the complexity of climate and energy governance, respectively, an integrated and coherent analysis of the climate-energy nexus is lacking. This chapter therefore maps, visualizes, and analyzes this nexus, i.e. institutions that seek to govern climate change and energy simultaneously. In addition, the chapter zooms in on three specific subsets of institutions: renewable energy, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing. The mapping and analysis are based on a new dataset and provide first insights into the gaps, overlaps, and varying degrees of complexity of the climate-energy nexus and across its subfields. Moreover, the chapter serves as the empirical basis for further analyses of coherence, management, legitimacy, and effectiveness, and as the first step in creating a knowledge base to guide actors who seek to navigate the institutionally complex landscape of the climate-energy nexus.

Fossil fuel subsidy reform can contribute to both climate change and sustainable development goals. However, subsidies to fossil fuel consumption and production continue to persist in developed and developing countries. International cooperation can play an important role in promoting or hindering reform. This chapter examines the coherence of international governance of fossil fuel subsidy reform. The chapter discusses the emergence of a core norm of fossil fuel subsidy reform, the distribution of membership across international institutions, and the various governance functions fulfilled by the international institutions active in this area. To further assess coherence, the chapter focuses on a subset of three international coalitions active in the area of fossil fuel subsidy reform: the Group of 20 (G20), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform. The chapter identifies an emerging division of labour, with different institutions taking charge of various governance functions. Where activities do overlap, they generally appear to reinforce one another. With respect to the G20, APEC, and the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, the high level of consistency appears to be the result of planned coordination, overlapping memberships, as well as a brokering role taken on by some countries. test

How does institutional complexity affect effectiveness? This chapter addresses this question for the three policy fields studied in this book: renewable energy, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon markets. The chapter takes a comprehensive perspective across the three case studies by examining three dimensions of effectiveness: output (generating regulations and intrastructure), outcome (changing behaviour), and impact (solving the problem). The study relies on a two-track approach, integrating assessments by researchers and interviews with key stakeholders. The results show how the considerable institutional complexity in the climate-energy nexus has consequences for effectiveness. Notwithstanding the methodical challenges for evaluating effectiveness under conditions of institutional complexity, these insights demonstrate that such an assessment is of high importance and should be continued for other contexts of global governance. In particular, the findings of this chapter help to identify suitable management options – i.e. options for formally regulating the linkage between institutions – for the climate-energy nexus. With these suggestions and its conceptual and empirical novelty, the chapter contributes to a variety of literatures – on climate and energy governance, on institutional complexity, and on effectiveness – while being of interest to different stakeholders operating in the climate-energy nexus.

The concluding chapter first summarizes some of the volume’s main results along the four evaluative themes. In terms of coherence and management, the three policy fields under scrutiny – renewable energy, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing – are roughly marked by coordination, rather than competition or outright harmony. Regarding legitimacy, the specializations and work backgrounds of stakeholders lead to considerable variations in their perceptions of institutions. For effectiveness, institutional complexity plays both a supportive and a hindering role across all three cases. Following the summary, a series of policy recommendations is developed, including: improving awareness of each other’s activities to avoid duplication of efforts and conflicting messages; aligning interpretations of central concepts, i.e. what constitutes renewable sources of energy, fossil fuel subsidies and carbon pricing; building stronger connections to counterparts in other areas of the climate-energy nexus and beyond; and entrusting one institution with an orchestrator role. Finally, the chapter suggests a future research agenda on the governance of the climate-energy nexus, e.g. to learn more about the causes of institutional complexity, to identify conditions for successful management efforts, and to examine further subfields and even other domains outside the climate-energy nexus.

The introduction first explains the rationale and theoretical and empirical contributions of the edited volume. The book seeks to address a considerable gap in knowledge of the nature of the relationship between institutions governing the climate-energy nexus in a multilevel context. In particular, there is scant research on consequences on the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance arrangements and the climate-energy nexus as a whole. For an in-depth analysis of institutional complexity in the nexus, we selected three policy fields as case studies: renewable energy, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing. We made this choice since the three cases represent urgent and major components of the climate-energy nexus, since they vary considerably in the number and mix of institutions that govern them at the international level, and since they differ in their positioning within the climate-energy nexus – with carbon pricing primarily a climate change issue, renewable energy lying at the core of energy governance, and fossil fuel subsidy reform falling in between. The chapter concludes with an outline of the ccontributions to the book, structured along the volume’s three parts on mapping (I) coherence and management (II), and legitimacy and effectiveness (III).