Multilevel climate policy: the case of the European Union, Finland and Helsinki

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Abstract

Mitigation of climate change requires action at all the different levels, from the international to the national and the local levels. This contribution presents a case study of the city of Helsinki in Finland. An ex-post approach is used to follow the implementation of the EU directives to the national and further to the city level and to identify the relevant voluntary action taken in the city. We find that the coherence of national and city level policies is the highest in regulated areas, such as waste management and building regulation. Voluntary action is easily taken at local level in areas where co-benefits can be expected: e.g. energy conservation and biofuels for transportation. These voluntary actions can show the feasibility of certain measures which can later on be implemented at national or supranational level. We observe a clear contradiction between the EU and national renewable electricity targets and the nonaction at the city level: local conditions and private interests pose barriers to the implementation of a climate policy. We conclude that the coherence between policies at different levels develops over time and international requirements as well as local conditions can be drivers for it. Cities in particular play a role in mitigating climate change through removing barriers for the implementation of national and EU policies, and through moving forward with and promoting innovative voluntary measures, e.g. through international city networks.

Introduction

Prevention of adverse impacts of climate change needs dramatic reduction of emissions. In order to reach the European Union (EU) target of 2 °C warming compared to pre-industrial times, a 50–85% reduction of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 2000 levels is needed by 2050 (IPCC, 2007). Even less ambitious targets – which would imply accepting more harmful impacts – require major mitigation efforts in industrialized countries, taking into account the increasing population and wealth in the developing world. Mitigation of global warming needs noticeable changes in the modern way of living, from the producing industries to the daily choices of the citizens. The growing concern of climate change impacts has strengthened the understanding of the need for adaptation (EC, 2007a).

It cannot be expected that mitigation and adaptation will occur totally spontaneously. In fact, climate change has been called the “greatest failure of the free market” (Stern, 2006) which so far did not internalize the costs to the environment of certain production and consumption patterns. Dedicated policies and measures are needed and now being developed, to guide society towards lower emissions of greenhouse gases and to prepare for climate effects that can already be expected.

A framework of climate policies is developed at the international level, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This international framework should assure environmentally and economically effective policies, but also policies that guarantee equity between countries. Decisions at the UN level (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol) need implementation at the national level, which in turn needs action at the local level, in cities, in industries and by single citizens.

The role of local decision-making in mitigating a global problem like climate change is not straightforward. Its role is different than the one it has in mitigating local air pollution. Over the past decades, local authorities have taken successful action against certain types of air pollution. Where air pollutant emissions directly affect the local standard of living of citizens and also the local economy through impacts on health-care costs and attractiveness for investments, the reasoning behind climate change mitigation is different. The greenhouse gases become completely mixed in the atmosphere, and therefore location of the emission sources does not coincide with the location of the adverse impacts. Therefore, climate can be seen as a ‘global public good’, and according to the economic theory, ‘free-rider’ effect could be expected to occur among cities (Kousky and Schneider, 2003).

Local policies, e.g. those aiming at reducing air pollution, might have positive or negative impacts on greenhouse gas emissions (Swart et al., 2004). Hence local decisions might help or obstruct reaching the objectives of national or international climate policies. Obviously the interactions between policies decided at various levels of governance run in two directions between the international and the local.

In the case of the EU, the multilevel nature of governance system is emphasized by the fact that the EU policies set an additional level of governance between the international (e.g. UN) and national ones. According to the principle of ‘subsidiary’, the higher level administration should only deal with issues that cannot be effectively performed at the lower level. However, interpretation of this principle is far from being agreed upon (State of European Cities Report, 2007).

Several studies have examined the relationships between international and local policy making, in the context of climate change mitigation.

Bulkeley and Betsill (2005) carried out two case studies in the UK from the point of view of multilevel governance and sustainability. They concluded that ‘urban governance of climate change’ does not follow the traditional distinction between local, national and global environmental politics, but also involves ‘spheres of authority’, e.g. transnational municipality networks and coalitions of state and other actors.

Recently, the role and opportunities of local policy-makers was discussed with regard to Italy (Massetti et al., 2007), France (Mathy, 2007), Netherlands (Gupta et al., 2007a) and China (Teng and Gu, 2007). Based on these case studies, Gupta et al. (2007b) discussed the challenges of multilevel governance in climate change mitigation. They concluded that the global problem of climate change cannot be solved only at the international level, but needs a multilevel solution. They also emphasized the difference in driving forces, available instruments and policy mandates in local and national policy. This difference may lead to either complementary or contradictory policies at different levels of governance.

The aim of this study is to analyze the implementation of the EU directives at different levels of governance, using the city of Helsinki as an example. We aim at identifying the opportunities and barriers of multilevel decision-making, and relate our findings to the different modes of governance: regulation, markets and networks. In Section 2, we develop a methodology to analyze the various factors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and we will discuss which level of governance is responsible for controlling each factor in the context of the climate policies described in Section 3. We also analyse the role of the city in each sector: whether the city has a pure role as an implementer of the national or supranational policies, or whether it acts on a voluntary proactive basis. We focus on the EU policies, national policies in Finland, and policies at regional and city level in Helsinki, related to energy production and consumption (Section 4), passenger transport (Section 5) and waste management (Section 6). In Section 7 we test the conclusions of the studies mentioned before: (1) are the local policies complementary or are they contradictory to the national ones (as in Gupta et al., 2007b); (2) can we find spheres of authority (as in Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005); and (3) is free-rider effect visible (as suggested by Kousky and Schneider, 2003). The conclusions are in Section 8.

Section snippets

Methodology

In our study, the emphasis is on an ex-post assessment of policies and voluntary initiatives resulting in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. With this in mind, the policies implemented and actions taken in the past are of interest, and future plans are only briefly mentioned.

Within a given sector, several factors result in the emissions of greenhouse gases. In general the emissions are proportional to:

  • activity;

  • emission factor.

The activity is most often related to the consumer or demand

Climate policies in the EU, Finland and Helsinki

The EU has set ambitious climate targets, and legislation has been developed to support them. Here we focus on the EU directives on renewable electricity (2001/77/EC), cogeneration (2004/8/EC), energy performance of buildings (2002/91/EC), biofuels for transportation (2003/30/EC) and landfills (1999/31/EC). The first four are among the six most important common and coordinated policies and measures (CCPMs) of the EU with regard to expected emission reductions in the Kyoto period (2008–2012),

Energy

Municipalities used to have a major role as energy producers in Finland, but this role has changed during the last decade along with the structural changes of the energy market. Currently, the relevant levels of governance in the case of energy production and consumption in Helsinki are the national level, the regional level (through the land use planning), and the city level. In addition, private sector has an important role: Helsinki Energy – a commercial enterprise owned by the city of

Passenger transport

Transportation causes more than one-fifth of GHG emissions in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (YTV, 2007a), and has an increasing trend. Emissions from road transportation form the major share of the emissions (90%). Passenger transport is responsible for 65% (YTV, 2007a). Reducing transportation has notable co-benefits such as enhanced air quality, reduced noise and increased road safety (EEA, 2008). There are four factors contributing to CO2 emission levels from passenger transport:

  • passenger

Waste management

With regard to solid waste management in Finland, the most relevant levels of governance are the national level and municipalities, which, according to legislation (Act 411/2007 and previous Acts) are responsible for waste management. In the case of Helsinki, the responsibility is transposed to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (Act no 1269/1996). The basis for waste management is formed by the waste regulations of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, except the waste fractions that are

Discussion

One of the objectives of this contribution was to compare the case of Helsinki with the three features of multilevel governance that were identified in recent literature. Here we discuss each of the questions, i.e. (1) are the local policies complementary or contradictory to the national ones (as in Gupta et al., 2007b); (2) can we find spheres of authority (as in Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005); and (3) is free-rider effect visible (as suggested by Kousky and Schneider, 2003).

The promotion of

Conclusions

In this study, implementation of the most important EU directives to mitigate climate change was examined in Finland and the city of Helsinki. In fact, the emission development in Helsinki – greenhouse gas emissions being at the same level in 2006 as in 1990 – is in accordance with the national Kyoto target (0% compared to the base year in the case of Finland according to the burden sharing among the EU—15 countries), whereas at the national level the emission trends are increasing. This is due

Suvi Monni holds a degree of doctor of science from Helsinki University of Technology. She works at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission on evaluation of the effectiveness of the EU climate policies and modelling of global emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants.

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    Suvi Monni holds a degree of doctor of science from Helsinki University of Technology. She works at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission on evaluation of the effectiveness of the EU climate policies and modelling of global emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants.

    Frank Raes is Head of the Climate Change Unit, at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. He received his PhD at the University of Ghent, Belgium and made a post-doc at the University of California, Los Angeles. He and his team perform research in support of climate change policy making and sustainable development.

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