Climate Policy Call for abstracts for a special issue of “Climate Policy“ on “Policy instruments for limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C”

To date, research on greenhouse gas mitigation policy instruments has rarely been done in the context of very stringent mitigation targets. The Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit the warming to 1.5°C, by achieving a balance between emissions and sinks in the second half of the century, and the special IPCC report due in 2018, creates an urgent need for research on climate policy instruments consistent with 1.5°C emissions pathways. With UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including urgent action on climate change, the implications for development in many dimensions require attention. Our special issue aims to feed into the IPCC Special Report, through contributions that address, in particular:

• The political economy of introducing mitigation policy instruments able to drive sufficiently ambitious and rapid mitigation
• Empirical assessment of policy instruments that have led to rapid transformations of entire economic sectors, especially in the context of energy
• The design of incentives to achieve a fast and deep transformation, consistent with the desired mitigation and development pathways
• Revision of mitigation policies over time given uncertainty in the carbon budget for 1.5°C and the ratcheting up of Nationally Determined Contributions over time
• Policy options for mobilizing technologies which are important for limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, including negative emissions, etc.,  and their implications
• Governance of policy instruments on multiple levels (international, national, sub-national) suitable for very strong mitigation outcomes
• The role of the sustainable development imperative, especially the SDGs, in mobilizing policy instruments that are consistent with the 1.5°C target

We are looking for contributions from economics, politics, law and other relevant disciplines. We would like to achieve a broad geographic coverage of author affiliations.

Climate Policy is a world leading peer-reviewed academic journal publishing high quality policy research and analysis on all aspects of climate policy, including policy and governance, adaptation and mitigation, policy design and development, and programme delivery and impact.

Submission Instructions

The deadline for abstracts with a maximum length of 300 words is 15 December 2016. Decisions about which authors will be invited to prepare full papers will be made by 15 January 2017. Full papers will be due by 31 March 2017, with a view to decisions about acceptance for publication being made by October 2017, in line with the IPCC Special Report deadlines. All invited papers will be subject to the standard peer review process.

Abstracts should be sent to joanna@climatepolicyjournal.org. Axel Michaelowa can be contacted for any further information on the special issue at axel.michaelowa@pw.uzh.ch

Editorial information

• Guest Editor : Myles Allen
• Guest Editor : Fu Sha
• Guest Editor : Axel Michaelowa