Climate Policy Integration into EU Energy Policy

Claire Dupont is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for European Studies and the Political Science department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She works within the VUB’s Strategic Research Programme on ‘Evaluating Democratic Governance in Europe (EDGE)’.

• 1. Introduction 2. From environmental to climate policy integration 3. EU renewable energy policy 4. EU policy on the energy performance of buildings 5. EU policy on natural gas import infrastructure 6. Explaining climate policy integration: policy, politics, context and process 7. Conclusions

"This excellent work will be of interest to those working in environmental and climate policy integration and to anyone trying to promote climate-change policy in the EU. It contributes to the emerging body of research on CPI by offering a well-thought-through framework for measuring and explaining different levels of integration – particularly useful for assessing climate mainstreaming in policy output. For the policy process, stakeholder participation may need to be assessed using other indicators. Pro-climate stakeholders perhaps chose not to be more involved in renewable energy and energy conservation policies because DG Energy was pursing the same objectives – to increase the share of renewables in the EU and reduce energy consumption." – Environmental Politics, Catarina Cardoso