NAVIGATE
Navigating the policy landscape: barriers and synergies in climate and biodiversity policies.
There is no shortage of public policies aimed at promoting sustainable development in general and climate and biodiversity objectives in particular. On the contrary, there are plenty of strategies for sustainable societal transformation that span the local, national and global levels. Despite this, important environmental objectives are currently not yet achieved, as current climate and biodiversity strategies face a number of barriers to effective implementation and target achievement, such as a poor match between overall objectives and concrete instruments, implementation failures, conflicts between different environmental strategies, with strategies in other policy areas, or with the agendas and actions of different societal actors. Together, these barriers are important root causes of failure to meet targets and poor performance.
The aim of the NAVIGATE programme is to advance, through a multidisciplinary and co-learning approach, our knowledge of these existing, but far from explicitly recognized, barriers and provide recommendations on how contemporary and future climate and biodiversity strategies can be improved in order to avoid controversies and conflicts of objectives and instead increase synergies between them. To achieve this, the program draws on expertise from a range of social science disciplines, uses a diverse set of methodologies, and consistently interacts closely with relevant stakeholders at local, regional, national and global levels.
NAVIGATE will provide officials working to translate national and international strategies into policy practice and concrete actions with guidance on how climate and biodiversity objectives can be reconciled in policy decisions and effectively achieved, and what institutional, policy and organizational changes are needed to overcome current implementation barriers.
The NAVIGATE program is funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's environmental research grant in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management.
About the project
NAVIGATE is advancing our knowledge on how to improve contemporary and future climate and biodiversity strategies and their implementation, in order to avoid controversies and goal-conflicts and to increase synergies among strategies.
The program is led by Luleå University of Technology, in collaboration with researchers from the Uppsala University, The Swedish Institute for International Affairs, and University of Gothenburg. The programme is funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Research Fund, in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management.
NAVIGATE addresses challenges both across administrative levels, from the global to the local, and focusing on the perspectives of a range of different actors/agents: the legal framework, the political-institutional and administrative system, business and industry, civil society, and issues concerning social acceptance.
The program will deliver practical tools and recommendations for practitioners and public agencies, to support Sweden’s approach to addressing the biodiversity and climate change crises.
Subproject
Researchers in this subproject are responsible for overall program management of NAVIGATE, and for coordinating the interaction between the program’s subprojects SP1-6. Furthermore, SP0 will also be primarily responsible for internal and external communications, as well as for interactions with stakeholders and reference groups for the duration of the program.
For more information about this subproject and the entire NAVIGATE program, contact program manager Professor Simon Matti, Department of Political Science, Luleå University of Technology.
Team:
Program leader: Simon Matti, Political Science Unit, Luleå University of Technology
Program coordinator: Judith Lundberg-Felten External link., Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
SP1a: Mapping the Strategy Landscape, and SP1b: Synthesis
SP1 is divided into part a, initiating the program, and part b, finalising it.
SP1a, Mapping the strategy landscape, aims to:
- Provide an overview of present climate and biodiversity strategies, including an description of related governance systems,
- develop a analytical framework for further characterisation of the strategies and potential overlaps or conflicts between strategies, and
- identify a limited set of key strategies of particular relevance for Sweden to explore further in SP2-6.
SP1b, Synthesis
Brings together the results from SP1a-SP6 and aims to draw conclusions on how to develop strategies and improve their implementation in order to simultaneously promote public policy goals on climate change and biodiversity. The main result will be a synthesis report with recommendations for policy-makers.
Team:
SP-leader: Mikael Karlsson External link., Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
Participating researcher: Judith Lundberg-Felten External link., Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
Participating researcher: Simon Matti, Political Science Unit, Luleå University of Technology
Participating researcher: David Langlet External link., Department of Law, Uppsala University
Participating researcher: Naghmeh Nasiritousi External link., The Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Participating researcher: Christine Holmström Lind External link., Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University
Participating researcher: Daniel Lindvall External link., Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
Participating researcher: Sverker C. Jagers External link., Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg
Research assistant: Anna Berg Grimstad, Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
SP2: The Legal Framework
There is broad recognition that legal and associated procedural and administrative frameworks can pose a significant challenge for the transition to an environmentally sustainable society and thus for the achievement of climate and biodiversity objectives.
Against this backdrop, this SP aims to answer the following research questions:
- Which legal and procedural mechanisms have a direct impact on the implementation of the strategies identified in SP 1a and how can they be characterised and mapped to support the negotiation of goal conflicts and handling of implementation barriers?
- Which are the most significant legal and procedural obstacles to the effective and coordinated implementation of the identified strategies at different levels?
- Which legal best practices can be identified for strategy development and implementation to support effective and coordinated achievement of the objectives of existing and future strategies?
SP2 will generate a conceptual map of legal and procedural barriers to the coordinated operationalization of climate and biodiversity related strategies that enable systemic understanding and support remedial action both on a systems level and in relation to specific cases, including the identification and use of implementation synergies. It will furthermore provide detailed analysis of the most significant barriers, together with accessible guidance for how such barriers can be avoided or minimized in the design of policies and policy measures as well as actionable recommendations for how existing, important barriers can best be handled.
Team:
SP-leader: David Langlet External link., Department of Law, Uppsala University
SP3: Political Institutions and Administration
Political institutions and administration are key to governing sustainability transitions. Since both climate change and biodiversity loss span different fields and many levels of governance, they involve a range of actors, which adds to the complexity of governing these challenges. This subproject aims to map and analyse the roles of different political institutions and public agencies in advancing the selected strategies from SP1a. The focus will be on their responsibilities and competencies, the governance instruments that are employed, and the complex interactions between political institutions and public agencies.
SP3 will answer the following research questions:
- For the identified strategies, which are the key political institutions and agencies that address climate and biodiversity goals in Sweden and what are their responsibilities and competencies?
- How do key political institutions and agencies address climate and biodiversity goals in Sweden, in terms of: a) governance instruments employed; b) their interactions with other institutions?
- Which institutional barriers exist in implementing the strategies and how can they be overcome?
Expected results include a deeper understanding of how the functional and strategic behaviour of political institutions and public agencies that deal with issues of climate change and biological diversity affects the way in which these topics are addressed. By studying interactions between different institutions, it can be expected that some relations will be synergistic while others are more conflictive. Through this analysis, potential gaps, conflicts and roadblocks will be identified in order to better understand the institutional barriers that exist in realising climate and biological diversity strategies, thereby enabling an investigation into how to potentially overcome these.
Team:
SP-leader: Naghmeh Nasiritousi External link., The Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Contact
Simon Matti
- Professor tillika ämnesföreträdare
- 0920-492331
- simon.matti@ltu.se
- Simon Matti
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