SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The international issue of climate change is appearing on domestic agendas with increasing regularity. More than one hundred nations have now ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Kyoto Protocol), which entered into force on the 16th of February 2005. The importance of the domestic climate change policy process of developed countries is therefore increasing. Reduction of emissions must take place at the national or sub-national level. International negotiations cannot make reductions; they can only direct that reductions take place. Therefore any international agreement must be enacted into national law for its objectives to be met. An understanding of the factors that influence policy selection will help us to identify what makes an international treaty successful on the national front. Governments, including the United States, are agreed that climate change is an important issue. While each has the same range of policy instruments at their disposal, each chooses to address the problem in different ways. This thesis focuses on the influence that differing political and legal cultures exert on the development and selection of climate change policies in the United Kingdom and California. It draws on qualitative data collected through interviews with key players in the policy process in the subject jurisdictions in conjunction with analysis of relevant documents, official and otherwise. The study suggests that the political and legal culture of a jurisdiction plays a major role in the determination of policy, providing new and valuable insights into the policy-making process in the subject jurisdictions. Its findings constitute an argument for giving greater consideration to political and legal cultural issues during international negotiations with the aim of framing international agreements with a greater potential for adoption into domestic law. This thesis covers the period up to December 2004. Any significant developments between December 2004 and August 2007 affecting the research or the conclusions reached herein have been noted in footnotes.