Paper Titles & Abstracts

While the last decade has been characterized by a strong European commitment to tackle climate change, the 'uncomfortable truth' is that major concerns over its economic future seem to have relegated the climate debate to the sidelines of the EU's political agenda. Indeed, in the face of the 'austerity spectre' that currently haunts Europe, several environmental policy goals such as the promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency or the GHG emissions are being considered, at best, secondary issues. At first glance, it appears that budget cuts are undermining previously agreed measures designed to 'green' the energy sector in Europe. At a national level, recent trends and events in the UK and Spain appear to illustrate this evolving situation. On the one hand, during the past decade, the UK has sought a leadership role in the international arena in making strenuous efforts to introduce initiatives to combat climate change and simultaneously Spain has successfully promoted renewable energy. However, budget cuts seem to be placing these developments under pressure. Using these two case studies as examples, this paper explores one main question: How has the economic crisis and associated budget cuts in Europe affected the greening of its energy policy at the national tier of governance? Adopting an environmental policy integration (EPI) approach, this paper aims to analyze how the current economic crisis in Europe has impacted on the process of decoupling economic growth and environmental protection. In particular, this paper will focus on the process of integration (or disintegration) between climate and energy policies.