Decline by design: Assessing decline policies as a decarbonisation strategy under the Paris Agreement

TL;DR

This paper analyzes decline policies used by top emitting countries to reduce carbon-intensive activities and accelerate decarbonization under the Paris Agreement.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel dataset of decline policies and proposes a typology to better understand their decarbonization potential.

Findings

Decline policies are widely used across ten high-emitting countries, targeting both direct and indirect carbon-intensive activities.

Policy design features like strictness and speed are strongly linked to higher mitigation impacts.

A typology of archetypical decline policies is proposed to guide future decarbonization strategies.

Abstract

Limiting climate change to targets set under the Paris Agreement requires urgent action to reduce the production and use of carbon-intensive technologies, fuels, materials and industrial processes. Accordingly, scholars are increasingly studying ‘decline policies’, which, by design or effect, induce the reduction or discontinuation of carbon-intensive artefacts and activities. However, understanding of the diversity and decarbonisation potential of such policies is hindered by a lack of large-scale, cross-sectoral and cross-national analyses. Here we present a novel dataset of 233 decline policies formulated by the ten highest-emitting Annex I countries to spur decarbonisation. We examine: (1) decline approaches and policies used across sectors; (2) variations in policy design features expected to influence the magnitude of decline and mitigation outcomes; (3) the relationship between decline approaches, policy design features and mitigation impact. We find that decline policies are widely used across the ten countries, including direct approaches (targeting incumbent carbon-intensive elements), and indirect approaches (promoting substitution with cleaner alternatives). Statistical analysis indicates that policy design is a critical determinant of decarbonisation potential. While evidence that direct decline policies might be more effective compared to indirect policies is limited, the ‘intensity’ of decline policies – defined by design features such as strictness, reduction speed and geographic coverage – is significantly associated with higher mitigation impact estimates. Finally, by proposing a typology of archetypical decline policies, our study advances an empirically grounded conceptual framework for understanding decline as a critical strategy for accelerating decarbonisation.

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