In Dubai, Baku, or 2025 in Brazil – at the annual COP climate conferences, countries discuss the way forward in the global fight against climate change. But recent reports warn that global measures to combat climate change remain insufficient to meet the targets that governments have set themselves. A new study co-authored by Daniel Hausknost, a researcher at WU’s Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, shows how the focus many countries place on economic growth and the structures built around it are holding back climate action. The paper outlines the structural changes needed for effective climate policy.

The impacts of the climate crisis are becoming increasingly apparent, which is why many Western governments have adopted ambitious climate targets since the 2015 Paris Agreement. The EU aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, while Austria wants to achieve this as early as 2040. The prevailing approach is to decarbonize economies, i.e. reduce CO2 emissions, by shifting to renewable energy, while still pursuing continuous economic growth. Recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Environment Programme make clear that current measures to combat climate change are not far-reaching, fast, and ambitious enough to achieve the goals that countries have set themselves. According to Hausknost, this is because the “green growth” strategy is reaching its limits.

Structural barriers to decarbonization

Effective climate protection requires policies that affect some major sources of public revenue and established industries. For example, the mobility transition reduces sales and jobs in the traditional automotive sector. Phasing out profitable fossil-fuel industries also shrinks corporate and income tax revenues, constraining governments’ fiscal capacity. At the same time, citizens feel the direct effects of climate measures – such as higher fuel prices from CO₂ taxes – and come to perceive the state as the source of the added burdens. “This weakens public support for decarbonization and leads to the climate backlash we are currently experiencing in many Western countries. Climate-skeptical right-wing populists are gaining ground, and climate targets and measures are being diluted or even rolled back,” says Hausknost.

Effective climate policy requires new political structures

To date, climate policies have largely focused on the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. However, according to the new study, this will not be enough if we continue operating within our current political and economic structures. Effective climate policy requires a drastic reduction in overall resource and energy use. This, in turn, would require a shift towards a “transformation state” model that is less dependent on fossil-fuel-related tax revenues and steady economic growth, and that places climate protection at the center of national priorities. Future research will need to examine which structural changes are necessary for this transformation.

References

Ulrich Brand, Daniel Hausknost, Alina Brad, Gabriel Eyselein, Mathias Krams, Danyal Maneka, Melanie Pichler, Etienne Schneider, Structural Limitations of the Decarbonization State. In: Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02394-y

Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 

UN Environmental Programme Emissions Gap Report 2024