The Corona pandemic - a focusing event for insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation?

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The Corona pandemic - a focusing event for insufficient governmental action on climate

change mitigation?

Sofia Glaser

Bachelor Thesis in Development Studies Department of Political Science

Uppsala University Spring 2020

Supervisor: Hans Blomkvist Page count: 33

Word count: 13 950

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Abstract

This study seeks to examine whether the Corona pandemic has potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. The study is built on the Multiple Streams Framework by John W. Kingdon, with a main focus on the focusing event theory. According to this, focusing events can come in three forms: as crises and disasters, personal experiences of policymakers, and as symbols.

Kingdon’s theoretical discussions, alongside my own developments of his work, provides the basis for a set of analytical questions through which the answer to the research question is provided. The analysis reveals that while the pandemic indeed can be considered a crisis or disaster and personal experiences of policymakers, establishing whether these could focus attention to the specific problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation requires further research, as the perceived cause of the crisis or disaster and personal experience must be established. However, the paper finds that the pandemic indeed has potential to serve as a symbol for the specific insufficient governmental action, for instance by stressing that deforestation increases the risk of zoonotic outbreaks, such as the Corona pandemic.

Keywords: climate change mitigation, Corona pandemic, focusing event, Multiple Streams Framework.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The year of 2020 did not evolve as most people had expected. In December 2019, an outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified in the city of Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic on March 11th 2020, and as of May 17th 2020, 307 395 people have been confirmed dead and 4 525 497 confirmed infected (WHO, 2020a). The pandemic has put large parts of societies all around the world on halt, as governments have had to take drastic measures in mitigating the impacts of the pandemic.

Borders have closed, entire populations have been put into quarantine, businesses have stopped and the very way of living life has been fundamentally changed in a short period of time for most people on the planet.

As the world continues to struggle with mitigating the impacts of the pandemic, some people have started make connections between the Corona pandemic and another great, perhaps the greatest, challenge for humanity – climate change. The current governmental efforts taken to mitigate climate change are nowhere near the measures needed to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise below 2 °C, preferably no higher than 1.5 °C, above pre-industrial levels. Now seeing the far-reaching governmental measures on the Corona pandemic, the cries for appropriate action also on climate change have intensified. As said Jamie Margolin, a Columbian-American teen climate activist: “The way the world has been able to mobilize itself and shut down in the blink of an eye to properly respond to the coronavirus is proof that political leaders actually do have the ability to make rapid change happen if they want. So where is that rapid response for the climate crisis?” (Margolin, 2020). The cry for action has also been heard from UN agencies. In a virtual press conference, theWMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said: “Whilst COVID-19 has caused a severe international health and economic crisis, failure to tackle climate change may threaten human well-being, ecosystems and economies for centuries /.../. We need to flatten both the pandemic and climate change curves.” (WMO, 2020).

According to Oran Young (2016), a success of the Paris Agreement will most likely require a major and disruptive event, such as the dissolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet, in order to induce the far-reaching changes in institutional arrangements necessary (2016:131).

While the Greenland Ice Sheet has not yet dissoluted, the Corona pandemic, a major and disruptive event, has clearly convinced governments that costly measures might be the least costly option in the face of the possible impacts of the pandemic. Could the Corona pandemic induce such a realization also on climate change mitigation?

1.1 PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTION

The underlying question that has guided the focus of this paper is whether the Corona pandemic has potential to induce governments around the world to take action on climate change mitigation. This is a very comprehensive question, and providing an answer requires a

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vast amount of research to be able to account for contextual factors influencing the political agendas, such as national political conditions, public opinion, institutional arrangements etcetera. However, given that both the Corona pandemic and the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation are global issues with many components that can be considered as ‘common knowledge’, this paper argues that some valuable conclusions are still possible to make without a focus on a specific country or context. For action to be taken on an issue, a prerequisite is for the issue to receive a prominent place on the political agenda, which in turn requires that the given issue has caught the attention of policymakers (Kingdon, 1995).

The purpose of this study is, therefore, to examine if the Corona pandemic has potential for directing the attention of policymakers to the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. The study is based on the Multiple Streams Framework by John W. Kingdon (1995), an influential theory within agenda-setting theory, and with main focus on the theoretical discussions of focusing events. These are means through which problems can receive the attention of policymakers (Kingdon, 1995:197). Kingdon’s theoretical discussions, alongside my own developments of his work, have provided the basis for a set of analytical questions through which the answer to the research question will be provided. While performing thorough discussions and reflections of this particular theory, the phenomena of the Corona pandemic and the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation are approached in more general terms, with a focus on what can be considered as ‘common knowledge’. In this way, this paper hopes to yield insights on the potential of the Corona pandemic to focus attention to the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, which future studies in this emerging research field might find valuable for studies with a narrower focus on specific countries or contexts.

The research question of the paper is as follows:

Does the Corona pandemic have potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation?

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2. BACKGROUND AND PREVIOUS RESEARCH

The first section of this chapter will provide a discussion of the background on governmental action on climate change mitigation, and the lack thereof. The second section will focus on the role of focusing events in governmental action on climate change, and positionate these findings in relation to the focus of this paper.

2.1 GOVERNMENTAL ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Human-induced climate change was hypothesized as early as the 1890s by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (Abatzoglou et al. 2007:38). However, the phenomenon was not acknowledged as a global environmental problem until the 1970s, when the American climatologist James Hansen advanced the hypothesis that burning fossil fuels was indeed having a heating effect on the planet (ibid:35). By the early 1990s, the problem can be said to have secured a place on the international political agenda, as more than 150 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Pralle, 2009:781), with the main objective to “/.../ prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC, 2020a). Since then, the Parties of the Convention have had yearly conferences, so called COPs (UNFCCC, 2020b),

However, while the scientific evidence about the urgency of the problem has accumulated over the years, little effective action has been taken. The Copenhagen accord in 2009 was faced with a gridlock, and it became clear that the Kyoto Protocol was a dead-end. Indeed, many argue that the first real breakthrough in international action on climate change was the Paris Agreement in 2015 at COP21 (Victor, 2016). The Agreement moved away from the differentiation between developed and developing countries which had been a prominent feature of earlier efforts. For the first time, all parties were required to make efforts. These included submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) before the Paris Agreement, regularly report on implementation efforts, to undergo international review and to submit new NDCs every five years, which should represent a progression from the previous ones. The Paris Agreement can be said to have a ‘hybrid’ design, as it mixes bottom-up flexibility of NDCs with top-down rules (C2ES, 2015:1-2). The flexibility feature has been highlighted as a key in generating negotiations and enabling the Agreement. It has also been argued to be a strength in terms of likeliness of implementation. As governments can set their own contributions, they can adapt them to domestic constituencies and are less likely to face domestic opposition (Keohane and Oppenheimer, 2016:146)

However, despite these positive notions, there are also robust reasons to be doubtful regarding the Paris Agreement’s effect on climate change. If all the unconditional NDCs¹ submitted at COP21 are fully implemented, there is a 66 percent change that the global temperature rise will be limited to 3.2°C by the end of the 21 century (UNEP, 2019:xix).

1 Conditional NDCs are goals contingent on some possible conditions, such as ambitious actions from other countries, financial and technical support, the ability of national legislatures to pass necessary laws, etcetera.

Unconditional NDCs, on the contrary, are goals with no such conditions attached (UNEP, 2019:ix-x).

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These figures reveal that current efforts are nowhere close to meeting the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep the rise well below 2 °C and preferably no higher than 1.5 °C. The efforts might not even be enough to keep the rise under 3.2°C. The current course of action of the parties to mitigate the effects of climate change is therefore insufficient, and the success of the Agreement will be determined by whether countries manage to both fulfil their current NDCs, and to increase them in the near future.

At the same time, as argued by Keohane and Oppenheimer, the flexibility of the Paris Agreement is rather likely to incline many governments toward limiting the intensity or scope of their NDCs. They argue that recognition of the severity of the issue is not enough to create the incentives needed for a change in long-term behavior (2016:142). Furthermore, the United States, one of the major emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), has announced its withdrawal from the Agreement, and the latest COP in Madrid in 2019 did not generate any significant progress. Indeed, as of today, the governmental action on climate change mitigation is far from sufficient.

2.2 FOCUSING EVENT: DETERMINANT OF SUCCESS?

So what will it take to change this? Oran Young (2016) believes that a success of the Paris Agreement would require some fundamental changes in order to “/.../ break the political grip of the forces of business as usual (and especially the fossil fuel industry) and to foster a revolution in public consciousness in which new attitudes and values regarding human well-being take hold on a widespread basis.” (2016:131). He suggests that it might take a severe climate shock to induce these rapid changes needed. This has to be something far more disruptive than the events of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, such as the shutting down of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic, or the dissolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Shocks and crisis of this magnitude open rare windows of opportunity, and during these windows “far-reaching changes in institutional arrangements can occur at what seems like lightning speed compared with normal times.” (ibid).

The severe climate shocks discussed by Young constitute so called ‘ focusing events’.

Focusing events are part of agenda-setting theory and can explain how problems can come to the attention of policymakers. The events shed light on certain conditions, which subsequently can be recognized as problems and acted upon (Kingdon, 1995:197). Birkland (1998) defines focusing events as sudden and relatively rare events, which come to the attention to the public and policymakers simultaneously. Furthermore, focusing events “can be reasonably dened as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms” and “has harms that are concentrated in a particular geographical area or community of interest” (Birkland, 1998:54).

Focusing events in terms of climate change are also mentioned by Sarah Pralle (2009). She examines several strategies for keeping the problem of climate change on agendas and for moving it up on the list of prioritized policies of governments, one of which is to take advantage of focusing events. When Pralle applies this in the context of climate change, she talks about events such as the flooding of New Orleans and other communities on the Gulf

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Coast of the United States, and the Hurricane Katrina (2009:784). She argues that Environmentalists should take advantage of the increased public and media attention in these situations, to put (or keep) climate change on the political agenda. As it is difficult to definitely connect one single and particular event to climate change, these events should be treated as symbols of what is to be expected from the future (Pralle, 2009:796).

A severe climate shock of the magnitude mentioned by Young has yet not occurred.

However, the world is currently experiencing another major shock: the Corona pandemic.

The far-reaching governmental measures taken to handle the pandemic have been compared to the lack of action on climate change and the need for societal transformation. As said the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg:“If one virus can wipe out the entire economy in a matter of weeks and shut down societies, then that is a proof that our societies are not very resilient. It also shows that once we are in an emergency, we can act and we can change our behaviour quickly.” (Vaughan, 2020). Given that focusing events have been found to have potential in influencing climate change governance, this paper will examine whether the Corona pandemic has potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation.

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3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter will discuss the theoretical framework on which this paper is built. The first section will discuss some conceptual clarifications in order to facilitate an understanding of the following theoretical discussions. The chapter will then move on to discuss the Multiple Streams Framework, with a main focus on focusing events. The two following sections will dig into the difference between problem recognition and problem definition, and the importance of them both. The penultimate section discusses what focusing events can be said to focus attention to, and the chapter is concluded with a summary of the theoretical framework.

3.1 CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS

A first important conceptual clarification to make is the differentiation between a condition and a problem. We put up with conditions every day, such as bad weather and unavoidable or untreatable illness, but the mere existence of these conditions do not automatically turn them into problems. A problem emerges only when we believe that we should do something about the given condition (Kingdon, 1995:109-110). However, a problem is not an ‘objective’

translation of a condition. As Kingdon states: “Problems are not simply the conditions or external events themselves; there is also a perceptual, interpretive element.” (ibid) . The distinction between conditions and problems will referred to repeatedly in this paper.

Second, ‘problems’ in this paper are to be understood as public problems. These are problems in need of political action (Knaggård, 2015:451).

Third, this paper will also distinguish between problem recognition and problem definition. While the former describes the process of when a person translates a condition into a problem, the latter refers to categorizing the problem as a specific problem. It could be a problem of inequality, economy or health. While you cannot recognize a problem without also defining it, the same condition can be recognized as a problem, yet defined in different ways (Kingdon, 1995). This will be discussed in more detail in section 3.3 and 3.4.

Fourth and last, as we are to dig into parts of agenda-setting theory, it is important to establish the distinction between different types of agendas. The two relevant for this study is the governmental agenda and the decision agenda. The governmental agenda consists of issues that are being paid serious attention to by policymakers, while the decision agenda refers to a shorter list of issues within the governmental agenda which are up for an active decision (Kingdon, 1995:3-4).

3.2 THE MULTIPLE STREAMS FRAMEWORK

In his influential book ‘Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies’ (1995) John W. Kingdon argues that problems rise and fall on agendas as a product of the interaction between three different processes, called ‘streams’: the political stream, the policy stream and the problem stream (Pralle, 2009:784). The political stream consists of political developments such as

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changes in public mood, administrative turnovers and changes in partisan or ideological distribution in the legislative body. The policy stream is the process through which policy solutions are generated and selected, resulting in a short list of proposals which attain a place on the governmental agenda. The problem stream, finally, is the process through which conditions come to the attention to, and problems are recognized by, policymakers. One such means of attention is focusing events (Kingdon, 1995).

These three streams work largely independent of each other. For instance, solutions are developed whether or not there is a problem to attach them to (Kingdon, 1995:88). It is therefore analytically possible to study the three streams separately. Given that the objective of this paper is to analyze if the Corona pandemic has potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, the focus will be put on the problem stream.

Before that, however, it is important to acknowledge what role developments in the problem stream plays in agenda-setting, since this provides an understanding of the theory underpinning the theoretical focus of this paper. Governmental agendas are set by events in the problem stream (or the political stream). This means that the occurrence of a focusing event could itself be powerful enough to place a problem on the list of subjects to which governmental officials are paying serious attention to. What happens is that a policy window opens - an opportunity to push for solution proposals. These windows do not stay open for long, and it is therefore important to seize the opportunity when it is given. However, while a focusing event can be enough to place an issue on the governmental agenda and open a policy window, this is often not enough for it to move up to the decision agenda. Apart from a recognized problem, that move often also requires a policy proposal perceived as feasible, and favorable political conditions. In other words – a coupling of all three streams (Kingdon, 1995:196-203).

Having acknowledged this, we will now move on to the problem stream, and more specifically, focusing events.

3.2.1 THE PROBLEM STREAM: FOCUSING EVENTS

According to Kingdon, there are several means through which conditions can come to the attention of policymakers. One of these means are focusing events (1995:197). Given that both the governmental and decision agendas have a limited ‘carrying capacity’, a competition among subjects is created (Pralle, 2009:782-783), and focusing events can therefore serve as determinants of which conditions get the attention of policymakers. A focusing event can be a crisis or a disaster, the personal experience of a policymaker, or a symbol (Kingdon, 1995:197).

Crises or disasters are events that simply demand some kind of action. In these situations, even inaction would be considered a decision of response. To illustrate the role of a crisis or a disaster as focusing event, Kingdon refers to the bankruptcy of the American Penn Central Railroad in the 1970s (1995:96). The Penn Central was a merging of the the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad, which both had been key players in the

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country’s industrial development (Salvato, 2006:3). When the company collapsed, it was of such proportion that policymakers could not ignore it. As one of Kingdon’s respondents said:

“It was a threat to the economy of the nation as a whole. It was horrendous and unthinkable to allow service to stop.” (1995:96). The collapse of the Penn Central served as a focusing event for the financial conditions of the country’s railroads. Other examples of focusing events as crises or disasters are airplane crashes and bridge collapses, which can focus attention to air safety and highway infrastructure deterioration (ibid:174).

The second type of focusing event is a personal experience of a policymaker. For instance, all policymakers have had brushes with health disorders, either themselves or someone among their family or friends. This experience can focus attention to the field of biomedical research. Similarly, Kingdon argues that the focus of policymakers given to different types of transportation modes can be affected by their personal experience. For example, by traveling more by air than by bus, anomalies in the former will be picked up sooner than in the latter (ibid:96).

Lastly, a focusing event can also be the emergence of a symbol. Kingdon describes how the spreading use of the CAT-scanner within the 1970s medical care in the United States, became a symbol for the problem of the contributions of technology to costs of medical care.

His respondents (i.e. policymakers) would refer to “the CAT scanner problem” to describe this situation. Similarly, the Washington METRO became a symbol for the high-cost fixed rail transit systems. The impacts of symbols can be quite powerful, as the symbols can capture in a nutshell something more vague and diffuse that people already had a feeling of (ibid:97).

However, as Kingdon points out, focusing events only rarely move a subject to prominent agenda status by themselves. In general, focusing events need accompaniment. A first example of such an accompaniment is a preexisting perception of a problem. This is always the case for symbols, and in general also for personal experiences of policymakers. In this way, the focusing event is not defining the problem itself, but focusing attention to an issue that was already “in the back of people’s minds” (1995:98). Second, a focusing event can serve as an ‘early warning’ for possible future harms. In these cases, the focusing event is accompanied by firmer indicators of a widespread condition, containing information of that the event might not be a one-time occurrence, and with this knowledge the conditions highlighted by the focusing event become recognized as problems. Third, a focusing event can have an impact on problem recognition when combined with other similar events. Based on the same premises as the previous example, a one-time occurrence can be dismissed as an isolated event (ibid).

Before we move on, I would like to add a reflection on these three types of accompaniments. While it is only the accompaniment of firmer indicators of a widespread condition that explicitly state that the issue’s agenda prominence comes with the belief that similar events might occur in the future, I would argue that all three accompaniments contain a consideration about the future. If air safety attained a prominent place on the agenda because an airplane crash confirmed the pre-existing perception of deficient air safety, or

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because several plane crashes undoubtedly pointed to the case, there would probably be no need to address air safety if the plane(s) crashed was the last plane ever to fly. Deficient air safety would be considered a condition, not a problem, if there was not a belief that the event might occur again, or that deficient air safety could cause any other forms of problem in the future (including the instant future). My conclusion is therefore that focusing events focus attention to conditions that will be perceived as problems only if there is a belief that the condition could cause future harms.

3.3 PROBLEM RECOGNITION

What can be said about the process of problem recognition? Kingdon (1995) identifies three factors which contribute to the process: values, comparisons and categories.

The values of the observer play a crucial role in problem recognition. The observer will recognize a condition as a problem if there is a discrepancy between the observed condition and one’s idea of an ideal state. For instance, politicians in competing parties might agree on that some people in the population are living in poverty, but whether this is perceived as a problem or a condition will be determined by whether one believes in governmental interference in addressing poverty (Kingdon, 1995:110).

A perception of a problem can also emerge through comparisons. Given that one believes in equality, a relative disadvantage between two conditions can be perceived as a problem.

For instance, if one country has a national health insurance while another does not, that discrepancy can translate the condition into a problem (ibid:111).

The third factor concerns categories. The first thing you do when analyzing something is to put it in its proper category. Down below, Kingdon gives three real life examples of categories and their consequences, taken from the interviews he conducted during his research (1995:111). They are included as quotes as a basis for the discussion that follows.

“If waterways are categorized as water resources, then such navigation projects as locks and dams, canals, and dredging would be compared to such projects as reclamation and irrigation.

But if waterways are viewed as corridors of transport, then a barge’s use of locks and dredged channels without paying any user fee is unfair when compared to the fuel taxes paid by users that finance highway construction and maintenance /.../.” (Kingdon, 1005:112).

“/.../ [I]t had been the accepted theory that the federal highway program would help construct highways, but the states and localities would be responsible for maintaining them once constructed. As the 1960s and 1970s wore on, it became clear /.../ that the states simply could not or would not keep up with the maintenance requirements. Yet if the federal government simply agreed to pay for maintenance, the expense would be enormous /.../. So the first step was to define some maintenance activities as constructions. /.../ Resurfacing /.../ would be called construction and paid for by the federal government.” (Kingdon, 1995:112).

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“/.../ [D]uring the 1960s and 1970s, other modes of transportation were disorientating, including railroad rights-of-way, and locks and dams. Eventually, transportation people began to think in terms of “transportation infrastructure deterioration,” rather than of the separate deterioration of each modes’ infrastructures. The emergence of that category has important implications for the way people see problems. They make explicit connections between the experiences of the railroads and highways, arguing that if we defer maintenance on highways and bridges as the railroads did on rights-of-way, we will be in a similar mess. The new category also creates the sense that there is a much more massive problem than if people were seeing each of the pieces separately. That in turn argues for the devotion of more resources to rebuilding.” (Kingdon, 1995:113).

As these examples show, the impacts of categories can play out in different ways. The first example shows how a change in category can induce a problem recognition, the second example reveals that a change in category can help solve a problem, and the third example shows how the merging of two separate categories can affect the perceived size of the problem and its desirable solutions.

These examples do also reveal the interconnection of Kingdon’s concepts of values, comparisons and categories. For instance, the first example of categories showed that a change in categories (from water resources to transportation) lead to comparisons between the different means of transportation within the same category. The comparison revealed that users of the waterways did not have to pay any user fee while users of highways and airlines did, and this appealed to the pre-existing values of equality, transforming the condition into a problem, and arguably also placing the problem in a category of inequality. Indeed, the three concepts appears to be more of a helpful way of thinking than three distinct categories.

Two distinctions between the concepts can however be made. Values seem to be something a person inevitably brings to the interpretation of a condition, comparable to a pair of glasses through which the conditions are scrutinized. Comparisons and categories, however, refer to active doings made by the observer. A comparison is created through comparing, and a category is created through categorizing.

The concept of ‘categorizing’ deserves some additional reflection. The next section will discuss how it is related to problem definition.

3.4 PROBLEM DEFINITION

The same condition can be categorized in different ways. Some definitions might invoke people to think of it as a problem, while others will not. A problem can also be categorized in different ways. Climate change could be categorized as an issue of human health, economy, or as something completely different. This in turn has consequences for what measures are perceived appropriate to address the problem. As Kingdon states, “ [p]eople will see a problem quite differently if it is put into one category rather than another” (1995:111).

Another way of referring to the categorization of a problem would be to refer to the definition of a problem. In this paper, these are two expressions with the same meaning. A category

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equals a definition, and both conditions and problems can be categorized or defined. The reason to also include ‘problem definition’ in this paper is because it appears easy to differentiate from ‘problem recognition’. While the former refers to when a condition is translated into a problem, the latter refers to the defining (i.e. categorizing) of the problem as a specific problem. For instance, by categorizing suffrage as a civil right, the lack of suffrage would not only be recognized as a problem, it would be defined as a civil rights problem.

Categories and categorization have thus an implication for both problem recognition and problem definition.

Given that categorization is an active doing, and that a choice of category on the one hand can determine whether a condition is perceived as a problem at all, and on the other hand what measures are perceived appropriate to address the problem, categorization can be a strategic move to accomplish favorable outcomes. As Kingdon says: “ [g]etting people to see new problems, or to see old problems in one way rather than another, is a major conceptual and political accomplishment.” (1995:115).

3.5 WHAT FOCUSING EVENTS FOCUS ATTENTION TO

That focusing events focus the attention of policymakers to certain conditions or problems is something we are familiar with by now. But when analyzing if a given event could serve as a focusing event, how can we know what the event focuses attention to? To be able to provide an answer to the research question of this paper we must reach an understanding of this. What determines what a focusing event focuses attention to is not something Kingdon states explicitly, and this paper has therefore analyzed his discussion of the different types of focusing events and their nature.

One thing that I have found to be in common for all three types of focusing events is that they focus attention to a category which they are perceived to be part of. This finding can be divided into two components. The first component concerns the fact that focusing events focus attention to something they themselves are perceived to be part of . For instance, when Kingdon argues that airplane crashes and bridge collapses (as examples of crises or disasters) can focus attention to air safety and highway infrastructure deterioration (1995:95), the events are themselves arguably part of the problems which they highlight. The same conclusions can be made about personal experience of policymakers. The health disorders of a policymaker or someone close can focus attention to biomedical research (ibid:96), something which the health disorders can be said to be part of. Similarly, the CAT-scanner became a symbol for and focused attention to the contributions of technology to the expenditures of medical care (ibid:97), which the CAT-scanners were part of. The second part of the finding is that focusing events focus attention to a category, and not a highly specific condition or problem. The health disorder focus attention to biomedical research, not just the problem of the specific disorder. A plane crash focus attention to air safety, and not merely the deficient engines that might have caused the crash.

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I will also extend this with a second argument. Given that focusing events have been found to focus attention to a category, it can consequently also be said to focus attention to other subjects part of that category. If an airplane crash focuses attention to air safety, and this leads to a problem recognition of inadequate flight crew training, the focusing event has arguably also focused attention to inadequate flight crew training by focusing attention to the category of air safety.

Figure 1 : Left box: What focusing events can focus attention to. Right box: Example of what an airplane crash can focus attention to.

While these findings provide a better understanding of what focusing events focus attention to, it does not explain what determines which category the focusing event directs attention to.

A health disorder could arguably be said to be part of many other categories apart from biomedical research, such as public safety (e.g. if it is a contagious disease), health care service and life insurance. So which category does a focusing event direct attention to? Here, I have found focusing events as crises or disasters and personal experiences of policymakers to work differently from symbols.

Based on the examples provided by Kingdon, and with an appeal to some form of logical thinking, I will argue that crises or disasters and personal experiences of policymakers focus attention to the category (or categories) which the cause(s) of their occurrence is perceived to be part of. For instance, if a bridge is found to have collapsed due to deterioration of the pillars upholding the bridge, this specific cause can then be said to be part of the more general category ‘highway infrastructure deterioration’, making the collapsed bridge a matter of highway infrastructure deterioration. Would the cause rather be perceived as intentional sabotage, this would not be categorized as a matter of highway infrastructure deterioration, and the event of the collapsed bridge would, arguably, therefore not focus attention to highway infrastructure deterioration. Similarly, the experience of a health disorder would

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arguably not direct attention to biomedical research if the cause of the experience of the disorder would not be perceived to be a matter or biomedical research.

Figure 2: Left box: Which category focusing events as a crisis or disaster and a personal experience of a policymaker focuses attention to. Right box: Example of which category a collapsed bridge can focus attention to.

Figure 3: What symbols focus attention to.

While crises or disasters and personal experiences of policymakers focus attention to the category which the cause of their occurrence is perceived to be part of, it is less fruitful to talk about the cause of the occurrence of a symbol. A symbol is created. Its ‘occurrence’ is therefore not objective in the way the very occurrence of a crisis or disaster or personal experience can be said to be. A symbol is a linguistic construction with the purpose of focusing attention to a certain problem. What this implies is that the ‘cause’ of its occurrence

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necessarily is the intention to focus attention to the given problem. In other words, a symbol focuses attention to the category it was created to focus attention to, and based on the discussion in the beginning of this section, thereby also to other subjects part of that category.

Furthermore, this category is one that the symbol itself is perceived to be part of.

3.6 SUMMARY OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter has discussed the theoretical framework on which this study is built. The framework is based on the Multiple Streams Framework, which explains how issues rise and fall on the political agenda through the interaction of three separate streams: politics, policies and problems. The streams work largely independent, and are therefore possible to analyze separately. Focus of this paper will be on the problem stream, and more specifically on focusing events – a means through which conditions can come to the attention to policymakers.

Focusing events can come in the forms of crises or disasters, personal experiences of policymakers, or as symbols. To place the issue on a prominent place on the political agenda, they also need an accompaniment. This could be a pre-existing perception of a problem, firmer indicators of a widespread condition, or similar events.

We have also discussed the difference between conditions and problems, and the difference between problem recognition and problem definition. We put up with conditions every day, and these come to be perceived as problems only when we believe that we should do something about them. This translation is called problem recognition. Kingdon discuss three factors which can contribute to this translation: values, comparisons and categories. A problem can also be categorized, and this is what is called problem definition – the problem is categorized as a specific problem.

Lastly, this chapter has provided a discussion of what focusing events focus attention to. In common for all three types of focusing events is that they focus attention to a category which they are perceived to be part of, and consequently also to other subjects part of that category.

On the question of which category the events focus attention to, this paper has argued that crises, disasters and personal experiences of policymakers focus attention to the category in which the cause of their occurrence is perceived to be, while symbols, as a linguistic construction, focus attention to the category it was created to focus attention to.

The next chapter will make use of this theoretical framework and provide an analytical framework for the purpose of this study.

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4. METHODOLOGY

This chapter will outline the choice of material for the study, the methodology and design through which the study will be executed, and delimitations important to clarify. The first section of the chapter will also elaborate on the research question in order to clarify the analytical structure of the study.

4.1 ELABORATING ON THE RESEARCH QUESTION

Let us return to the research question: Does the Corona pandemic have potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation? The way I see it, providing an answer to this question requires breaking the analysis down into three steps.

The first step is to determine if the Corona pandemic could be considered a crisis or a disaster, a personal experience of a policy maker and/or a symbol. These are the three types of focusing events that Kingdon outlines. If the Corona pandemic do not conform to the requirements for any of these, the answer to the research question will be ‘NO’. On the contrary, if it conforms to the requirements for one or several of these types of focusing events, the Corona pandemic will be considered to have potential as a focusing event in general.

The second step is to determine if the Corona pandemic, as a focusing event in general, could focus the attention of policymakers to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, in particular. If the answer to this is no, consequently, the answer to the research question will also be ‘NO’. However, if it is determined that the Corona pandemic, as a focusing event in general, can be considered to focus the attention of policymakers to this specific insufficient action, it will be argued that the Corona pandemic can be said to be a focusing event for the condition of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. Important to note here is that it is considered a condition, not a problem. The reason for this is related to the third step.

As argued by Kingdon, simply the occurrence of a focusing event is rarely enough for the condition which it highlights to be considered a problem. Rather, the focusing event needs to be accompanied by either a pre-existing perception of a problem, firmer indicators of a widespread condition or similar events (1995:98). Therefore, the third and last step is to determine if the Corona pandemic as a focusing event for the condition of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, can be said to be accompanied by one or several of the three types of accompaniments. If the answer to this is no, the answer to the research question will be ‘NO’. On the contrary, would the answer be yes, it will be argued that the Corona pandemic can be said to be a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation . In other words, the answer to the research question will be ‘YES’.

See next section for elaboration on the word ‘potential’ in the research question.

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4.2 CHOICE OF MATERIAL

Providing an answer to the research question requires both an understanding of focusing events as a theoretical concept, and an understanding of the phenomena of the Corona pandemic and the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. For an understanding of the former, this paper has turned to the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) by John W. Kingdon, and especially his discussions of focusing events. This particular theory was chosen due to the fact that it is influential within agenda-setting theory and has been cited in numerous other works within the field. Another option could of course have been to choose another theory on focusing events, or to include several theories into the paper. A choice to do the former would certainly have been an alternative, but given that the MSF is considered relevant for the study, questioning the specific choice of one relevant theory over another would be the same as questioning the choice of topic over a completely different topic. Some choices just have to be made. Rather, the relevant question to ask is why I did not include several other theories into the paper. While this could have widened the theoretical scope, I found that many of the works in the field referred back to the MSF. Given that this particular theory is comprehensive and influential, I found this theory alone to provide a solid ground for the theoretical understanding of the functioning of focusing events.

The second choice of material concerns providing an understanding of the phenomena of the Corona pandemic and the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation.

As was discussed in section 1.1, this paper has chosen to study these phenomena on a

‘general’ level, i.e. based on the elements of the phenomena that can be considered as

‘common knowledge’. What this means is that this study will not focus on any particular context (such as a specific state or region). The reason for this choice is that the paper aims at providing a first insight to the potential of the Corona pandemic to focus the attention of policymakers to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, and to thereby possibly pave the way for future studies concentrated on specific contexts. Let us therefore reflect a bit upon the word ‘potential’ in the research question. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word means “possible when necessary conditions exist” (n.d.). By including the word ‘potential’, this paper acknowledges the influence of contextual factors on the final outcome. As familiar by now, one important factor in problem recognition is values, including ideological beliefs of what things are appropriate for governmental action (Kingdon, 1995:111). In the end, whether a specific government, or a specific policymaker, are or would perceive the Corona pandemic or insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation as problems will have to be determined empirically with a narrower focus of the study. Nonetheless, given that both the Corona pandemic and insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation are global issues with many components that can be considered as common knowledge, I argue that a focus on the issues on a more general level can still provide fruitful understanding in relation to the theory of focusing events. Important to note is therefore that any claims based on findings here will not be for

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any specific country or context. Another important note to make is the quite diffuse boundary of what is considered as ‘common knowledge’, which could be considered a matter of reliability. What is common knowledge today might not be common knowledge in a week, a month or a year. This is especially relevant to point out considering the constantly evolving situation of the Corona pandemic. However, one inevitable boundary setter in this matter is time itself. What becomes common knowledge in a month cannot possibly be common knowledge today. In this sense, while acknowledging the possibility of a changed perception of what constitutes common knowledge at future scrutiny, I argue that it does not constitute a limitation for the possibility of reaching conclusions based on the situation as of today.

4.3 METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN

The design of this paper is descriptive, as it aims to decide, based on the given material, if the Corona pandemic has potential for serving as a focusing event for the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. In this sense, it can also be said to be a classifying analysis, as it will examine if the given phenomena conform with the criterias set by the theory of what needs to be fulfilled for the Corona pandemic to have this potential.

The three-step analysis, explained in section 4.1, will be executed through posing several analytical questions based on the theory of Kingdon. These questions will constitute the empirical indicators for the phenomena of interest ( Esaiasson et al., 2017:222). Given that the aim is to draw conclusions based on the specific theory of Kingdon, it seems logical to also base the analytical questions on his definitions of and criterias for focusing events.

Otherwise, the risk would have been to measure phenomena according to definitions not align with the MSF, and it would consequently be difficult to draw conclusions based on this theory. However, to attain a clear understanding of focusing events as crises or disasters, this paper has had to complement Kingdon’s description of these with external definitions (see Q1a). Nonetheless, given that these concepts are conventional, the risk for these to significantly differ from the way in which Kingdon perceived the concepts should be minimal.

4.3.1 ANALYTICAL QUESTIONS

Q1: What type of focusing event could the Corona pandemic be considered as? This question will have four predetermined possible answers. 1a) A crisis or a disaster, 1b) A personal experience of a policymaker , 1c) A symbol, and 1d) None of the above. The last alternative is included in case the Corona pandemic would not be found to conform to the requirements for any of the focusing event alternatives. A positive outcome of alternative 1d) will entail that the answer to the research question of this paper is ‘NO’.

As indicated by alternative 1a), crises and disasters fall under the same alternative answer.

This is not because they are synonyms – they are not. According to Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, a crisis is “/.../ a threat to core values or life-sustaining systems, which requires an urgent response under conditions of deep uncertainty.”, while a disaster is “the

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outcome or consequences for a society: a disaster is a “crisis with a bad ending.”” (SDMI, n.d.). The reason they are not distinguished is because it is not the events per se that is of importance, but the effects of these on the attention of policymakers. Kingdon does not differentiate between these is his theory, and this paper therefore bases alternative 1a) on the assumption that crises and disasters as focusing events entail the same effect on policymakers.

Regarding alternative 1b) and the personal experience of a policymaker, Kingdon argues that this experience does not necessarily have to be an event that has happened to the policymaker in person, it could also be something that has happened to family or friends. He argues that the field of biomedical research has this advantage. Since practically everyone knows someone close who has had brushes with health disorders, if not oneself, policymakers are prone to pay their attention to this research field (Kingdon, 1995:96).

Alternative 1c) concerns focusing events as symbols. These focus the attention of policymakers to a problem that was already on their minds (ibid:97-98). Consequently, a symbol requires a pre-existing perception of a problem, which is one of the accompaniments asked for in Q3. S ymbols and this particular accompaniment can thus not be separated, and a positive answer to Q1c) will automatically result in a positive answer for Q3a) regarding the Corona pandemic as a symbol. Given that Q3a) does not ask for a pre-existing perception of a problem in general, but for a pre-existing perception of the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation in particular, Q1c) and Q3a) cannot be separated from Q2) either. The Corona pandemic cannot be a symbol (Q1c) for the pre-existing perception of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation (Q3a) without focusing attention to this specific insufficient governmental action in particular (Q2). In other words, Q1c) cannot yield a positive result unless Q2) and Q3a) does the same, and all three questions will therefore have to be answered at the same time. Nonetheless, for the transparency of the analysis, the questions are still formulated separately.

As stated in section 4.1, i f the Corona pandemic do not conform to the requirements for any of these types of focusing events, the answer to the research question is ‘NO’. On the contrary, if it conforms to requirements for one or several, the Corona pandemic will be considered to have potential as a focusing event in general (with symbols as an exception, see discussion on Q1c).

Q2: Could the Corona pandemic, as a focusing event in general, focus the attention of policymakers to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, in particular? This question is important since it is a specific subject that is of interest to this study, and not whether the Corona pandemic could focus attention to any subject. The way I see it, ‘insufficient’ governmental action on climate change mitigation can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation would be to focus on the effects of climate change visible as of today, such as a warmer climate, melted ices and bleached coral reefs. This would, however, be to point out past governmental action on climate change mitigation as insufficient. Given that it is in the past, the actions cannot be changed and are therefore

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conditions and not problems. This is not to say that the ices that have melted and the coral reefs that have been bleached are not problems. Rather, what it entails is that it is a matter of governmental actiontoday. Because of the way climate change works, where changes today are products of actions taken in the past, and actions today will have effects in the future, the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation today refers to mitigating future effects, not present. Therefore, what this study will consider ‘insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation’, will be things that are considered present anthropogenic drivers of climate change, such as GHG emissions.

As was discussed in the previous chapter, focusing events in terms of crises or disasters and personal experiences focus attention to the category in which the cause of the event is perceived to be, and consequently also other subjects part of that specific category. For the Corona pandemic as a crisis or disaster or a personal experience of a policymaker to focus attention to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation in particular, this entails that this specific insufficient action would have to be perceived as either a category in which the cause of the events is perceived to be, or it be part of the same category as the perceived cause (see figure 4 below). This is comparable to how an airplane crash can focus attention to the category of air safety, but arguably also other subjects part of that category (such as deficient engines).

Symbols, on the other hand, focuses attention to the category it was created to focus attention to, and thereby also to other subjects part of that category. Furthermore, this category is one that the symbol itself is perceived to be part of. So for the Corona pandemic to focus attention to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, the pandemic must either be perceived to be part of the category of the specific insufficient governmental action, or this action must be perceived to be part of a category which the Corona pandemic as a symbol focuses attention to (see figure 5 below). This is comparable to how the CAT-scanners as a symbol for the contributions of technology to the cost of medical care focused attention to this specific issue, and arguably also to other subjects perceived to be part of that category.

If the answer to Q2 is negative, consequently, the answer to the research question will also be negative. Would the answer instead be ‘yes’, it will be argued that the Corona pandemic has potential to serve as a focusing event for the condition of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation (with symbols as an exception, see discussion on Q1c). As discussed in the beginning of this chapter, despite a positive answer to Q2, this paper will still argue that the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation should be considered a condition, not a problem. The reason for this is that Kingdon argues that for the condition highlighted by the focusing event to be considered a problem, the focusing event must most need an accompaniment. This leads us to the third and last analytical question.

Figure 4: The two ways in which the Corona pandemic as a crisis or disaster and a personal experience of a policymaker could focus attention to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation.

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Figure 5 : The two ways in which the Corona pandemic as a symbol could focus attention to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation.

Q3: What accompaniment could the Corona pandemic as a focusing event for the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation be considered to have? This question will have four predetermined possible answers:3a) A pre-existing perception of a problem, 3b) A firmer indicator of a widespread condition , 3c) Similar events, and 3d) None of the above.

Would the question yield a positive answer to 3d), the answer to the research question of this paper is ‘NO’. On the contrary, would yield a positive answer to one or several of the alternatives 3a), 3b) and 3c), the answer to the research question is ‘YES’.

In this study, 3a) ‘A pre-existing perception of a problem’ refers to one particular problem:

the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. In other words, the problem had already been recognized as a problem before the occurrence of the focusing

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event. Given that it is ultimately the attention of policymakers that is of interest of this paper, consequently, it is also the pre-existing perception of the problem among these that is of relevance.

Alternative 3b) ‘A firmer indicator of a widespread condition’ refers to the proof of that the given event, such as a collapsed bridge, was not just merely an isolated fluke. While it might be difficult to establish a definite baseline for when conditions can be perceived as

‘widespread’, given their varying natures, what is important here is that it is of such magnitude that politicians will have a hard time to ignore it. Kingdon gives an example of how one collapsed bridge in Ohio 1967 lead to the establishment of a program for bridge inspection, which subsequently revealed that about 80.000 bridges were deficient.

Furthermore, he argues, that even if this number was inflated, it would be hard for the politicians with bridges in their districts to ignore the problem (Kingdon, 1995:98). The indicators detecting the conditions can be more or less systematic, and emerge through both routine monitoring and special studies (ibid:91).

Lastly, alternative 3c) ‘Similar events’ refers to when the focusing event is one of several similar events happening close in time. As Kingdon says: “Awareness of a problem sometimes comes only with the second crisis, not the first, because the second cannot be dismissed as an isolated fluke, as could the first.” (1995:98). As revealed by the quote,

‘similar events’ does not necessarily imply several events, it could also be one event that has happened before the focusing event. What should be considered as ‘similar’ will by this paper be interpreted as events perceived to be part of the same category. This is based on the conclusions that focusing events focus attention to a category it is perceived to be part of. For a problem recognition to happen due to several events happening close in time, these must consequently all focus the attention to the same category and problem.

Table 1: A summary of the analytical questions.

ANALYTICAL QUESTIONS

Q1: What type of focusing event could the Corona pandemic be considered as?

Predetermined possible answers:

1a) A crisis or a disaster

1b) A personal experience of a policymaker 1c) A symbol

1d) None of the above

Q2: Could the Corona pandemic, as a focusing event in general, focus the attention of policymakers to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation, in particular?

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Q3: What accompaniment could the Corona pandemic as a focusing event for the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation be considered to have?

Predetermined possible answers:

3a) A pre-existing perception of a problem 3b) A firmer indicator of a widespread condition 3c) Similar events

3d) None of the above

4.4 DELIMITATIONS

Several delimitations have been made in regard to the Multiple Streams Framework by John F. Kingdon. First, while recognizing the existence and importance of the political and policy streams, this paper has put its focus on the problem stream. This entails that neither policy solutions for climate change mitigation, nor political conditions needed to enable these policies, are elaborated upon. Consequently, and importantly, this paper does not aim at drawing any conclusions on whether the Corona pandemic as a focusing event will lead to governmental action on climate change mitigation. As has been discussed before, whether or not action is taken in the end is dependent on much more than developments in the problem streams.

Related to is also the fact that this paper will not test any arguments regarding whether focusing events can have an impact on climate change governance. Rather, the study is based on the assumption that focusing events indeed do have an impact. This assumption is drawn from the previous research found in section 2.2.

One last delimitation worth mentioning and that has already been touched upon is the fact that this paper will focus on insufficient governmental action on climate change in terms of mitigation, and not in terms of adaptation. The reason for this is because the paper is based on the notion that the current efforts taken by governments around the world are far from sufficient to keep the global temperature rise below 2 °C, preferably no higher than 1.5 °C, above pre-industrial levels. In this sense, the governmental action is insufficient in terms of mitigation. However, this does not mean that the governmental action on climate change adaptation is sufficient, nor does it mean that the Corona pandemic is unrelated to climate change adaptation. But given that climate change mitigation and adaptation are two separate ways of dealing with climate change, this paper will focus only on the former.

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5. ANALYSIS

In this chapter, answers to the analytical questions are analyzed and discussed. The chapter is divided into three sections, one for each type of focusing event. Each section is concluded with a short conclusion on what the result means in relation to the research question.

5.1 THE CORONA PANDEMIC AS A CRISIS OR DISASTER

Does the Corona pandemic have potential to serve as a focusing event, in terms of a crisis or a disaster, to focus the attention of policymakers to the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation? The first step in answering this question has been to determine if the Corona pandemic could be considered either a crisis or a disaster (Q1a). As discussed in the previous chapter, a crisis can be defined as “/.../ a threat to core values or life-sustaining systems, which requires an urgent response under conditions of deep uncertainty.”, while a disaster can be defined as “the outcome or consequences for a society:

a disaster is a “crisis with a bad ending.”” (SDMI, n.d.). I think I am bold enough to claim that a majority of the people in the world as of today would argue that the Corona pandemic is indeed a crisis or disaster. As of May 17th 2020, 307 395 people have been confirmed dead to the virus and 4 525 497 have been confirmed infected (WHO, 2020 a). The world economy has moved into a recession, and the expressions of “Corona crisis” and “COVID-19 crisis”

has become part of the lingua franca. Whether it should be considered a crisis or a disaster is not something that will be discussed in this paper (and given that we are in the midst of it, it might not even be possible to determine yet). What is important for the purpose of this study is whether it can be considered either a crisis or a disaster, and I argue that it can.

Furthermore, it can arguably also be said to be a crisis or a disaster in different ways, such as in terms of human health or economy.

The second step regards establishing whether the Corona pandemic as a focusing event, in terms of a crisis or a disaster, could focus the attention of policymakers to the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation in particular (Q2). In other words, could the insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation be considered as a category in which the perceived cause of Corona pandemic crisis or disaster can be said to be a part of, or can it be said to be part of the same category as the perceived cause of the Corona pandemic crisis or disaster (see figure 4 in chapter 4)? Either way, the first step is necessarily to identify the cause of the Corona pandemic crisis or disaster.

Whether you define the pandemic as a crisis or disaster in terms of human health, economy or something different, the emergence and spread of the virus is inevitably a cause of the crisis or disaster. It has been known for a long time that climatic conditions affect the occurrence of infectious diseases (WHO, n.d. a). However, Dr. Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, Head of the Climate Change and Health Program at the World Health Organization, has stated that given that the virus has been able to be transmitted from human to human, the climate and weather have not really had an influence on the spread, and that climate change therefore cannot be said to be the cause of the pandemic (Brennan and Micklas, 2020). If a

The Corona pandemic - a focusing event for insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation?