In recent years, several nations have adopted institutional framework laws, so-called Climate Change Acts (CCAs), as means to enforce Paris-compliant mitigation pathways. A key institutional feature to ensure policy stability and compliance with CCAs has been the establishment of independent advisory bodies, tasked with advising on mitigation targets and policy instruments, as well as the, monitoring and evaluation of target attainment. These advisory bodies are endowed with a crucial role in the long-term evaluation and planning process: examining how the low-carbon transition pathways might be achieved. Calling attention to the question of how transition pathways should be conceived and approached, whether it is in 'bio-physical' (climate science), 'techno- economic' (technology assessment/economics) or 'socio-technical' (socio-technical transition field) terms. Recent studies have indicated that a socio-technical transitions is increasingly framed as a question of removing carbon energy from various practices and infrastructures, challenging the dominant techno-economic approach of emissions reductions using carbon-pricing instruments. This thesis explores this challenge, drawing upon a case study of the establishment of the Swedish Climate Policy Council, by means of analyzing the process of institutionalization and how transition pathways are (re)produced discursively through the practices of climate policy evaluation and planning. The main findings of this thesis is that a cross-party consensus behind the Swedish CCA was formed around institutionalizing a 'bio-physical’ mitigation pathway, monitored and safeguarded by the Council which could assign 'political embarrassment' to governments failing to comply with the interim and long-term GHG mitigation targets. Beyond this consensus, the institutional design of the Council is the result of discursive struggles between actor-coalitions supporting techno-economic versus socio-technical transition pathways. However, the recently formed Council has come to challenge previously dominant techno-economic practices of forecasting cost-efficient emissions reductions. This has been accomplished by introducing a novel socio-technical approach to climate policy evaluation: the backcasting of interrelated technological and institutional shifts believed to be necessary in bringing about a low-carbon transition or transformation. Nevertheless, as this socio-technical practice primarily backcasts upon a number of key technological innovations, with limited changes to current industrial patterns of production and consumption, doubts are raised if this approach is to be considered as constitutive of transformative transition pathways.

Det klimatpolitiska ramverket antogs i Sverige 2017 till syftet att hålla den exekutiva makten ansvarig för att bedriva klimatpolitisk hänsyn. En grundläggande målsättning som ligger till bakgrund är att integrera klimatfrågan i samtliga politiska områden. Problemområdet berör svårigheter att uppnå klimatpolicyintegrering på nationell nivå i och med avsaknaden av sanktionsmöjligheter och på lokala nivån som inom ramen för självstyrelse likväl behöver förhålla sig till lokala institutioner och faktorer. Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga hur denna integrering av klimatpolitik har tagit vid på den nationella nivån för att sedan undersöka huruvida detta har haft någon inverkan på den lokala nivåns klimatarbete på energiområdet. Studien avser i detta genomförande att undersöka hur värderingar och lokala förutsättningar påverkar klimatpolicyintegrering inom sex svenska kommuner. Med hjälp av kvalitativ textanalys och samtalsintervjuer kommer studien fram till ett antal slutsatser. Resultatet visar att den kartlagda klimatpolicyintegreringen är svag och därmed ger klimatmålet likvärdig hänsyn i relation till sektoriella mål såväl nationellt som lokalt. Inom kommuner har värderingar förmåga att i vissa fall stärka klimatpolicyintegrering medan kontextuella faktorer i form av ekonomiska resurser kan vara en hindrande omständighet i sammanhanget. / Sweden adopted its Climate Act and Policy Framework in 2017 which holds the government responsible to pursue climate policy based on the goals formulated by the Swedish Parliament. The main objective is to integrate climate policy within all political areas. The study revolves around the difficulties that may emerge on a national level where the possibility for sanctions are absent, and on a local level where the autonomy of municipalities have to take local institutions and contexts into account. The aim of this study is thus to identify how the integration of climate policy takes place on the national level and subsequently explore whether influence has occurred in the energy sector of the municipalities. This is accomplished by analyzing how values and local conditions affect climate policy integration in six Swedish municipalities. After applying qualitative methods, text analysis and interviews, two conclusions can be made. The results show, that on the one hand, although climate policy integration has occurred on the national and local levels, it has been weak by giving equal consideration to climate policy to sectorial issues. On the other, values can strengthen climate policy integration while economic resources may be a hindering circumstance.