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The paper examines future energy and emissions scenarios in China, presenting historical data and scenarios generated using the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH. A Business-as-Usual scenario is compared with four scenarios in which Greenhouse Gases emissions are taxed, at different levels. Key insights are provided to evaluate the Chinese pledge to reduce the emissions intensity of Gross Domestic Product by 40/45 percent in 2020 contained in the Copenhagen Accord. Marginal and total abatement costs are discussed using the OECD economies as a term of comparison. Cost estimates for different emissions reduction targets are used to assess the political feasibility of the 50 percent global reduction target set by the G8 and Major Economies Forum in July 2009.

We propose a realistic approach to climate policy based on the Copenhagen Agreement to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions. We assess by how much the non-binding, although official, commitments to reduce emissions made in Copenhagen will affect the level of world GHGs emissions in 2020. Our estimates are based on official communications to the UNFCCC, on historic data and on the Business-as-Usual scenario of the WITCH model. We are not interested in estimating the gap between the expected level of emissions and what would be needed to achieve the 2°C target. Nor do we attempt to calculate the 2100 temperature level implied by the Copenhagen pledges. We believe these two exercises are subject to high uncertainty and would not improve the current state of negotiations. Rather, we take stock of the present politically achievable level of commitment and suggest an effective way to push forward the climate policy agenda. The focus is on what can be done rather than on what should be done. To this end, we estimate the potential of the financial provisions of the Copenhagen Agreement to sponsor mitigation effort in Non-Annex I countries. Using scenarios produced with the WITCH model, we show that lower commitment on domestic abatement measures can be compensated by devoting roughly 50% of the Copenhagen financial provisions in 2020 to mitigation in Non-Annex I countries. The policy implications of our results will be discussed.

This paper studies the implications for climate policy of the interactions between environmental and knowledge externalities. Using a numerical analysis performed with the hybrid integrated assessment model WITCH, extended to include mutual spillovers between the energy and the non-energy sector, we show that the combination between environmental and knowledge externalities provides a strong rationale for implementing a portfolio of policies for both emissions reduction and the internalisation of knowledge externalities. Moreover, we show that implementing technology policy as a substitute for stabilisation policy is likely to increase global emissions.

Based on a new dataset, this article explains a turn towards Euroscepticism by regionalist parties from the early 2000s. Our findings point to the effects of cross-dimensional ideological linkages – positions adopted on the centre-periphery and left–right dimensions – and of an increasing formal regional involvement in European Union affairs without actual influence, which leaves regionalist (and especially secessionist) parties frustrated with the European Union multi-level system. Our findings substantiate the argument that regionalist parties are strongly supportive of economic integration but less supportive of political integration. They are also in line with the fall of the 'Europe of the Regions' thesis.

This article aims to explain longitudinal and cross-sectional variation in regional government composition – oversized majorities and incongruence between regional and national governments (cross-cutting) – and regional government alternation. The analysis focuses on the explanatory value of a wide range of regional-level institutional variables, such as majoritarian vs. proportional voting systems and established practices of consociationalism. In addition, it provides a tentative exploration of the impact of regional (i.e. non-state-wide) parties on government composition and alternation. The findings show that most institutional variables have the expected impact, e.g., majoritarian voting systems increase government alternation and consensual practices decrease both cross-cutting and alternation. The analysis also suggests that regional parties impact on government composition and alternation in two ways. Strong regional parties increase cross-cutting and, once in office, they tend to reduce alternation. Smaller regional parties out of office tend to increase alternation and to decrease oversized government as their seat shares grow.

The article aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of decentralisation on regionalist parties' strength in both national and regional elections. We consider decentralisation both as a putatively crucial event, that is, the creation of an elected regional government, and as a process. Our study is based on a dataset including aggregate vote shares for 227 regionalist parties competing in 329 regions across 18 Western democracies. Our findings show that decentralisation as an event has a strong impact on the number of regionalist parties, as it triggers processes of proliferation and diffusion. Decentralisation as a process has an overall empowerment effect in regional elections, while it does not have an effect in national elections. However, our analysis also reveals that the overall null effect in national elections is actually the result of an empowering effect on new regionalist parties and of an accommodating effect on old regionalist parties.

The primary dimension of political contestation for regionalist parties is the centre-periphery dimension but they are pressured to adopt positions on the left-right dimension by competition with state-wide parties. We argue that the relative economic position of a region is a key variable for explaining how regionalist parties adopt left-right positions and link them to the centre-periphery dimension. Based on a quantitative analysis of 74 regionalist parties – distributed in 49 regions and 11 countries – over four decades, we find strong evidence that regionalist parties acting in relatively rich regions tend to adopt a rightist ideology, while regionalist parties acting in relatively poor regions tend to adopt a leftist ideology. A qualitative illustration of two paradigmatic cases, the Lega Nord (LN) and the Scottish National Party (SNP), appears to support our interpretation that left-right orientations are subsumed into centre-periphery politics through the adoption of two ideal types of regionalist discourse: one labelled as 'bourgeois regionalism' (Harvie, 1994) and one labelled as 'internal colonialism' (Hechter, 1975).