LIST OF PANELS

Two paradoxical global environmental trends have emerged since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit: the proliferation of well-intended policies designed to address climate change, and the acceleration of global heating, carrying with it a myriad of climate-related challenges including water scarcity, food insecurity, and poverty alleviation. Understanding, and overcoming, this paradox is important, since reversing current global trends is required to avoid catastrophic social, economic, and ecological outcomes.  

The Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) is proposing a panel on papers devoted to generating, and applying, 

“policy design capacity building” with which to generate insights for identifying policy mix innovations capable of produced durable and effective results. To do this, we are seeking papers that target “micro-level” policy levers capable of producing macro level policy change. The papers can be conceptual, theoretical, historical, as well as engaging in “anticipatory policy design” insights with which to foster multistakeholder policy learning processes. 

The panel will integrate the papers around identifying and building a climate policy design lab for Asia and Southeast Asia, which stands at a critical juncture moment in the potential to accelerate a range of decarbonization pathways on which government, the private sector, and NGOs are currently embarked. 

Details: One of the most important questions facing policy makers and sustainability scientists is how to build lasting and effective climate solutions. While there has been no shortage of climate related technological, market, and finance initiatives over the last 30 years, there is widespread frustration among governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations over the pace and scale of change. These questions are of particular importance in Asia and the Southeast, where governments, following the Paris Accord, have unleashed an array of initiatives designed to develop transition pathways towards a low-carbon economy and achieve their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The purpose of this panel to shed light on the puzzle of the failure to accelerate climate outcomes alongside sustained policy attention on climate targets. This panel is devoted to deliberating over and uncovering- How to design durable, effective, ‘fit-for-purpose’ policies that can sustain political, governance and socio-economic challenges, to ensure effective decarbonisation pathways in Southeast Asia? By doing so, the panel aim to generate design insights for traveling climate related sustainability policy pathways.  

The panel will integrate the papers around identifying and building a climate policy design lab for Asia and Southeast Asia, which stands at a critical juncture moment in the potential to accelerate a range of decarbonization pathways on which government, the private sector, and NGOs are currently embarked. 

Details: One of the most important questions facing policy makers and sustainability scientists is how to build lasting and effective climate solutions. While there has been no shortage of climate related technological, market, and finance initiatives over the last 30 years, there is widespread frustration among governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations over the pace and scale of change. These questions are of particular importance in Asia and the Southeast, where governments, following the Paris Accord, have unleashed an array of initiatives designed to develop transition pathways towards a low-carbon economy and achieve their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The purpose of this panel to shed light on the puzzle of the failure to accelerate climate outcomes alongside sustained policy attention on climate targets. This panel is devoted to deliberating over and uncovering- How to design durable, effective, ‘fit-for-purpose’ policies that can sustain political, governance and socio-economic challenges, to ensure effective decarbonisation pathways in Southeast Asia? By doing so, the panel aim to generate design insights for traveling climate related sustainability policy pathways.  

Based on the above discussed research theme, the panel invites both conceptual and empirical papers in the context of Southeast Asia?, addressing the following questions (but not exhaustive)

1. What policy design approaches have proven effective historically in delivering climate outcomes?

2. What are policy design insights for creating policy lock-in, entrenchment, and expansion especially regarding green technology pathways? This is especially important given that while accelerating, these advancds are still far below what is required if they are to help countries meet their nationally determined contribution ?

3. What are the critical policy design capacities that would need to be nurtured to take advantage of these insights to diffuse, with, and across, practioner communities?

4. How might policy learning dialogues be structured to foster innovation and enhance political feasibility?