| The 2014 Climate Change Performance Index Climate indicates that no country is doing enough to prevent dangerous climate change. Climate action is apparently a challenge for bureaucracies to implement. However despite holding no international obligations to undertake action on climate change Mexico has adopted domestic policy options that have decreased its GHG emissions trajectory slightly and in doing so has become a major recipient of international climate funding.;I argue that this case contradicts common assumptions about climate policy being a single policy sector. Rather, climate policy is a construct of climate-sensitive actions that are taken within different sectors, driven by dynamics specific to those sectors. I examine these dynamics in the forestry, electricity generation, and transportation sectors. I employ qualitative techniques, including process tracing, to examine the adoption of climate-sensitive policy options, comparing these processes between cases, and testing hypotheses generated from previous literature. I synthesize the findings in a general framework that explains the conditions that produce climate-sensitive options in developing countries, as well as the role played by IFIs.;I find there may be a variety of paths within a single country that may lead to climate-sensitive actions, and that these paths share two common characteristics: a) these actions respond to domestic problems and not necessarily to international commitments; b) they may not be the options with the greatest GHG emissions reductions, often because leaders seek to avoid blame for slowing development or imposing concentrated losses on specific groups. Additional conditions that affect the type of path are the level of authority at which the policy will be implemented, the use of international resources and need of legislative politics. Finally, national leaders promote the packaging of actions as an overall climate policy when they see an advantage to such action internationally and no costs at the domestic level. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of the multiple forms that climate-sensitive policies and the politics of those policies can take, but also highlights possibilities for improving the policies of both domestic actors and IFIs to respond to the challenge of climate change. |
