Strategic conflictuality in climate reforms: A case study of decarbonisation of the building sector

The green transition is fraught with distributional conflicts and political risks for governments. Limited policy breakthrough has been explained partly by the “double representation of carbon polluters” on the left and right sides of the party system (Mildenberger, 2020). Nevertheless, over the last five years, alongside looming legally binding CO2 emissions reduction targets and increasing salience of climate change in public opinion, several governments have enacted politically costly climate reforms. This raises the question of whether parties respond to polluters' interests or electoral risk in a time of heightened salience of the issue, or “loud and noisy” climate politics (Busemeyer & Garritzman, 2022). This paper takes the least likely case of costly reforms of building sector in France and Germany (i.e. “Gebaudeenergiegesetz” in 2023 and “Loi Climat et resilience” in 2021). Decarbonising the building sector is thorny policy problem and crucial case to understand how electoral vulnerability and partisan strategies might play a role in policy change, as this sector directly concerns people’s private homes and their material interests. I explore the mechanisms of policy change at play in different political systems (PR and majoritarian) and the role of inter- and intra-party bargaining and ideational change. I analyse how certain interest groups intervened in the policy debate to raise conflictuality (or not) in the debate to influence policy outputs. Relying on twenty interviews with party elites and policymakers in both countries as well as additional document and media analysis, this paper will contribute to the literature on the role of parties in policy change, and the politics of climate policy by focusing on how different actors handle and strategically use conflictuality to influence the policy process.