Brexit implications for sustainable energy in the UK

Caroline Kuzemko*, Mathieu Blondeel, Antony Froggatt

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Brexit has potentially wide-ranging implications for UK policy, although little is known about what these are yet. Now, post the transition period, is a good time to consider its actual impacts as opposed to what was expected by academics, and by proponents of Brexit. In the absence of any established theory of EU-exit, and drawing on insights from (de-)Europeanisation, Brexit energy and climate policy studies, and political economy, this article develops a framework to identify the impact of EU-exit on UK energy policy. This is applied to sustainable energy, an area in urgent need of policy development to meet legally binding national targets. We conclude that, so far, despite leaving various EU bodies there has been relatively little divergence from Europeanised policy; that new UK energy and climate policies, required to replace EU membership benefits, are relatively less effective; and that hard-pressed civil servants have been drawn away from other important policymaking tasks.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)548-567
Number of pages20
JournalPolicy and Politics
Volume50
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Matthew Lockwood,Gabriel Siles-Brugge,Charlotte Burns and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed, insightful and incredibly useful comments on earlier versions of this article.We would also like to acknowledge the UK Research and Innovation Energy Programme’s funding, under grant number EP/S029575/1.

Publisher Copyright:
© Policy Press 2022

Funding

We would like to thank Matthew Lockwood,Gabriel Siles-Brugge,Charlotte Burns and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed, insightful and incredibly useful comments on earlier versions of this article.We would also like to acknowledge the UK Research and Innovation Energy Programme’s funding, under grant number EP/S029575/1.

Keywords

  • Brexit
  • Climate change
  • Energy policy
  • Eu
  • Europeanisation
  • Political economy
  • Sustainable energy policy
  • Uk

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