Breaking ranks: business fragmentation over climate policy reforms

Deep cuts in methane emissions are required this decade to achieve global climate targets. While cost-effective solutions exist, achieving these reductions hinges as much on politics as on technical solutions. Drawing on the case of US methane policy for the oil and gas industry, this presentation examines what drives business support and opposition for climate policy.

While high emitting industries have often opposed climate reforms, opposition has sometimes splintered with some firms supporting reform efforts. Nikolai presents a theory of firm and business coalition position-taking that explains these patterns of unity and division, unpacking why parts of the oil and gas industry broke ranks from their peers to back US methane rules.

This seminar is Niko's mid-term doctoral candidature presentation.

About the speaker

Nikolai Drahos is a PhD candidate at the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Nikolai previously worked as a policy advisor at the Australian Climate Change Authority and as an energy economist at the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Nikolai holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Master of Environmental and Resource Economics from the ANU. He is a recipient of the Helen Hughes Masters prize and the Sir Roland Wilson PhD Scholarship. Nikolai is the author of a number of Oxford Institute for Energy Studies papers and numerous reports, including the Department of Industry’s Resources and Energy Quarterly.

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Image credit: Image of natural gas flares from a flare-head at the Orvis State well on the Evanson family farm in McKenzie County, North Dakota, USA by Tim Evanson from Wikipedia Commons, used under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.