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Governing Climate Change: Towards a New Paradigm for Risk Regulation
Author(s) -
Heyvaert Veerle
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the modern law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-2230
pISSN - 0026-7961
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2230.2011.00874.x
Subject(s) - climate change , corporate governance , orchestration , scholarship , political science , legitimacy , systemic risk , risk governance , business , risk analysis (engineering) , economics , law , financial crisis , finance , biology , art , ecology , musical , macroeconomics , politics , visual arts
This article argues that the ascent of climate change on the EU regulatory agenda signals a new era of risk regulation and calls for the establishment of a new paradigm for risk regulation. Climate change is altering the EU 's conception of environmental risks and its design of regulatory responses. In contrast to conventional risk regulation, climate change regulation must prioritise the risks of business‐as‐usual over the risks of change, must target systemic change instead of stability, and must favour the virtues of integration and orchestration over those of individualisation and compartmentalisation. There is an important role for risk regulation scholarship to analyse this shift and its consequences for regulation, such as the relocation of legitimacy needs and the emergence of new risks of regulatory failure. Such an enterprise would both reinvigorate risk regulation scholarship and offer a vital contribution to the E uropean U nion as it tackles the momentous challenge of climate change governance.