Assessing the impact of Fridays for Future on climate policy and policymaking in German cities

Eckersley, P ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9048-8529, Haupt, W and Kern, K, 2025. Assessing the impact of Fridays for Future on climate policy and policymaking in German cities. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. ISSN 1523-908X

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Abstract

During 2019, Fridays for Future (FfF) groups were highly active across the globe, calling for changes to both policy outputs (specifically, a more ambitious climate mitigation approach) and policymaking processes (greater public participation and civil society involvement in decision-making). However, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the changes the movement may have induced, and why it may have been more successful in some places than others. Building on Hall’s (1993) three orders of change, and drawing on interviews and document analysis in 25 German cities, we develop and apply a framework to measure its influence. We found that all 25 cities did change their policymaking processes as a result of FfF pressure, and most also introduced more ambitious policy outputs. In particular, we found FfF had more success in those cities where greater scope for a step-change in climate ambition existed: namely, where socioeconomic, demographic and political conditions were amenable to progressive climate policy, but where the municipality had hitherto not been a leader in the field. Conversely, the movement had less impact in leading cities and in places with poorer and older inhabitants and stronger far-right representation.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning
Creators:	Eckersley, P., Haupt, W. and Kern, K.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	17 February 2025
ISSN:	1523-908X
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/1523908X.2025.2466821 DOI 2371289 Other
Rights:	© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	11 Feb 2025 14:43
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2025 10:26
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53024

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