INTEGRATING CLIMATE POLICY OBJECTIVES INTO MUNICIPAL LAND POLICIES: From conceptualization to empirical evidence from Finland

Abstract

Urban development ties in closely with climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, little is known about how climate policy objectives are incorporated into municipal land policies. Addressing this knowledge gap, we draw from the literature on policy integration and policy design to propose a framework for conceptualizing the ways in which policy objectives driven by climate concerns are incorporated into land policy. This framework incorporates three dimensions: (1) the alignment and prioritization of climate policy objectives in land policy; (2) the concreteness of the final integrated policy design; and (3) the commitment to promoting the objectives set through choices of policy instruments. We apply this framework to explore the level of integration in 30 highly populated municipalities in Finland. We identify three levels of climate policy objective integration within this sample, with only three municipalities demonstrating high integration. Our findings suggest that raising the level of climate policy integration into land policy may require institutional support.