The Quest for Coherence in Climate Actions: The Case for Québec's Climate Strategy

Studies on climate policy coherence often focus on policy components as the essential element of success by examining their objectives, instruments, and implementation practices. However, while some studies have demonstrated that it is essential to evaluate the programs or actions that translate policies into success, few have focused specifically on program coherence. This research uses monitoring sheets for programs (N = 177) funded under the Québec Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) 2013–2020 to perform a comprehensive analysis of program coherence, combining relational content analysis and social network analysis. Findings suggest a failure to achieve the action plan and provide pertinent shortcomings and gaps related to the program's objectives and indicators, including challenges with collaboration and coordination. Given the complexity and cross-cutting nature of climate issues, this study contributes to the literature on policy coherence and argues in favor of program coherence for a better design and assessment of the effectiveness of climate policies and programs. Moreover, through an integrative framework for policy coherence, the study suggests adding public programs to the existing policy components for policy coherence assessment. While relying on effective collaboration and coordination, implications for practitioners include a rigorous use of various program management tools used to design, monitor, and implement public programs.