By Krishna Priya

The inaugural Climate Policy Lab (CPL) Symposium “Mind the Gaps: Integration and Implementation in Climate Policy” started off under the looming threats of rising global average temperatures, slowed momentum on climate action across the world, impasse on international trade, ongoing wars, a potentially increased appetite for fossil fuels, and the upcoming UNFCCC COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

But how did we get here? CPL’s research focuses on which climate policies work and which don’t, and through this research we came to realise the foundational barriers that impact climate action across jurisdictions: challenges of integration and implementation. This informed the theme of the symposium this year, which aimed to draw attention to the integration and implementation gaps within climate policy.

The symposium was preceded by an immersive 3-day workshop, the annual Climate Policy Lab Academy, conducted by CPL faculty and fellows and attended by stakeholders from India, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and Turkey. Participants shared experiences ranging from mitigation to adaptation and resilience, offering an opportunity to learn from one another, exchange perspectives, and identify commonalities across jurisdictions. Some of the participants also served as panelists during the symposium, grounding the discussions in lived national experiences.

Participants from across the world participated in the immersive 3-day workshop by CPL before the Symposium

Opening Remarks

Dean Kelly Sims Gallagher framed the day by reminding us why CPL was created nearly a decade ago – to equip governments with better decision-support tools for climate policy. She underscored that many countries are not on track to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), pointing to three types of gaps: missing policies, policies that lack stringency, and implementation shortfalls. She emphasized the need to reframe climate policies to address integration and implementation gaps and stressed that climate action must be tied to jobs, economic growth, and equity rather than treated as a competing priority.

Opening Keynote – Dr. Arunabha Ghosh

Dr. Arunabha Ghosh delivering the Opening Keynote

The opening keynote address was delivered by Dr. Arunabha Ghosh, Founder and CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). He noted how dramatically the world has changed since the Paris Agreement and stressed that integration and implementation are inseparable: “we need to integrate in order to implement.” Dr. Ghosh also drew attention to the differences between the Global North and Global South in how we approach climate change, especially with respect to how economic impacts of climate change are measured in the Global North while most Asian countries underestimate the losses resulting from climate change impact. He also acknowledged the gaps in data, technology and capabilities between the Global North and South.

Dr. Ghosh shared four journeys to move from integration to implementation: mapping climate risk at hyper-local scales based on non-linear assessment to inform resilience; scaling clean energy deployment and grid upgrades; rethinking global green value chains through co-manufacturing and investment partnerships; and linking energy transitions to wider economic transformation through bio-economy and circular models. He closed by emphasizing the need for strong domestic legislation, smart bilateralism, and plurilateral initiatives like the International Solar Alliance. The Q&A session surfaced critical questions, especially on the pathologies of the UNFCCC regime that may now be a roadblock to addressing the integration and implementation gaps at the multilateral level.

Keynote – Jennifer Morgan

Jennifer Morgan delivering the Keynote Address on Day-2

Jennifer Morgan, former Special Envoy for International Climate Action for Germany and incoming CPL Senior Fellow, opened day two with reflections from the German decarbonisation experience. She highlighted three levers for addressing integration and implementation challenges: ensuring coherence between climate and economic policies, ensuring procedural equity in policy design, and strategic communications. Ms. Morgan stressed that the narratives used to present climate policy matter greatly – Germany’s climate mainstreaming succeeded by framing climate action as a competitiveness and jobs agenda, not just an environmental one. She emphasized the importance of creating a narrative and communications strategy that individuals could relate to, a lesson that was learned after the introduction of the heating lawin Germany which mandated a 60% renewable energy sourcing for residential heating systems. She commented that Germany’s green transformation was driven by national leaders’ priorities, and Chancellor Merkel’s was able to leverage international pressure on climate action to create national momentum.

Panel 1 – Jobs, Green Industrialisation, and Trade

The first panel, moderated by CPL Postdoctoral Scholar, Dr. Hengrui Liu, explored how green industrialisation intersects with trade and employment. The global mainstreaming of green industrial policies, despite the United States’ current role in the international trade order, was the major point of discussion. Panelist Francisco Paiva pointed to Brazil’s renewable grid and its potential to attract energy-intensive industries, promoting a just transition by leveraging its comparative advantage. Professor Easwaran Narasimhan drew parallels between U.S., EU, and East Asian approaches to industrial policy, noting the risks of singular intervention points, industrial overcapacity, fragmented supply chains, and rising costs. Dr. Hengwei Liu pointed to the increased focus on domestic manufacturing across the world, reinforced the importance of comparative advantage to address rising costs, and drew attention to emerging technologies such as hydrogen in hard-to-abate sectors while cautioning against short-termism in job policies. The panelists spoke about aligning incentives for the governments and private sector in the interest of both costs and emissions reduction, which can be made possible only though an integrated approach to climate action. The panel reaffirmed Dr. Ghosh’s emphasis on co-manufacturing and South-South cooperation. The discussion on the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) highlighted fairness concerns, with the Brazilian panelist noting it fails to account for Scope 2 emissions and underscoring the importance of harmonized standards to avoid inequities.

Panel 2 – Health, Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience

Moderated by CPL Predoctoral Fellow, Bethany Tietjen, the second panel reframed adaptation through a public health lens as a way to address the integration and implementation gaps, especially in the context of climate adaptation. Gina McCarthy stressed that communities must not become numb to climate risks, and that local activism and communication are critical. Linus Mofor, drawing from his experience at UNICEF, spoke about intergenerational justice, disproportionate impacts of extreme weather on social services for children in Mozambique, and the Today and Tomorrow Initiative that was started at COP27. He stressed the need for policymakers to account for the rights of future generations and called for courage to design policies that ensure resilience not only in infrastructure, but also in health, education, water, and energy. Professor Erin Coughlan de Perez emphasized the importance of impact-based forecasting and scenario-building to help people visualize and act on climate risks today, not only in the future. Together, the panelists reminded us that effective communication that integrates the personal, practical, while remaining hope-filled is vital to drive action. The panellists echoed Morgan’s emphasis on the need to communicate effectively to create the momentum that is necessary to drive climate action.

Panel 3 – From Policy Design to Action: Bridging the Climate Policy Implementation Gap

The third panel, moderated by CPL Postdoctoral Scholar, Dr. Nora Hampl, drew attention to industrial decarbonization and the challenges therein across jurisdictions and governance levels. Samantha Gross attributed the integration and implementation gaps to a marketing problem and the need to rethink climate action not only as a moral imperative but also as an issue with adverse economic, political, and cultural impacts. Lukas Sokol discussed integrating climate into urban planning and architecture based on his experiences with Masdar City in the UAE. Benjamin Sovacool called attention to the fact that the biggest barriers to industrial decarbonization are not technical, but social and emphasized on the need to integrate social sciences into decarbonization policy designs. Lebogang Mulaisi emphasized on the need to integrate multidimensionally conflicting priorities stemming from a diverse axes of barriers to enable industrial decarbonization. She shared her experiences from the carbon tax and unbundling of electricity in South Africa. Gustavo Ferreira shared the challenges posed by entrenched institutional frameworks that often act as barriers to policy changes, speaking from his experiences in the Brazilian finance ministry. The panelists brought a multidisciplinary perspective to thinking about decarbonization and emphasized the need to integrate the technical with the social, political and cultural factors.

Fireside Chat: The Road To and Through COP-30

The symposium concluded with a fireside chat with Professor Jacob Werksman, Dr. Rosana Santos, Dr. Daniel Reifsnyder, and Dr. Jifeng Li, moderated by Dean Gallagher. Professor Werksman stressed that COP30 will mark the close of the first Paris ambition cycle, and that success must be judged not only by plenary declarations but by how leaders frame implementation. Dr. Santos raised concerns about adaptation finance and indicators, while Dr. Reifsnyder provided a sobering view of U.S. political retrenchment on climate, urging resistance and documentation. Dr. Li reaffirmed China’s commitment to submit a new NDC before COP30 and called for aligning new multilateral initiatives with the UNFCCC framework. The discussion underscored both the risks of geopolitical headwinds and the opportunities for Brazil’s presidency to reframe COP success around implementation and equity.

Conclusion

The symposium speakers approached the integration and implementation challenges in climate policy as a problem predominantly of framing, institutional entrenchment, and communication challenges, not only at various governance levels but also in terms of sectoral constraints. The symposium demonstrated that the obstacles to climate action go beyond ambition gaps. The greater challenge lies in the integration of climate into economic, social, and governance priorities, and in the implementation of already-agreed policies. Whether through industrial strategy, public health, or urban governance, panelists showed that siloed approaches are insufficient. As COP30 approaches, the central lesson from the Fletcher gathering is clear: bridging integration and implementation gaps is not just a technical exercise but the defining challenge of climate governance today.

Krishna Priya is a second year MALD student specializing in Environmental Policy and Global Governance and a Research Assistant at CIERP. Her areas of focus are climate adaptation and water resource management.

Inaugural Climate Policy Lab Symposium: Lessons From Across The World