Klimaet i Ministeriet: Udviklingen af den første danske klimapolitik, ca. 1980-1992

This article investigates the development of the first Danish climate policy within the context of the Danish Ministry of Environment and related ministries and agencies from around 1980 to 1992. In doing so, it also touches on the formation of Denmark's first climate research policy. The research questions are how the climate agenda was first introduced, who the key actors were, and to what extent institutional structures and cultures influenced climate policy.
Climate issues only appeared on the agenda of Danish ministries with the release of the UN’s Brundtland Report in August 1987. This placed Denmark in a position of following rather than leading on this issue internationally. However, a few Danish researchers had highlighted the issue domestically earlier in the 1980s, and they became part of a small group of experts who came to play a role as catalysts and advisors in the further development of Danish climate policy. One reason for the continued influence of these researchers was the rapid expansion of scientific knowledge about climate issues throughout the period. The Ministry of Environment became the most influential factor by consciously using the emerging climate agenda as leverage to increase its influence across the purviews of other ministries. This is evident in the work on the Danish gov-ernment's Action Plan for Environment and Development (1989) and the energy action plan titled Energi 2000 (1990). The development of these plans involved not only ministries and scientific advisors but also industry, labor unions, environmental organizations, and other NGOs.
At least one central scientific institution repeatedly opposed the Ministry of Environ-ment’s approach, namely the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). The disagreement stemmed from the fact that climate change due to human emissions of greenhouse gases had as yet only been suggested by climate models, not definitively proven. In this situation, DMI took the classic scien-tific stance that models should be confirmed by observations before they could form the basis for major societal interventions, while the Ministry of Environment adhered to the precautionary prin-ciple. It was Ministry of Environment’s position that came to define the approach in the first Danish climate policy as well as in climate research policy, as climate model research was deprioritized in the national environmental research program in favor of research on the impacts and prevention of climate change. Thus, the prevailing preventive approach and logic of the Ministry of Environment and environmental researchers were transferred from the environmental sector to the climate sector, despite the need for other approaches in that sector.