Decarbonising energy-intensive industries (EIIs) represents one of the most challenging dimensions of the low-carbon transition. Emissions from industries such as steel, cement, and chemicals remain difficult to reduce due to technological constraints, high capital intensity, and exposure to international competition. Despite their central importance for achieving climate neutrality, we lack systematic knowledge about how governments design policies targeting these sectors and why such policies vary across countries and over time.

This dissertation addresses this gap by examining the political and institutional drivers of EII decarbonisation policies and their implications for emissions outcomes. Bringing together insights from climate politics and political economy, the dissertation develops a theoretical framework in which variation in policy output and policy instrument choice is shaped by economic institutions, partisan politics, and supranational governance. Empirically, the dissertation adopts a comparative approach and draws on an original dataset of EII decarbonisation policies across advanced economies, complemented by analyses of European Union climate policy and firm-level emissions data from Sweden.

Across four papers, the dissertation generates three main findings. First, it provides the first comprehensive, longitudinal, cross-national analysis of policies targeting EIIs, demonstrating that governments overwhelmingly rely on “soft” policy instruments—such as subsidies, voluntary agreements, and informational tools—rather than more coercive “hard” instruments such as regulations and taxes. While the overall number of policies has increased over time, the dominance of soft instruments remains stable. Second, the dissertation shows that variation in EII decarbonisation policies is primarily shaped by domestic institutional configurations. Corporatist economies are associated with higher levels of policy output and a greater use of hard policy instruments, while left-leaning governments are linked to more extensive and interventionist policy frameworks. In contrast, supranational governance through the EU Emissions Trading System has a lesser effect on national policy output or instrument choice. Third, the dissertation finds limited evidence that these political and institutional dynamics translate into measurable emission reductions. Neither EU carbon pricing nor partisan shifts in publicly owned energy firms are systematically associated with declining emissions trajectories, suggesting that decarbonisation outcomes in EIIs are shaped by constraints that extend beyond short-term political dynamics.

Taken together, the dissertation demonstrates that while governments play a central role in designing policies for industrial decarbonisation, these policies are structured by domestic institutions and do not automatically translate into emissions reductions. By providing the first systematic comparative analysis of EII decarbonisation policies, the dissertation contributes to research on climate governance and offers new insights into the political economy of industrial transformation.

This chapter explores the influence of industry actors on decarbonisation policymaking. First, an introduction to the challenges of decarbonising the energy intensive industries is provided. This is followed by a discussion of the two main arguments presented in this chapter, namely that industry actors utilise different strategies to protect carbon-dependence in different political-economic systems and that organisational ties between industry and political parties protect the status quo. The first argument draws from the political economy literature and demonstrates that industry actors in corporatist states have institutionalised access to decision-making and can therefore influence policymaking through dialogue and consultation. Industry actors in pluralist states, on the other hand, rely more on political allies and public lobbying to shape policies. The second argument, which draws from the comparative climate politics literature, illustrates how the close ties between industry actors and political parties on both the left and right side of the political spectrum result in the protection of industry interests. Governments on both sides of the spectrum are found to avoid regulatory policies and provide protective measures which reinforces carbon-dependence. Lastly, the chapter discusses concrete steps which have been taken to decarbonise the energy intensive industries. On the national level, states have introduced decarbonisation roadmaps and green industrial policies to steer the sector. On the global level, international agreements have been highlighted as useful tools to guide policymakers in the decarbonisation of the energy intensive industries.