The present paper analyses and compares how federalism in Austria and Switzerland affected climate change mitigation in the fully decentralized building sectors of the two countries during the Kyoto Period (1990–2012). This is of interest because the environmental significance of federal political systems is still contested. We first review the literature on federalism in the context of environmental and climate policymaking, and we show that the effects of federal political systems can be positive or negative (depending on interactions between politics and problem characteristics). We then summarize the two qualitative country studies. By analysing who initiated and coordinated respective policies at what time and why, we show that respective policy changes neither emerged bottom‐up nor diffused between provinces/cantons, although the latter are fully responsible for building policies. While most policy changes were triggered by federal and/or European Union interventions, the provinces/cantons usually delayed and/or watered down policy changes to smallest common denominator solutions. Based on these findings we conclude that the building sectors of the two countries became more efficient despite, not because of federalism. Against this background we recommend centralizing building policies, or to engage sub‐national actors in national target‐setting early on.

中文翻译：

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奥地利和瑞士的气候变化减缓：联邦制在绿化分散式建筑政策方面的陷阱

本文分析并比较了奥地利和瑞士的联邦制如何影响京都时期（1990-2012 年）两国完全分散的建筑部门的气候变化减缓。这很有趣，因为联邦政治制度的环境重要性仍然存在争议。我们首先回顾了环境和气候政策制定背景下关于联邦制的文献，并表明联邦政治制度的影响可以是积极的也可以是消极的（取决于政治和问题特征之间的相互作用）。然后我们总结了两个定性的国家研究。通过分析谁在何时以及为什么发起和协调各自的政策，我们表明各自的政策变化既没有自下而上出现，也没有在省/州之间扩散，尽管后者完全负责制定政策。虽然大多数政策变化是由联邦和/或欧盟干预引发的，但各省/州通常会推迟和/或淡化政策变化，以实现最小公分母解决方案。基于这些发现，我们得出结论，尽管不是因为联邦制，但两国的建筑部门变得更有效率。在此背景下，我们建议集中建设政策，或尽早让地方参与者参与国家目标设定。基于这些发现，我们得出结论，尽管不是因为联邦制，但两国的建筑部门变得更有效率。在此背景下，我们建议集中建设政策，或尽早让地方参与者参与国家目标设定。基于这些发现，我们得出结论，尽管不是因为联邦制，但两国的建筑部门变得更有效率。在此背景下，我们建议集中建设政策，或尽早让地方参与者参与国家目标设定。