How effective are government policies in promoting climate change mitigation in the UK? (Research Proposal Sample)

COURSEWORK ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET Student Number Module Code NM-M549 Module Title Module Co-ordinator Date of Submission: Assessment Title: Assessment 2: Climate Change Word Count: 2,500 words Faculty Specific Information Your student number and module code MUST be included on every page of your coursework AND included the file name for upload to Canvas. Work must be submitted in electronic format (Word or other stated format) by the stated deadline. A penalty of zero will be applied for late submission unless you have an approved extension. It is your responsibility to submit the work in the correct format and to ensure that you allow enough time to submit by the deadline. Introduction The purpose of this report is to present a plan for analysing the appropriateness of policies set forth by the government to address climate change. The selected question is “How effective are government policies in promoting climate change mitigation in the UK?” The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the UK government to conduct climate change assessment every five years and develop a ‘national adaptation programme’ (NAP) afterwards to provide the steps for managing the identified risks (Scott, 2024). Successive governments have, thus, established policies to address climate change risks such as poor crop production, high temperatures, and extreme weather occurrences (Scott, 2024). According to Somerville (2021), however, the policies introduced by the UK government since 2012 have failed to meet the specified targets and objectives. The main body of this report covers the research methods for identifying and examining the UK government policies for adapting to climate change, including their implementation, outcomes, perspectives of stakeholders regarding their effectiveness, and the involved challenges. Sections below present a detailed discussion of the preferred research method (qualitative approach) followed by the tools and techniques for effectively studying this research topic, including the chosen philosophy, approach, strategy, and procedures. 2. Research Method: Qualitative The research adopts a qualitative methodology as it is suitable for exploring experiences and perceptions of individuals and can provide an in-depth understanding of sophisticated phenomena, like climate change, which are not easy to measure using numerical data (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2023). Generally, the policies for mitigating climate change are multi-faceted as they have social, economic, environmental, and political dimensions and studying them through quantitative method leaves out important details (Kleinberg & Toomey, 2023). On the other hand, the qualitative approach enhances understanding of the interaction between these dimensions (Kleinberg & Toomey, 2023; Toivonen, 2022). Additionally, the subjective nature of “policy effectiveness” as a concept means various stakeholders (communities, policymakers, industry actors, environmental organisations, and the public) perceive it differently (Mukherjee & Bali, 2019). With qualitative methods, collection and interpretation of such varied views is possible (Saunders et al., 2023). For instance, after adopting a qualitative investigation, Prasad and Mkumbachi (2021) successfully captured the varying perceptions regarding climate change among university students from various organisations in South Pacific. The research also found that perceptions varied among students within the same university. Another reason for employing qualitative method in this regard is that it can enable examination of interpretation and implementation of the policies in real-world context, thereby capturing the pattern of local adaptations and consequences (Saunders et al., 2023). This will enable evaluation of accuracy of policies implementation, identification of exiting barriers, and understanding of responses by different sectors. In accordance with Dodd et al. (2024), qualitative analysis techniques promotes context-sensitive examination of impacts of climate change on communities and are also better than other analytical methods because they take into account the individual agency, social power, relations between institutional actions, and community dynamics. Again, this method is better than quantitative approach for this research area because its flexibility in exploring themes allows for analysis of climate change policies, which are dynamic and evolving (Dodd et al., 2024; Prasad & Mkumbachi, 2021). In the words of Casula, Rangarajan, and Shields (2021), the inherent flexibility of qualitative methods enables researchers to adapt to changes in research contexts by enabling them to narrow their focus to a particular situation. Also, different researchers have successfully employed qualitative method to explore this topic. An example is the study by Kleinberg and Toomley (2023) which purposed to determine the opinions of the United States citizens concerning climate change. Unlike them, however, this research will not use semi-structured interviews as no primary data is required. Toivonen (2022) also applied qualitative approach and stated that climate communication needs to take place in social contexts as individuals’ knowledge, experiences, and actions are determined by several societal discourses. Moreover, analysis of secondary qualitative data can offer better insights than evaluation of primary data by allowing access to larger sample sizes and extensive regional coverage (Lyons, Houghton, & Majumdar, 2023). Besides, Kleiberg and Toomey (2023) argued that the previous climate change researchers have depended highly on quantitative data when examining the associated risks, awareness, and perception of social groups and individuals. This means that the planned investigation will be among the few studies that have applied qualitative method to analyse this research topic. 3. Research Methods – Tools and Techniques This part covers the instruments and techniques that will be employed alongside qualitative method, discussed above, to meet the objectives of the chosen research topic. 3.1. Research Philosophy: Interpretivism Interpretivism philosophy is the most appropriate choice for this study as it enables exploration of subjective perspectives and experiences of institutions and individuals (Saunders et al., 2023). Interpretation of contextual outcomes (like interventions), expert opinions, and policy documents is necessary step in analysing the effectiveness of the climate policies established by the government. Alharahsheh and Pius (2020) stated that interpretivism values meanings created by individuals and is sensitive to each person’s contribution. In particular, interpretivist constructivism recognises the role of socio-cultural factors in shaping worldviews and spreads the belief that reality occurs in many forms (Tanlaka & Aryal, 2025). With interpretivism, therefore, it will be possible to examine how various stakeholders think about the success/failure of the policies. The qualitative approach to this research also rules out the potential use of positivism, which deals with objective measurements found in hypothesis testing and when dealing with quantitative data (Saunders et al., 2023). As Junjie and Yingxin (2022) discussed, positivism promotes belief in one objective reality in all study situations and assumes that all people view a phenomenon is a similar way. The philosophy’s focus on measurable observable reality, thus, limits its use in this study, which aims to explore the subjective and nuanced effects of government policies. While pragmatism could prove useful, it is unsuitable for this study as blending of qualitative and quantitative methods is not required (Saunders et al., 2023). The intended study is solely qualitative. 3.2. Research Approach: Inductive Inductive approach is selected for this study as it supports construction of knowledge from existing data and does not involve testing of hypotheses (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). Bingham (2023) stated that inductive analysis strengthens qualitative research by empasising the need to read through the data to recognise emerging patterns, themes, categories, and codes. With this approach, a researcher does not predetermine categories and codes before reading through the resources (Bingham, 2023). The ability of this approach to enable identification of themes and patterns from qualitative data makes it appropriate for assessing the barriers to policy implementation, experiences of various stakeholders, and impacts of such policies. Moreover, inductive analysis will promote selection of representative data from theories and literature to explain the overall findings (Bingham, 2023). Overall, achieving the requirements of this study is not possible with the increasingly rigid and hypothesis-dependent techniques like the deductive approach (Casula et al., 2021). Besides, Binghan (2023) and Casula et al. (2021) agree that features of inductive reasoning (such as depth and flexibility) allow it to blend well with qualitative methods and interpretivist philosophy. 3.3. Research Strategy: Case Study For analysis of government policies for addressing climate change in the UK, a case study strategy will provide the required depth and context (Sabonol, Widiastutil, & Sudradjat, 2024). Case study supports detailed exploration of real-life phenomena like policy enforcement, impact, and response of stakeholders (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). This study will examine different policy instruments such as the Net Zero Strategy, British energy security strategy, Transport decarbonisation plan, and Green Finance Strategy from Government publications (Carver & Walker, 2023). An experimental strategy cannot fit in this research as it involves controlled variables that are manipulated to estimate the cause and effect (Saunders et al., 2023). Such procedures do not apply wh...