The world of climate politics is increasingly no longer confined to the activities of national governments and international negotiations. Critical to this transformation of the politics of climate change has been the emergence of new forms of transnational governance that cut across traditional state-based jurisdictions and operate across public and private divides. This book provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge account of the world of transnational climate change governance. Co-authored by a team of the world's leading experts in the field and based on a survey of sixty case studies, the book traces the emergence, nature and consequences of this phenomenon, and assesses the implications for the field of global environmental politics. It will prove invaluable for researchers, graduate students and policy makers in climate change, political science, international relations, human geography, sociology and ecological economics.
Many scholars and policymakers see transnational governance as a substitute for lackluster national and international policies, particularly in contexts of intergovernmental gridlock or limited state capacity. The bulk of the literature explains sub-and non-state actors' participation in transnational initiatives as a product of, on the one hand, micro-level incentives and, on the other, diffusion processes that create and spread normative and marketbased pressures. We argue that such theoretical perspectives overlook the dynamic relationship between national policies and transnational governance. First, we argue that ambitious national policies positively affect sub-and non-state actors' participation in transnational governance. Second, we posit that domestic institutions condition the effects of micro-level incentives and transnational pressures on participation in transnational governance. We test these claims in the climate regime, using an original dataset that, for the first time, measures cross-national participation in transnational climate initiatives across jurisdictions. The results support our expectations. They therefore suggest that we should understand national policies and transnational governance as complements, rather than competitors, to one another. Finally, by showing how and when national policies affect participation in transnational initiatives, we identify important scope conditions for their significance in addressing climate change.
The Paris Agreement has emerged as one of the world's most important international treaties. Many believe that it offers a new approach to the problem of climate change, can contribute significantly to the goal of reducing emissions, and may hold lessons for how to govern other cross‐border issues. As a result, it has been the focus of considerable debate among scholars and policy makers. But how precisely does Paris seek to govern global warming and is it likely to work in practice? We address this question by contrasting the Paris ‘model’ of climate governance with earlier ones associated with the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord. These models have taken different approaches to the problem of governing climate change, each with attendant advantages and limitations. The Paris model advances upon earlier efforts in certain respects, but also blends elements from earlier models. We then lay out the central axes of the debate that has emerged about the future of the Paris model, and discuss research illuminating how it may operate in practice. The agreement's success will depend on how the agreement is implemented, and on how the UNFCCC process interacts with the complementary approaches to climate governance appearing beyond it.
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