1 Larry Crump specializes in the study of complex negotiations and has contributed to the development of negotiation linkage theory, temporal theory, turning points theory, reframing theory, and coalition theory. He received the 2014 "
AbstractClimate change is the largest and most complicated interdependent issue the world has confronted. Yet there is little negotiation and conflict management knowledge within the climate change context. To address this gap, this theoretical article reviews the sparse extant literature and provides a brief overview of the science of climate change public policy. This review establishes a foundation for examining negotiation and conflict management research questions that emanate from current and future climate change negotiations. Such questions are considered for climate change mitigation negotiations and climate change adaptation negotiations. This article demonstrates how the negotiation and conflict management field can make important contributions to the study of interdependency in a context of climate change.Negotiation and conflict management scholarship has a long history of analyzing multiparty negotiations (Susskind & Crump 2008). Fundamental to this perspective is the pursuit of goals in an interdependent situation where planning and analysis, strategy and tactics, and power and morality combine to create outcomes. It is surprising, then -and concerning, given the implicationsthat research in this tradition has largely overlooked international climate change negotiations. After all, the causes and consequences of a changing climate represent the largest and most complicated interdependent situation ever confronted on planet earth. That is not to say that climate change negotiations should only be the subject of negotiation and conflict management scholarship; rather, further research from this perspective could produce new insights, making significant contribution to existing interdisciplinary knowledge on climate change negotiations that exists in international relations, political science and sociology, among others. Within the field of climate change negotiations there are multiple primary parties, each often representing a complex set of governmental agencies, as well as multiple stakeholders operating in an environment with influential external actors, including non-governmental organizations, international organizations, transnational corporate associations and other actors. In fact, the primary mitigation negotiations -the UN negotiations -involve 194 parties engaged in talks to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions. 148 Crump and Downie International Negotiation 20 (2015) 146-174This article seeks to identify the types of research questions that have long been the terrain of negotiation and conflict management scholarship in other areas of negotiation, such as trade, but that have largely been passed over in the case of climate change. This theoretical discussion begins by reviewing existing climate change research within the negotiation and conflict manage...