Climate Change Politics through a Global Pledge-and-Review Regime: Positions among Negotiators and Stakeholders

Buhr, Katarina; Roth, Susanna; Stigson, Peter

doi:10.3390/su6020794

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Survey methods are increasingly used to examine preferences of, and activities performed by, different actors participating in the COPs of the UNFCCC in situ or by distributing surveys based on the List of Participants [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Views on alternative forums for effectively tackling climate change

Hjerpe

Nasiritousi

2015

Nature Clim Change

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First paragraph:This year (2015) marks the 21st formal anniversary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and in December a new climate treaty is expected to be reached. Yet, the UNFCCC has not been successful in setting the world on a path to meet the 2 degree target 1 . Meanwhile, other forums, such as the G20 and subnational forums, have increasingly become sites of climate change initiatives 2-6 . There has, however, to date been no systematic evaluation of what forums climate change policy-makers and practitioners perceive to be needed in order to effectively tackle climate change. Drawing on survey data from two recent UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP), we show that there exists an overall preference for state-led, multilateral forums. However, preferences starkly diverge between respondents from different geographical regions and no clear contender to the UNFCCC emerges. Our results highlight difficulties in coordinating global climate policy in a highly fragmented governance landscape.International efforts to tackle the challenges posed by climate change have in the past two decades centered on multilateral negotiations under the UNFCCC. Several scholars note however that the international negotiations under the UNFCCC have produced diminishing returns over time 7 . This has generated discussions about whether multilateralism should be abandoned in favor of minilateralism 8 , along with suggestions to shift the negotiations to other smaller and more flexible forums 9 . Critics of the current multilateral approach argue that it is too cumbersome, as the decision-making process of the UNFCCC relies on finding consensus among its 195 parties 10-11 . David Victor 11 , for example, has argued that since only a dozen countries emit the majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, a club like the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) would present a good candidate for making progress on climate change. Others, however, maintain that minilateral clubs like the MEF, G8, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership are not necessarily more effective than the UNFCCC, lack the legitimacy of the UN climate process 6 , and do not primarily focus on significantly increasing mitigation ambition 5 .A related discussion concerns the architecture of climate change governance. Thus far the main efforts to respond to climate change have been state-led, focusing on building a universal regime through a legally binding multilateral agreement in a so-called top-down approach. Proponents of this architecture maintain that a strong, centralized regime is necessary for ensuring effective and fair outcomes [12][13] . Critics, however, argue that a bottom-up approach, favoring more national and nonstate initiatives, would provide a more effective response [14][15][16] . A range of sub-national and transnational initiatives, such as the C40 network of major cities and the Carbon Disclosure Project, have shown that other actors can take ambitious steps when national governments resist strong ta...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Views on alternative forums for effectively tackling climate change

Hjerpe

Nasiritousi

2015

Nature Clim Change

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“…These pledges are expected to deliver much less effort than would be collectively desirable. Following Buhr et al (2014), "pledge-and-review means that climate change is dealt with the lowest possible level of decision making." As Stiglitz (chapter 6, this volume) notes, "in no other area has voluntary action succeeded as a solution to the problem of undersupply of a public good."…”

Section: Pledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Global Carbon Pricing: The Path to Climate Cooperation

Hendrickson

2018

Global Environmental Politics

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.An electronic edition of this book is available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives International 4.0 license at http:// mitpress.mit.edu.

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“…In the post-Copenhagen climate policy discussions, bottom-up systems have gained in prominence (56), and there is an increasing consensus that the COP 21 Paris agreement (in late 2015) will essentially be a pledge and review system (107,108). Governments will communicate emissions reduction pledges [which in UNFCCC jargon are intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs)], and these will be assessed according to a set of centralized rules overseen by the UNFCCC.…”

Section: Bottom-up Approaches: Each Government Does What It Likesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for and Alternatives to Global Climate Regimes Post-Kyoto

Michaelowa

2015

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

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International policies for mitigation of climate change provide a global public good and thus suffer from “free riding,” i.e., inaction of governments. In 25 years of negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the regime has changed its character from a top-down approach based on mandatory emissions commitments to a bottom-up system of voluntary government pledges. At the same time, various initiatives by governments at all levels and private companies have been established, but most are limited to emissions reporting and exchange of knowledge on mitigation technologies. None of the alternatives has shown a higher mitigation effectiveness than the Kyoto Protocol. Generally, the transition toward a bottom-up regime risks a reduction of transparency and increases in the transaction costs of mitigation. Although it could give rise to a club of countries engaging in strong mitigation that could expand over time, it is unlikely to be ambitious enough to achieve the target of limiting warming to 2°C. On the one hand, carbon prices will be applied in a larger number of jurisdictions, and mitigation technologies diffuse around the world. On the other hand, carbon price levels will remain relatively low, and their mitigation benefits will be more than outweighed by the growth of infrastructure and consumption. Thus, a temperature increase of at least 3°C by 2100 becomes more and more likely.

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Climate Change Politics through a Global Pledge-and-Review Regime: Positions among Negotiators and Stakeholders

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

Views on alternative forums for effectively tackling climate change

Views on alternative forums for effectively tackling climate change

Global Carbon Pricing: The Path to Climate Cooperation

Opportunities for and Alternatives to Global Climate Regimes Post-Kyoto

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