Emerging Powers and Differentiation in Global Climate Institutions

Abstract

The Paris Agreement on climate change brought states from the North and South together under a common framework to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. This was a remarkable institutional adjustment for a regime that had always maintained a strict distinction between developed and developing countries and imposed meaningful obligations only on the former. To better understand this change, I look at the negotiations surrounding the issue of 'differentiation'. The rising emissions of the emerging economies created a demand for institutional change on the part of key industrialized countries; however, they faced resistance from the increasingly assertive BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). The challengers ultimately adopted strategic cooptation as their main negotiation strategy, offering compromises in the areas of climate finance and the legal form of new commitments. The climate case sheds light on the impact of power shifts in the domain of global environmental governance and illustrates that calls for change sometime comes from established rather than rising powers. Policy Implications • The success of the global climate regime will depend on its ability to attract participation by a large number of heterogeneous states, from the developed and developing world alike. This implies that debates over 'common but differentiated responsibilities' will remain a central part of the negotiations.

The Unmaking of Special Rights

“…It is difficult to imagine that many of these changes would have happened in the absence of major shifts in global power, economic capabilities, and emissions. The analysis of international climate negotiations provides numerous traces of such links (Gupta 2014;Thompson 2020). And our comparison of the two phases 'before' and 'after' the rise of Brazil, China, and India also shows how the contestation over country categories, developing country commitments, and assistance intensified in Phase 2.…”

“…Correspondingly, Brazil, China, and India have underlined their view that potentially greater developing country commitments remain dependent upon a corresponding rise in assistance provided by developed countries as originally established in Article 4.7 of the 1992 UN Framework Convention. Based on their interest in selling their eventual contributions to the climate mitigation effort at the highest price, Brazil, China, and India opted for what has been characterized as 'strategic co-optation' (Betzold et al 2012;Kruck and Zangl 2019;Streck 2001;Thompson 2020). All three countries played important roles as ever greater emitters, as Southern leaders, and as GEF 'recipient donors' from the start.…”

Differentiation in Environmental Treaty Making: Measuring Provisions and How They Reshape the Depth–Participation Dilemma

“…Scholars in international relations (IR) have explored the politics surrounding these provisions too, focusing especially on a few particularly prominent cases. In global environmental politics, for example, the principle of CBDR-RC has been a major focus of inquiry, especially within qualitative studies of the climate and ozone regimes (Biermann 1997;Castro and Kammerer 2021;Ella 2017;McGee and Steffek 2016;Prys-Hansen and Franz 2015;Thompson 2020). But, in IR, relatively few have taken a quantitative approach that looks across regimes to understand these provisions.…”

“…There are, today, many qualitative studies of differentiation within individual regimes. The literature on CBDR-RC is vast, and many have explored differentiation in specific domains, such as in the ozone and climate regimes (Biermann 1997;Castro and Kammerer 2021;Pauw et al 2014;Pauwelyn 2013;Thompson 2020). But relatively less work looks at these arrangements from a quantitative perspective, and key hypotheses have gone unexplored as a result.…”

Rhetorical Appeals and Strategic Cooptation in the Rise and Fall of The New International Economic Order

“…Kruck and Zangl (this issue) explain that cooptation strategies are premised on the idea that adversaries can alter the behavior of each other through positive inducements. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as giving adversaries greater recognition in international settings, including membership in exclusive clubs, direct economic aid, preferential terms of trade, and more (see also Thompson, this issue; Stephen and Stephen, this issue; Viola, this issue). To the established powers opposing the NIEO, cooptation strategies were attractive because they presented means to weaken the cohesiveness of the large and heterogeneous coalition that made up the G‐77.…”