Global climate adaptation governance: Why is it not legally binding?

Abstract

In the last decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has moved from a strong focus on mitigation to increasingly address adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions, but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts. Yet, most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance and overlooked the increasing number of adaptation-related decisions and initiatives. In this article, we identify the body of rules and commitments on adaptation and suggest that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest. We then ask: to what degree are adaptation rules and commitments legalized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? We examine the degree of precision and obligation of relevant decisions through an extensive analysis of primary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with climate change experts and negotiators, and participant observation at climate negotiations. Our analysis finds that adaptation governance is low in precision and obligation. We suggest that this is partly because adaptation is a contested global public good and because ‘package deals’ are made with mitigation commitments. This article makes a vital contribution to the global environmental politics literature given that adaptation governance is under-studied and poorly understood. It also contributes to the legalization literature by highlighting how contested global public goods may be governed globally, but with low obligation and precision.

Global adaptation governance: An emerging but contested domain

“…State actors had begun to intentionally shape the actions of constituents, in this case UNFCCC Parties, towards the goal, but the question is: how authoritatively so? The forms of governance accumulating over the pre‐2015 time period can be functionally categorized into four groups, each of which contain a variety of “harder” and “softer” rules, norms and principles (Hall & Persson, ): Substantive commitments to undertake adaptation —Parties committed to facilitate or implement adaptation at country level, but unlike for mitigation (with carbon dioxide equivalents) no definition or single metric was been agreed to quantify such commitments. Procedural commitments to plan and report adaptation —All countries were to report on adaptation planning and implementation in their National Communications, and developing countries were invited and funded to develop NAPAs and NAPs. Commitments and rules on adaptation finance —Developed countries committed to provide finance and report on it, and, for developing countries as recipients, rules on eligibility and norms on priority activities were agreed by the Parties and fund boards. Knowledge development and sharing —Several initiatives (e.g., Nairobi Work Programme, Private Sector Initiative, Local Coping Strategies) and databases were set up, with the Adaptation Committee as a core institution. …”

“…In Sharma's (, p. 38) view, “the focus remains once again on planning, assessing, sharing information, and reporting”. Studying the legalization of adaptation before and after Paris, Hall and Persson () note a nominal increase in adaptation‐related provisions and forms of governance used under the UNFCCC. They conclude, though, that they are characterized by low obligation and low precision, with the latter seemingly acting as a limiting factor.…”

“…Khan & Roberts (, p. 33) contend that “at some point supporting a series of local and national resilient societies becomes a global public good, measurably enhancing global harmony, peace and security.” The fact that some adaptations can provide global public goods is the most direct justification of strengthened global adaptation governance. So far, however, the UNFCCC process has not picked up the framing of adaptation as a global public good (Hall & Persson, ).…”

“…First, international rules are the traditional form. As described, the UNFCCC regime has relied mainly on facilitative and “soft” forms of governance (Hall & Persson, ; Khan & Roberts, ; Lesnikowski et al, ), and rules have been rare for IGOs (Weitz & Persson, ) and transnational initiatives (Dzebo, ). When rules exist, procedural rather than substantial rules (i.e., how much and what kind of adaptation constituents should do) have been more common.…”

Responsibility for climate change adaptation

“…Much of the academic literature on adaptation has focused on empirically documenting its advances (Berrang‐Ford, Ford, & Paterson, ; Biesbroek et al, ; Ford, Berrang‐Ford, & Paterson, ), reporting reasons for lack of progress (Amundsen, Berglund, & Westskog, ; Biesbroek, Klostermann, Termeer, & Kabat, ; Eisenack et al, ), or documenting particularly successful cases (Adger, Arnell, & Tompkins, ; Moser & Boykoff, ). Moreover, studies are increasingly examining governance arrangements related to adaptation, both from the perspective of theory (Dovers & Hezri, ; Hall & Persson, ) and also from the perspective of empirically revealing the kinds of policy instruments that are emerging (Klein et al, ; Leck & Simon, ). What has become clear based on these empirical research efforts is that adaptation involves a number of different actors at different levels of social organization, raising questions as to who is responsible for what and when (Hartzell‐Nichols, ).…”