National Appropriateness of International Climate Policy Frameworks in India, Brazil, and South Africa

Abstract

LIST OF TABLESThe thesis provides answers to these questions by studying domestic engagements with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions in three emerging economiesIndia, Brazil, and South Africa. The thesis specifically studies how these engagements were influenced by the domestic institutional context provided by national climate policy, norms, and institutional capacity in the three countries. Drawing upon the variations in the engagements with nationally appropriate mitigation actions, made visible by use of the policy cycle as a heuristic device, the thesis informs the implementation of another nascent, yet prevalent, international climate policy framework -Nationally Determined Contributions.The thesis identifies how engagements with nationally appropriate mitigation actions varied in India, Brazil, and South Africa in agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. In cases where international support is considered crucial for taking mitigation actions, external factors such as lack of clarity on definitional aspects and availability of international support can hamper the prospects of such frameworks at the agenda-setting and policy formulation stages. Efforts to engage with these frameworks under this uncertainty are held back by non-decisions, overriding national climate policy, as well as by uneven inter-ministerial coordination. The thesis argues that successful implementation of upcoming Nationally Determined Contributions will be influenced by a country's ability to align them with its national climate policy, localization of the transnational norms, and the extent to which efforts to enhance institutional capacity for coordinating the implementation of national climate policy are made. In sum, the effective implementation of International Climate Policy Frameworks will be dependent on the willingness of the state to provide oversight and coordination, and clarity on the availability of international support.Keywords: Policy process, Institutions, Domestic Politics, Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, National, Climate Policy, India, Brazil, South Africa, Institutional Capacity, Norms, Nationally Determined Contributions.ii LIST OF APPENDED PAPERSThis thesis is based on the following papers. The papers are referred to by their roman numbers in the thesis. Author's contributionsPaper I was co-authored with Navroz K. Dubash, Niklas Höhne, and Markus Hagemann. Prabhat Upadhyaya, the author of this thesis, conducted the background research, codeveloped the methodology, coordinated the data collection and data analysis for the paper, personally collected data for all the countries profiled in Asia and Africa, and construction of the database.The author is solely responsible for Paper II.For papers III and IV, the author conducted the empirical work and preliminary analysis, contributed to developing the analytical framework, coded the material, and contributed to the overall writing. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis thesis is a product of rendezvous and conversations...

Comparing Climate Policy Processes in India, Brazil, and South Africa: Domestic Engagements With International Climate Policy Frameworks

“…Third, domestic institutional capacity plays a crucial role in moving beyond the decision-making stage, and effective interministerial coordination is crucial in this regard (Upadhyaya, 2017). The Amazon NAMA benefited from the increased capacity of the Environment Ministry.…”

“…The three emerging economies studied here have fine-tuned their positions and strategies for international negotiations through several multilateral fora, such as the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum and the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) negotiating coalition, and were active in establishing the NAMA concept in climate negotiations (Upadhyaya, 2017). Nevertheless, domestically they engage with the NAMA concept in very different circumstances (Table 1).…”

“…The peer-reviewed literature explicitly addressing NAMAs is primarily qualitative and driven by case studies (Amars, Fridahl, Hagemann, Röser, & Linnér, 2016; Tyler, Boyd, Coetzee, & Winkler, 2014; Upadhyaya, 2016). Studies have also taken comparative approaches to understanding how NAMAs are interpreted across countries and types of actors (Fridahl, Hagemann, Röser, & Amars, 2015; Garibaldi et al., 2013; Tyler, Boyd, Coetzee, Torres Gunfaus, & Winkler, 2013; Upadhyaya, 2017). By examining NAMA engagement in IBSA from a policy process perspective, this article advances these comparative efforts.…”