The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as an orchestrator in global climate policymaking

Abstract

Scholars have recently devoted increasing attention to the role and function of international bureaucracies in global policymaking. Some of them contend that international public officials have gained significant political influence in various policy fields. Compared to other international bureaucracies, the political leeway of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been considered rather limited. Due to the specific problem structure of the policy domain of climate change, national governments endowed this intergovernmental treaty secretariat with a relatively narrow mandate. However, this article argues that in the past few years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat has gradually loosened its straitjacket and expanded its original spectrum of activity by engaging different sub-national and non-state actors into a policy dialogue using facilitative orchestration as a mode of governance. The present article explores the recent evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and investigates the way in which it initiates, guides, broadens and strengthens sub-national and non-state climate actions to achieve progress in the international climate negotiations. Points for practitioners The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has lately adopted new roles and functions in global climate policymaking. While previously seen as a rather technocratic body that, first and foremost, serves national governments, the Climate Secretariat increasingly interacts with sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private companies to push the global response to climate change forward. We contend that the Climate Secretariat can contribute to global climate policymaking by coordinating and steering the initiatives of non-nation-state actors towards coherence and good practice.

Brokering Climate Action: The UNFCCC Secretariat Between Parties and Nonparty Stakeholders

“…The climate secretariat needs to master the unique architecture of multilevel global climate governance despite its narrow formal mandate that emphasizes its logistical and informational role while explicitly exempting it from taking on a more active part in multilateral negotiations (Hickmann et al 2019;Jörgens et al 2016;Kolleck et al 2017b). Consequently, when communicating and cooperating with different kinds of stakeholders in order to guarantee the successful realization of the measures agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, the secretariat always strives to act in a balanced and impartial way (Well et al forthcoming).…”

Climate finance governance: Fit for purpose?

“…The concept of multi‐stakeholder governance was used to describe the dispersal of agency beyond the state and intergovernmental organizations (Newell et al, 2012) while multilevel governance and stakeholder partnerships described the new configurations of actors interacting at multiple levels and scales of governance. Subsequent debates have concentrated on changing agency and authority, synergies and conflicts between state centric and non‐state actors (see Pattberg and Widerberg (2015, 689), and on fragmentation and orchestration (Dingworth & Pattberg, 2009; Hickmann et al, 2021).…”

The Performance of the Climate-Energy Nexus

“…The secretariat has, however, been engaging in light-touch coordination using orchestration as a mode of governance. It collaborates with other institutions and actors to provide platforms and data that could help to mitigate cross-institutional coordination gaps (Hickmann et al 2019).…”