Does leadership promote cooperation in climate change mitigation policy?

Abstract

In the run-up to the Copenhagen negotiations, commentators, politicians and the public had great expectations of some state taking the lead towards a new global climate deal. Is there something in such a call for leadership? In two steps, this article provides an empirically informed answer to that question. The first part develops a theoretical account of the relation between leadership and cooperation in international climate change mitigation policy (ICCMP). Starting from a five-dimensional leadership account and a simple game-theoretical analysis of the impediments to cooperation, it is predicted that (1) increased leadership facilitates cooperation in ICCMP and (2)

The UN climate change negotiations and the role of the United States: assessing American leadership from Copenhagen to Paris

“…Groen 2017, Parker and. This literature has specified four main modes that an aspiring leader can utilize to influence the behavior of others (Young 1991, Underdal 1994, Malnes 1995, Saul and Seidel 2011. Although the terminology varies, these modes of leadership can be distilled to: ideational, structural, directional, and instrumental (Parker and Karlsson 2014).…”

Building Green: Local Political Leadership Addressing Climate Change

“…Thus, in this example we find the same story that exists in our models: a city leader making an effort to join a broader discussion on climate change; a climate change effort that includes green buildings as an important and showcase feature of progress; and an effort that predates and informs state actions on green buildings. As is found in the current literature on climate change efforts in general (Saul & Seidel, ) and specifically in cities (Krause, ), the role of leadership is incredibly important in propelling cities forward on issues of energy sustainability to address climate change. This is a particularly compelling case considering that a previous mayor of Tulsa from 1978–1984 is current Republican Senator James Inhofe––arguably one of the most vociferous opponents of any effort to acknowledge, much less address, climate change in the United States.…”

The economics of leadership in climate change mitigation

“…Karlsson, Hjerpe, Parker, and Linnér (2012) find that actors devoted to promoting the common good are most likely to be perceived as leaders at the COPs. Saul and Seidel (2011) show that four out of five leadership modes employed by the EU correlate positively with the degree of cooperation achieved at COPs 1 to 14.…”