Views on alternative forums for effectively tackling climate change

Abstract

First paragraph:This year (2015) marks the 21st formal anniversary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and in December a new climate treaty is expected to be reached. Yet, the UNFCCC has not been successful in setting the world on a path to meet the 2 degree target 1 . Meanwhile, other forums, such as the G20 and subnational forums, have increasingly become sites of climate change initiatives 2-6 . There has, however, to date been no systematic evaluation of what forums climate change policy-makers and practitioners perceive to be needed in order to effectively tackle climate change. Drawing on survey data from two recent UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP), we show that there exists an overall preference for state-led, multilateral forums. However, preferences starkly diverge between respondents from different geographical regions and no clear contender to the UNFCCC emerges. Our results highlight difficulties in coordinating global climate policy in a highly fragmented governance landscape.International efforts to tackle the challenges posed by climate change have in the past two decades centered on multilateral negotiations under the UNFCCC. Several scholars note however that the international negotiations under the UNFCCC have produced diminishing returns over time 7 . This has generated discussions about whether multilateralism should be abandoned in favor of minilateralism 8 , along with suggestions to shift the negotiations to other smaller and more flexible forums 9 . Critics of the current multilateral approach argue that it is too cumbersome, as the decision-making process of the UNFCCC relies on finding consensus among its 195 parties 10-11 . David Victor 11 , for example, has argued that since only a dozen countries emit the majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, a club like the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) would present a good candidate for making progress on climate change. Others, however, maintain that minilateral clubs like the MEF, G8, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership are not necessarily more effective than the UNFCCC, lack the legitimacy of the UN climate process 6 , and do not primarily focus on significantly increasing mitigation ambition 5 .A related discussion concerns the architecture of climate change governance. Thus far the main efforts to respond to climate change have been state-led, focusing on building a universal regime through a legally binding multilateral agreement in a so-called top-down approach. Proponents of this architecture maintain that a strong, centralized regime is necessary for ensuring effective and fair outcomes [12][13] . Critics, however, argue that a bottom-up approach, favoring more national and nonstate initiatives, would provide a more effective response [14][15][16] . A range of sub-national and transnational initiatives, such as the C40 network of major cities and the Carbon Disclosure Project, have shown that other actors can take ambitious steps when national governments resist strong ta...

Non‐state actors in hybrid global climate governance: justice, legitimacy, and effectiveness in a post‐Paris era

“…Although often unsaid, these minilateral proposals would have restricted non‐state actors to formal negotiations in hopes of securing agreement faster. However, among UNFCCC participants in general, the minilateral approaches never gained traction as legitimate replacements of the globally focused multilateral negotiations …”

Institutional Analysis of the Global Climate Change Regime: Literature Review of International Climate Negotiations

“…Table 1 presents the articles reviewed. (Gupta & Mason, 2016) (Bodansky & Rajamani, 2013) (Ventura, et al, 2015) (Stewart, et al, 2013) (Moncel & Asselt, 2012) (Otto, et al, 2014) (Marcucci & Turton, 2013) (Kriegler, et al, 2015) (Riahi, et al, 2015) (Arroyo-Currás, et al, 2015) (Briner & Prag, 2013) (Chaturvedi, 2015) (Glomsrød, et al, 2013) (Gilley & Kinsella, 2015) Carbon tax 10 (Strand, 2013) (Alton, et al, 2014) (Wang & Li, 2015) (Gale, et al, 2013) ) (Elliott & Fullerton, 2013) (Sundar, et al, 2016) (Brooks, 2015) (Pezzey & Jotzo, 2013) (Lamperti, et al, 2015) Emission trading, trade, carbon markets 10 (Perthuis & Trotignon, 2013) (Uddin & Holtedahl, 2013) (Anon., 2013) ) (Lutz, et al, 2013) (Rabe, 2016) (Stiglitz, 2015) (Cormier, 2013) (Erickson, et al, 2014) (Sreekanth, et al, 2014) Carbon tax and cap-and trade 5 (Goulder & Schein, 2013) (Lui, 2016) (Sewalk, 2013) (Repetto, 2013) Minilateralism 8 (Debaere, et al, 2014) (Falkner, 2015) (Hjerpe & Nasiritousi, 2015) …”

“…He argued that minilateralism is unlikely to overcome the structural barriers, including national political systems to a comprehensive and ambitious international climate agreement. Hjerpe & Nasiritousi (2015) examined the alternative forums tackling the climate change. They confirm the difficulties in coordinating global climate policy in a highly fragmented governance landscape and the weakness of minilateralism.…”

Normative arguments for non-state actor participation in international policymaking processes: Functionalism, neocorporatism or democratic pluralism?

“…In distributing the questionnaires, we cover different locations at the conference venue in order to encounter a wide variety of participants. Through the daily distribution of questionnaires over the two weeks of each COP, and through other measures that seek to reduce the sampling bias, we strive to obtain a sample that is as representative as possible (see Hjerpe and Nasiritousi, 2015). Respondents answered by indicating one of these response options:…”

“…With two independent variables, we included weights in our analysis to take into account differences in composition. In other words, we compensated for differences in terms of geographical composition when testing for differences across primary role categories, and in terms of composition of primary roles when testing for differences across geographical origin categories following the same method as Hjerpe and Nasiritousi (2015).…”