Global Governance
655
Climate change Matthew J. Hoffmann
Climate change may be the governance challenge of our time and may remain so for the next century. Climate change is truly global in multiple senses—the climate system is global and the energy and economic systems that are causing the problems are global. Yet, in important ways, climate change is a profoundly local problem—the anthropo- genic greenhouse gas emissions at the heart of the problem are produced everywhere, and the effects of climate change will be felt differently in different locales. The governance task is thus enormous. The latest climate science tells us that we are already on track for signifi cant planetary warming, and that to hold this warming to 2°C (a level that may allow us to avoid some of the most dire ramifi cations of climate change), global emissions of greenhouse gases must peak in the next decade and fall off from there rapidly, moving the world towards de-carbonization by the end of the century.
Governing climate change is unlike other global governance challenges that humanity has previously faced because of how pervasive its causes and effects are and how deeply embedded fossil fuels are in the global economy and energy sys- tems. To be effective, global climate governance needs to put the world on a path of massive transformation. In many ways, climate change has become the keystone issue in global environmental politics. It is directly connected to many other issues, like deforestation, biodiversity loss, and desertifi cation, as a cause or consequence, and it is impossible to conceive of pursuing the agenda of sustainable development, like the world attempted in the Rio+20 meetings in 2012 and the agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, without also addressing climate change.
This chapter chronicles the global response to climate change, and the evolution of the global governance of this issue. The fi rst section outlines the scope of the problem, in terms of both its causes and effects. The chapter then discusses the fi rst phases of the UN-based multilateral governance of climate change that emerged in the late 1980s
CHAPTER 47
CONTENTS
Climate change as a problem to be governed 657
Development and evolution of multilateral cli- mate governance, 1990–2009 658
The current context: New multilateral hope and evolving transnational governance 663
Conclusion 664
Additional reading 665
Notes 665
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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and reached a nadir in the Copenhagen negotiations of 2009. Multilateral governance is not the sum total of the global response to climate change, however. The discussion of governance therefore must also explore transnational governance efforts that emerged in the twenty-fi rst century. With the signing of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the global response to climate change entered a new phase, and the penultimate section explores the possibilities and challenges in this new era. The chapter concludes with some of
BOX 47.1 ORIENTING TERMS AND DYNAMICS
Greenhouse effect
Ironically, the greenhouse effect is actually something that allows humanity to thrive
on Earth. The atmosphere acts as a greenhouse, holding in solar radiation that would
otherwise refl ect off the Earth and be sent into space. Without this greenhouse effect ,
the planet would be too cold to support life as we know it.
Greenhouse gases
There are a number of greenhouse gases both naturally occurring and human made
(and some are both): Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydro-
fl uorocarbons. Of the anthropogenic gases, carbon dioxide is by far the most prevalent,
although some other gases, such as methane, have larger warming effects. The gases
have different sources as well. Carbon dioxide results from the combustion of fossil fuels
(coal, gasoline, oil) while methane is produced by the decay of organic matter.
Global warming (anthropogenic)
Since the Industrial Revolution, concentrations of human-produced greenhouse gases,
especially carbon dioxide, have increased dramatically compared to natural baseline
concentrations of these gases. Because most of the world’s energy and economic systems
are tied closely to the burning of fossil fuels (for energy production, transportation,
agriculture, and industrial processes), we have caused large increases in the amount of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This increasing concentration of greenhouse gases
leads to global warming. Climate scientists tell us that the Earth is already warming and
that we could expect to see global average temperatures increase anywhere from two
to six degrees centigrade in the course of this century.
Climate change
Climate change is the broad term for the ramifi cations of global warming. Atmospheric
warming alters the dynamics of the climate. Possible changes include altered precipi-
tation and drought patterns, changing storm frequencies and strengths, transformed
seasons and incidences of extreme heat and even cold, rising sea levels, glaciers and polar
ice caps melting, species migrations/extinctions, altered disease vectors and trajectories.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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the key debates that currently animate the academic and policy discussions around global climate governance, especially and the recent ways in which multilateral and transnational governance approaches are coming together. 1
Climate change as a problem to be governed 2
The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found consensus in the scientifi c community that greenhouse gas emissions have signifi - cantly increased because of human activity and, further, that the modest temperature increases we have already experienced are “very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” and we could expect signifi cant warming and climatic changes because of it. 3 This understanding has not wavered since 2007, and, if anything, the consensus in the scientifi c community has strength- ened and its warnings about climate change have become more serious.
The current political consensus expressed in the Paris Agreement of 2015 is that constraining global temperature increases to 2°C is crucial, and that humanity should even seek to limit warming to 1.5°C. 4 Time is rapidly running out to undertake the changes necessary to meet these goals. In 2009 a prominent gathering of climate scientists and policymakers declared what is still a relatively taken for granted understanding: “If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above preindustrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.” 5
Knowledge about expected warming from current and anticipated concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is increasingly troubling, even frightening, as the climate science community learns more about the kind of impacts to expect. The possible impacts of climate change are well known, but it appears as though at least some impacts are coming sooner than anticipated in earlier models and with greater mag- nitude. A steady stream of scientifi c reports detail how climate change has already begun and that the impacts, like the melting of glaciers polar ice caps, are coming more quickly than anticipated. The warmest year on record was 2016, which also was “the third year in a row to set a new record for global average surface temperatures.” 6
While scientifi c consensus has generated urgency in many corners of the world, it has not yet generated political consensus and will to take signifi cant global action. Some of this disconnect can be traced to uncertainties in climate science. The climate system is enormously complex, and there are inherent uncertainties in climate change that we may never unravel entirely. There are a number of intervening factors between concentrations of GHGs, temperature increase, and climatic changes like increased severity and frequency of storms, cycles of droughts and fl oods, and patterns of precipitation, and climate science has yet to fi gure them all out. In addition, natural variability in the climate can mask and/or exacerbate the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, even though the warming of the atmosphere is a global phenomenon, the magnitude and geographic extent of the effects of climate change are uncertain—in other words, we do not necessarily know how bad it will be, where, and when.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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The problem, at one level, is thus fairly clear and relatively simple. Increasing concentrations of GHGs raise global temperatures. Increased global temperatures lead to a number of serious consequences that could have a severe impact on much of humanity, especially the most vulnerable. Heading off these consequences is a matter of emitting fewer greenhouse gases, especially less carbon dioxide, and thus substantially decarbonizing our economies and energy systems. The mechanics of climate change are simple, but governing the global response to this problem is not.
Development and evolution of multilateral climate governance, 1990–2009
When climate change was put on the international political agenda in the late 1980s, there was no question as to the mode of governance that would be employed to respond to this problem. Multilateral treaty making, supervised by the United Nations, was taken for granted and essentially synonymous with climate governance. It was understood that climate change was a global problem, not solvable by the actions of individual states, and that it would require a global solution. This made a great deal of sense from certain perspectives. Climate change is often characterized as a classic public goods problem—a stable climate is non-excludable and non-rivalrous and thus ripe for under-provision. The solution was to be a global treaty that would forge cooperation to address the problem. The story of global climate governance, therefore, has to begin with the multilateral negotiation process, its emergence, achievements, and challenges over the fi rst twenty years of the climate regime.
The early climate negotiations saga
In the late 1980s, climate change transitioned from a scientifi c issue to an international policy problem when the UN General Assembly created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide a fi rm scientifi c foundation for taking action on climate change. It was to gather and report on the science of climate change (its causes, effects, and possible policy options). Since that time, the periodic IPCC reports (1990, 1997, 2007, and 2014) have served as benchmarks for the consen- sus on climate change. It should be noted that IPCC reports are a combination of scientifi c literature review and political messaging—states have a good deal of say about what goes into the reports.
The fi rst set of global climate negotiations produced the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It did not mandate any legally binding reductions of greenhouse gas emissions—this was a bridge too far at this stage of the climate regime given US reluctance to such measures and the bargaining pos- itions of other major states and blocs that are discussed below. What the UNFCCC laid out, however, were aspirational goals to take actions that would maintain the stability of the climate and return emissions to 1990 levels, along with strictures for states to report their emissions and to develop means of technology transfer of climate-friendly technology. The UNFCCC also had within it commitments and
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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provisions for continuing the negotiations and moving towards protocols that would take up specifi c actions. These negotiations have been undertaken annually since the UNFCCC came into force in 1994.
The transition from a broad aspirational climate change response to a treaty that would mandate action began in earnest in 1995, when the United States signaled its willingness to consider binding emissions reductions in a global accord. This opened the way for the negotiations that produced the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. This landmark treaty was the result of intense bargaining along both North–North and North–South dimensions. The breakthrough was an agreement by the North to collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions fi ve percent below 1990 levels by 2012. In addition, the international community of states agreed to a number of “fl exibility” mechanisms that states could use to reach their reduction commitments. These included a global emissions trading system and the Clean Development Mechanism, whereby actors in the global North could pay for projects in the global South and receive the emissions reductions credits that resulted. While almost every- one acknowledged that the Kyoto Protocol, alone, would be insuffi cient to stave off climate change, it was considered to be a decent start.
The signing of the Kyoto Protocol would prove to be the high point of the fi rst phase of climate regime, but very quickly it became apparent that bringing the protocol into force would be a challenge and that its prospects for being effective were dim. The US Senate pledged to not ratify any agreement that did not include commensurate mandates for large developing countries (which the protocol did not have). This immediately called into question whether the single largest emitter at the time would participate. In addition, because the protocol could only come into force if states representing fi fty-fi ve percent of global emissions were represented, Washington’s withdrawal effectively meant that almost every other Northern state would have to ratify.
In 2001, a diffi cult situation became almost impossible, as the United States “unsigned” the Kyoto Protocol under the new president George W. Bush. Even as the rest of the international community of states moved ahead with negotiations to fl esh out the details of ratifying and implementing the Kyoto Protocol, the largest player withdrew. It came into force in 2005 but under a pall. Even though the states that ratifi ed the Kyoto Protocol ultimately reached their goal of a fi ve percent reduc- tion from 1990 levels, it is often considered a failure because it was not the global agreement that most deemed necessary.
After 2005, the climate regime descended to its nadir as states fl oundered in their attempts to build a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. There was renewed optimism around the 2009 negotiations in Copenhagen with hopeful signs coming from Washington after the election of Barack Obama and from China in terms of willingness to consider signifi cant action raised expectations. Yet the international community of states was not able to achieve a legally binding replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. The “Hopenhagen” negotiations began with hope for the possibility of achieving a comprehensive, legally binding agreement to combat global warming. They ended as “Brokenhagen,” achieving only a maligned Copenhagen Accord that failed to commit major greenhouse gas emitters to a new binding agreement. Instead, a system of voluntary pledges of emissions reductions along with an unspecifi ed
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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process of reviewing progress on those pledges was agreed in the Danish capital and reaffi rmed in the Cancún negotiations of 2010.
Two decades of international climate negotiations returned the international com- munity to where they began in 1990—aspirational goals with no effective, legally binding international treaty. The fi rst phase of multilateral climate governance ended up with very little concrete action to show for all of the “governing.”
Explaining the frustrations of multilateral climate governance
It is important to understand why this governance mechanism unfolded over its fi rst two decades in the way that it did—especially why it failed to produce an effective response to climate change. This brief discussion examines crucial principles that underpinned the negotiations and the bargaining dynamics of major players in the fi rst phase of the multilateral response.
In 1990 the international community of states began negotiating over climate change in earnest. Two key principles marked the trajectory of the negotiations. The fi rst was universal participation, the idea that all states should have a voice and role in the negotiations over a global problem like climate change. 7 The response to climate change would not be formulated in the rarefi ed air of the UN Security Council or the G-7, or among a group of the largest producers of GHGs. On the contrary, over one hundred states attended the initial climate negotiations and from the beginning the “global” in global climate change governance referred both to the geographic extent of the problem and the level of political participation. The climate change negotiations began as, and remain to this day, a process encom- passing essentially all states. This principle served to enhance the legitimacy of the governance process because it ensured that all states would have a voice in this most pressing of problems. However, it also has made the negotiations unwieldy at times and multiplied the number of competing interests that are represented in the bargaining.
The second foundational principle of multilateral climate governance was the idea of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). This principle, developed in the course of the ozone depletion negotiations in the 1980s, was a means to navigate thorny South–North issues that arose over a policy issue as signifi cant as climate change, with both economic development and environmental dimensions. This compromise principle ensured some middle ground, because Northern states were concerned to have a broad response to climate change given the knowledge that states from the Global South would, in the near future, be the source of the majority of GHG emissions. China in fact passed the United States in terms of absolute emissions in the middle of the fi rst decade of the twenty-fi rst century to become the world’s most prolifi c emitter of GHGs.
The Global South wanted recognition that action on climate change would be expensive, and that not all states were in a position to take the same kind of action; this argument was bolstered by the fact that the historical responsibility for GHG concentrations lay overwhelmingly with the North. Thus, the negotiations were framed by the notion that every state has a responsibility to act, but that responsibility
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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differs by development level. Differing interpretations of this principle—what is common, what is differentiated, who should have responsibilities, when, and what kind—were at the core of some of the toughest debates in the fi rst two decades of negotiations.
These underlying principles structured the fi rst phase of the UN-led negotiations, defi ning stable bargaining dynamics. The basic issues that held up the negotiations remained virtually unchanged. The political economy of state-centric, multilateral climate governance looked pretty much the same in 2009 as it did when the negoti- ations began in 1990 for the UNFCCC. 8
The negotiation faultlines were evident in North–North, North–South, and South- South dimensions. The North–North debate was perennially engaged by the European Union (EU), which, for a number of reasons, has been a leader on climate action throughout, and by the United States/Canada/Japan/Russia, which have always taken a more cautious or even obstructionist stance in the multilateral negotiations. The North–South debate tended to be over participation, timing, and resources. While CBDR is an accepted principle, states in the North pushed especially large states from the Global South to move more quickly and take on commensurate responsibilities with those of the North. The global South tended to take the position that their actions should be delayed, and that any action should be compensated. The Global South is not homogeneous, and there were both groups of states at the forefront of progressive action—especially small-island developing countries that face an existential threat from climate change—and others, like oil producers, that were among the most recalcitrant in the negotiations. These faultlines were stable, so stalemate dominated the bargaining environment for the fi rst two decades.
Beyond multilateral climate governance? 9
The stalemate that forestalled progress on climate change was in some ways over- determined. Setting aside the scientifi c uncertainty, climate change is an unbeliev- ably thorny political problem, with a host of obstacles to the kind of cooperation sought in the multilateral negotiations towards a binding legal treaty. Three stand out. First, the global economy is almost entirely dependent on the use of fossil fuels and there are vastly different interests across the diverse states about how to approach transformation in this situation. Second, states are very different in both their absolute and per capita emissions along with their historical and current emis- sions, making it diffi cult to fi nd common ground on responsibility for addressing climate change. Third and most simply, an international agreement on emissions reductions would have to impose short-term concentrated costs (i.e., the treaty would identify who would have to cut) that promised long-term diffuse benefi ts (i.e., future generations would benefi t more from our action on climate change than we will).
These characteristics point toward a diffi cult, perhaps an insoluble, collective action problem. Fortunately, the state-centric governance mode of multilateral treaty making was not equivalent to climate governance and other mechanisms emerged into the void left by stalemate in the negotiations.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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From the beginning of the 1990s, the multilateral approach along with the con- comitant principles of universal participation and CBDR were conceived of as the way to govern climate change. But even given the global dimensions of the problem, universal multilateral negotiations are not necessarily a natural governing approach. In fact, climate change is a problem that has both local and global effects, and causes of the problem are found everywhere. Thus, not only is multilateral governance aimed at a collective, legally binding agreement not necessarily the only governance mech- anism that could be imagined, it may not even be the best one. Decades of stalemate led those interested in responding to climate change both to question the multilateral approach and to imagine different ways of governing climate change.
Specifi cally, since the early part of this century, we have witnessed an explosion of transnational climate governance initiatives. 10 Community, local, state, regional, and global initiatives working on different aspects of climate change have not only emerged but also proliferated. These initiatives have been working to develop the technological, institutional, economic, and political capacity to move quickly on cli- mate change. Organizations such as the Climate Group 11 are bringing together local governments and corporations to do large-scale pilot projects of climate-friendly technology. Initiatives including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative 12 bring together northeastern US states in an emissions trading system that is demonstrat- ing how a price can be put on carbon. Networks of municipalities like the C-40 group of large cities and the Cities for Climate Protection are demonstrating how local, municipal action on climate change can have an effect beyond the borders of individual cities.
These initiatives entail a different kind of global climate governance. It is decentral- ized and bottom-up as opposed to the top-down centralized UN treaty negotiations. It is the product of actions by multiple kinds of political actor instead of being state centric. Where the multilateral governance process is concentrated on negotiating emissions reductions, transnational climate governance initiatives are focused on multiple kinds of goal such as energy effi ciency, smart grids, smart transportation systems, renewable energy, carbon markets, cultural change, and many more.
The emergence of transnational climate governance also signaled a major tran- sition in how non-state actors participate in global climate governance. NGOs and corporations certainly played a role in the multilateral climate governance processes outlined. 13 Their goals, however, were oriented toward the multilateral treaty-making process, attempting to infl uence state negotiating positions and the treaty outcomes. In transnational governance processes, non-state actors are, in important ways, gov- erning climate change themselves. They have been seizing the authority to make rules for other actors to follow in responding to climate change, becoming active governors of climate change on their own.
A number of these initiatives are partnerships between corporations, NGOs, and cities around the world. Cities are motivated to explore climate-friendly technologies for the economic benefi ts they promise, while corporations fi nd cities ideal places to experiment with or pilot new technologies, and NGOs bring the two together. Working in concert makes it possible to demonstrate to cities that climate-friendly technology can work to reduce emissions, enhance transportation and energy deliv- ery systems, and benefi t them economically, and to demonstrate to corporations that
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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there will be a demand for their products. The Climate Group’s LED (light-emitting diode) lighting project is an example of this process. Large-scale demonstration projects facilitated by the Climate Group have shown that the technology can be benefi cial for cities, and demand is now growing. Lighting accounts for ten percent of global GHG emissions. By networking municipal governments and corporations, the Climate Group has been able to facilitate a global pilot program to bring LED street lighting (fi fty to seventy percent lower emissions than traditional lighting) to major global cities (e.g., New York, London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Calcutta), engaging a dozen corporations that manufacture LED lighting. 14
Such efforts look very different than climate governance through the negotiation of a legally binding instrument, but they are comparable in that both are processes of authoritative rule making that is designed to shape or guide the behavior of actors in the global response to climate change. Transnational governance initiatives are smaller and more dispersed, but they are also nimble and innovative, and they provide a very different element to the global response to climate change.
The current context: New multilateral hope and evolving transnational governance
The 2009 Copenhagen negotiations were both the nadir for multilateral climate gov- ernance and the beginning of a new phase. The failure to achieve a legally binding agreement was devastating to most observers. Yet, in Copenhagen the international community of states essentially abandoned the traditional notion of what the multilat- eral negotiations should produce—legally binding, collectively agreed on emissions reductions commitments. Instead, the Copenhagen Accord ushered in a pledge and review system of multilateral governance. From this point forward, the multilateral negotiations would focus on developing collective goals and collective monitoring procedures, but commitments for emissions reductions would be identifi ed and developed by individual states—nationally determined contributions (NDCs). From 2009–2014, it was unclear that this tactic would bear fruit. The negotiations in this phase were hamstrung by the same dynamics that made the post-Kyoto years so frustrating.
In 2015 the international community of states was able to reach agreement in Paris, the fi rst major breakthrough in multilateral climate governance since the Kyoto Protocol. The Paris Agreement laid out a collective goal of avoiding 2° of warming and an aspiration of keeping it to 1.5°. It also includes funding pledges to help those states most vulnerable to climate change adapt, requirements for reporting on emissions reductions measures, and plans for collective monitoring of action and efforts to ratchet up activity over time. All of this is based, however, on each state determining its own commitment to emissions reductions individually. 15
The shift from debilitating stalemate to breakthrough agreement had many sources. Two are particularly relevant. First, the United States and China forged a bilateral agreement in advance of the Paris Summit in which they laid out their intended national contributions and for the fi rst time both leading states committed to signifi - cant emissions reductions. 16 This broached a longstanding North–South divide and
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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paved the way for agreement in Paris. In addition, the increase in urgency around climate change and the surge in transnational climate governance activity provided political momentum for a global agreement. 17
While the Paris Agreement provides hope, the effectiveness of this new agree- ment is yet to be demonstrated, and it faces a number of challenges. First, the NDCs pledged at Paris do not add up to enough emissions reductions to meet the 2° goal (and so certainly not the 1.5° goal). 18 Second, the effectiveness of the agreement relies to a large extent on the international community of states agreeing to monitoring measures and ratcheting up individual commitments. These ongoing elements will be diffi cult to negotiate. Third, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 threw US leadership on climate change, a key factor in the success of the Paris negotiations, into serious doubt. The apprehension became reality in June 2017, when Trump announced the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
However, the surge of transnational initiatives that helped spur the Paris Agreement may also provide a means for countries to achieve their NDCs and collective goals. Indeed, the transnational and multilateral spheres of governance are becoming more intertwined and the transnational approach is being recognized as important in the multilateral process for the fi rst time. There are now efforts to catalogue initiatives and to orchestrate transnational efforts at the international level in order to catalyze momentum for the Paris Agreement’s goals. 19
Conclusion
This chapter does not have a defi nitive conclusion because global climate governance is still unfolding in ways that are likely to surprise in coming decades. The global response to climate change is currently in fl ux following a brief period of guarded optimism, which is driven by political tumult in the United States. The international community of states has rallied around the Paris Agreement, and there is real momen- tum around developing transitions to a low-carbon world. Transnational climate governance is also expanding apace with thousands of initiatives being developed to attempt to catalyze de-carbonization in many contexts. Profound challenges remain, but the potential for an effective global response to climate change is more tangible than it has been in in many years.
In this context, there remain key questions driving the academic study of climate governance. On the multilateral side, the switch from a top-down, centralized approach to a bottom-up, decentralized process certainly enhanced the fl exibility of multilateral governance and provided countries with the ability to better control their own climate responses. The conditions under which countries will now ratchet up their commitments become a crucial area of inquiry, especially with the current US administration. On the transnational side, the key question is whether and how diverse, experimental initiatives can contribute to national level goals and whether they can be usefully orchestrated at the international level to maximize their impact. 20 When we have those answers, we may have some hope that the global response to climate change is likely to be effective.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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Additional reading
Harriet Bulkeley, Liliana Andonova, Michele Betsill, Daniel Compagnon, Thomas Hale, Matthew Hoffmann, et al., Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Stephen Gardiner, A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Matthew Hoffmann, Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Mike Hulme, Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction, and Opportunity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
David Victor, Global Warming Gridlock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Notes
1 This chapter draws on research and text from a number of prior publications, includ- ing Matthew Hoffmann, Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2005); Matthew Hoffmann, Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
2 This section draws on research and text from Matthew Hoffmann, “Global Climate Change,” in Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy , ed. Robert Falkner (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013).
3 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html.
4 Paris Agreement , UN document UNFCCC FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, November 2015. 5 Ian Allison et al., The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate
Science (2009), www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/. 6 National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA, NOAA Data Show 2016 Warmest
Year on Record Globally, www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-data-show-2016-warmest- year-on-record-globally.
7 Hoffmann, Ozone Depletion and Climate Change . 8 Susan Sell, “North–South Environmental Bargaining: Ozone, Climate Change, and Biodiversity,”
Global Governance 2, no. 1 (1996): 93–116; David Victor, Global Warming Gridlock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Scott Barrett, Environment and Statecraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
9 This section draws on ideas and text from Hoffmann, Climate Governance . 10 Hoffmann, Climate Governance ; Harriet Bulkeley, et al., Transnational Climate Change
Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 11 www.theclimategroup.org. 12 www.rggi.org. 13 Michele Betsill and Elisabeth Corell, eds., NGO Diplomacy: The Infl uence of
Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).
14 www.theclimategroup.org/programs/led. 15 Robert Falkner, “The Paris Agreement and the New Logic of International Climate
Politics,” International Affairs 92, no. 5 (2016): 1107–1125. 16 The White House, “U.S.–China Joint Announcement on Climate Change,” 11 November
2014, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-offi ce/2014/11/11/us-china-joint- announcement-climate-change.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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17 Thomas Hale, “ ‘All Hands on Deck’: The Paris Agreement and Nonstate Climate Action,” Global Environmental Politics 16, no. 3 (2016): 12–22.
18 Umair Irfan, “Climate Pledges Will Fall Short of Needed 2 Degree C Limit,” Scientifi c America , 3 November 2016, www.scientifi camerican.com/article/climate-pledges-will-fall- short-of-needed-2-degree-c-limit.
19 Angel Hsu, et al., “Track Pledges of Cities and Companies,” Nature 532, no. 7599 (20176): 303–306.
20 Sander Chan, et al., “Reinvigorating International Climate Policy: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Nonstate Action,” Global Policy 6, no. 4 (2015): 466–473.
Weiss, T. G., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (2018). International organization and global governance. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from monash on 2020-11-03 00:04:34.
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