The History Of Global Climate Governance

What has happened globally on the climate change issue? How have countries' positions differed over time, and why? How are problems and politics developing on an increasingly globalised planet, and can we find a solution? This book explores these questions and more, explaining the key underlying issues of the conflicts between international blocs. The negotiation history is systematically presented in five phases, demonstrating the evolution of decision-making. The book discusses the coalitions, actors and potential role of the judiciary, as well as human rights issues in addressing the climate change problem. It argues for a methodical solution through global law and constitutionalism, which could provide the quantum jump needed in addressing the problem of climate governance. This fascinating and accessible account will be a key resource for policymakers and NGOs, and also for researchers and graduate students in climate policy, geopolitics, climate change, environmental policy and law, and international relations.

Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges for human society in the twenty-first century, yet there is a major disconnect between our actions to deal with it and the gravity of the threat it implies. In a world where the fate of countries is increasingly intertwined, how should we think about, and accordingly, how should we manage, the types of risk posed by anthropogenic climate change? The problem is multi-faceted, and involves not only technical and policy specific approaches, but also questions of social justice and sustainability. In this volume the editors have assembled a unique range of contributors who together examine the intersection between the science, politics, economics and ethics of climate change. The book includes perspectives from some of the world's foremost commentators in their fields, ranging from leading scientists to political theorists, to high profile policymakers and practitioners. They offer a critical new approach to thinking about climate change, and help express a common desire for a more equitable society and a more sustainable way of life.

This fully revised and expanded new edition provides a short and accessible introduction to how climate change is governed by an increasingly diverse range of actors, from civil society and business actors to multilateral development banks, donors, and cities. The issue of global climate change has risen to the top of the international political agenda. Despite ongoing contestation about the science informing policy, the economic costs of action and the allocation of responsibility for addressing the issue within and between nations, it is clear that climate change will continue to be one of the most pressing and challenging issues facing humanity for many years to come. The book: Evaluates the role of states and non-state actors in governing climate change at multiple levels of political organization: local, national, and global Provides a discussion of theoretical debates on climate change governance, moving beyond analytical approaches focused solely on nation-states and international negotiations Examines a range of key topical issues in the politics of climate change Includes multiple examples from both the north and the global south Providing an inter-disciplinary perspective drawing on geography, politics, international relations, and development studies, this book is essential reading for all those concerned not only with the climate governance but with the future of the environment in general.

Climate change is one of the most daunting global policy challenges facing the international community in the 21st century. This Element takes stock of the current state of the global climate change regime, illuminating scope for policymaking and mobilizing collective action through networked governance at all scales, from the sub-national to the highest global level of political assembly. It provides an unusually comprehensive snapshot of policymaking within the regime created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), bolstered by the 2015 Paris Agreement, as well as novel insight into how other formal and informal intergovernmental organizations relate to this regime, including a sophisticated EU policymaking and delivery apparatus, already dedicated to tackling climate change at the regional level. It further locates a highly diverse and numerous non-state actor constituency, from market actors to NGOs to city governors, all of whom have a crucial role to play.

Climate change control has risen to the top of the international agenda. Failed efforts, centred in the United Nations, to allocate responsibility have resulted in a challenge now reaching crisis stage. John J. Kirton and Ella Kokotsis analyse the generation and effectiveness of four decades of intergovernmental regimes for controlling global climate change. Informed by international relations theories and critical of the prevailing UN approach, Kirton and Kokotsis trace the global governance of climate change from its 1970s origins to the present and demonstrate the effectiveness of the plurilateral summit alternative grounded in the G7/8 and the G20. Topics covered include: - G7/8 and UN competition and convergence on governing climate change - Kyoto obligations and the post-Kyoto regime - The role of the G7/8 and G20 in generating a regime beyond Kyoto - Projections of and prescriptions for an effective global climate change control regime for the twenty-first century. This topical book synthesizes a rich array of empirical data, including new interview and documentary material about G7/8 and G20 governance of climate change, and makes a valuable contribution to understanding the dynamics of governing climate change. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, and policy makers interested in the dynamics behind governance processes within the intergovernmental realm.

Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics in the 21st century. This work seeks to fuse a global governance perspective together with different interpretive approaches, offering a novel way of looking at international climate politics. Equipped with a common interpretive tool-kit, the authors examine different issue-areas and excavate the contours of an overall pattern – the depoliticisation of climate governance. It is this concept which represents the overarching theme connecting the different contributions, addressing issues such as how the securitization of climate change conceals its socio-economic roots; how highly political decisions and value-judgements are couched in the terms of science; how the reframing of climate change as a matter of economic calculation and investment narrows the scope of political action; and how the prevailing concentration on technological solutions to climate change turns it into a mere administrative issue to be tackled by experts. Highlighting the depoliticisation of highly political issues provides a means to bring the political back into one of the most important issue areas of 21st century world politics. The editors have assembled a series of 14 interpretive inquiries into discourses of global climate governance which aim to flesh out an interpretive methodology, demonstrating the value it offers to those seeking to achieve a better understanding of global climate governance. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, political theory and climate change.

This book is based on the assumption that great powers determine global politics and, in this instance, environmental politics. It addresses the approaches of both established and rising powers and their implications for the advancement of international climate negotiations. The new introduction looks at the key developments in this realm since 2013, examining the bilateral deals between China and the United States and the results of the UNFCCC’s 21st Convention of the Parties (COP) convening at Paris in 2015. Two key features link the contributions of this volume: their underlying assumption that major powers are the central actors in determining global environmental politics; and their assessment of, and implications of, the approaches both of rising and established major powers for global climate norms. One key argument of this volume is that today’s geopolitics are about who gets how much in the fiercely competitive race over the available ‘carbon space’. The book concludes that prudently balancing power in the new century requires a fair sharing of burden among the existing and emerging powers. In light of such burden-sharing, pluralistic domestic politics as well as diverging normative beliefs and worldviews require consideration of different conditions, even if historical legacies of the industrialised world have increasingly been put into question as a political argument by the United States. This book is based on a special issue of the journal Climate Policy.

This volume, the second in a series of three, examines the institutional architecture underpinning the global climate integrity system. This system comprises an inter-related set of institutions, governance arrangements, regulations, norms and practices that aim to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Arguing that governance is a neutral term to describe the structures and processes that coordinate climate action, the book presents a continuum of governance values from ‘thick’ to ‘thin’ to determine the regime’s legitimacy and integrity. The collection contains four parts with part one exploring the links between governance and integrity, part two containing chapters which evaluate climate governance arrangements, part three exploring avenues for improving climate governance and part four reflecting on the road to the UNFCCC's Paris Agreement. The book provides new insights into understanding how systemic institutional and governance failures have occurred, how they could occur again in the same or different form and how these failures impact on the integrity of the UNFCCC. This work extends contemporary governance scholarship to explore the extent to which selected institutional case studies, thematic areas and policy approaches contribute to the overall integrity of the regime.