Part VIII Compliance, Implementation, and Effectiveness, Ch.57 Effectiveness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andresen Steinar
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
International Regimes ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Environmental Regimes ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Important Observation ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
International Environmental Regimes

This chapter introduces some key concepts: what international regimes are; how to measure their effectiveness (the dependent variable); how this can be explained (independent variable); and the severe methodological challenges associated with answering these questions. Two main explanatory perspectives are introduced: the nature of the problem dealt with by the regime and its problem-solving ability. The chapter then surveys some key general findings that have emerged from the study of the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. Perhaps the most important finding is that although most international regimes that have been studied have had some effect on the problems they address, they have very rarely been able—if at all—to solve them fully. Another important observation is the sizeable variation among regimes in their problem-solving ability. The chapter presents empirical examples to illustrate how effectiveness can be measured and explained in practice. Most attention is given to the global climate regime, given its prominence on the international agenda. Viewed from a problem-solving perspective, however, the climate regime emerges as a low-effectiveness regime. This is briefly contrasted with the highly successful international ozone regime, as well as a regime that is very hard to measure in terms of effectiveness due to the deep and divisive conflicts over values, namely, the international whaling regime.

The International Regimes Database: Designing and Using a Sophisticated Tool for Institutional Analysis

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oran R. Young ◽  
Michael Zürn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Rules ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
International Regimes ◽  
Comparable Data ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Environmental Regimes ◽  
Database Designing ◽  
International Environmental Regimes ◽  
Qualitative Analyses ◽  
Current Emphasis

This article presents the International Regimes Database (IRD), an analytical tool designed to (i) move regime analysis from its current emphasis on the use of discrete case studies to the use of a relational database encompassing comparable data on a large number of cases and (ii) facilitate quantitative as well as qualitative analyses of hypotheses dealing with international regimes. The article describes the architecture of this database, introduces some preliminary findings relating to compliance, decision rules, and programmatic activities, and discusses methodological issues pertaining to the use of the database on the part of other scholars. It provides a short and easily accessible introduction to the book-length treatment of the IRD contained in: Helmut Breitmeier, Oran R. Young, and Michael Zürn, Analyzing International Environmental Regimes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

The Science of Wisdom in a Polarized World: Knowns and Unknowns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Grossmann ◽  
Nic M. Weststrate ◽  
Monika Ardelt ◽  
Justin Peter Brienza ◽  
Mengxi Dong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
The Common ◽  
Empirical Approaches ◽  
And Training ◽  
Contextual Differences

Interest in wisdom in the cognitive sciences, psychology, and education has been paralleled by conceptual confusions about its nature and assessment. To clarify these issues and promote consensus in the field, wisdom researchers met in Toronto in July of 2019, resolving disputes through discussion. Guided by a survey of scientists who study wisdom-related constructs, we established a common wisdom model, observing that empirical approaches to wisdom converge on the morally-grounded application of metacognition to reasoning and problem-solving. After outlining the function of relevant metacognitive and moral processes, we critically evaluate existing empirical approaches to measurement and offer recommendations for best practices. In the subsequent sections, we use the common wisdom model to selectively review evidence about the role of individual differences for development and manifestation of wisdom, approaches to wisdom development and training, as well as cultural, subcultural, and social-contextual differences. We conclude by discussing wisdom’s conceptual overlap with a host of other constructs and outline unresolved conceptual and methodological challenges.

Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Bottom-Up

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Stewart ◽  
Michael Oppenheimer ◽  
Bryce Rudyk
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Bottom Up

Constraining Neoproterozoic subtropical low-level clouds to assess the plausibility of near-Snowball Earth states

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Braun ◽  
Aiko Voigt ◽  
Johannes Hörner ◽  
Joaquim G. Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Snowball Earth ◽  
Stable Range ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

<p>Stable waterbelt climate states with close to global ice cover challenge the classical Snowball Earth hypothesis because they provide a robust explanation for the survival of advanced marine species during the Neoproterozoic glaciations (1000 – 541 Million years ago). Whether Earth’s climate stabilizes in a waterbelt state or rushes towards a Snowball state is determined by the magnitude of the ice-albedo feedback in the subtropics, where dark, bare sea ice instead of snow-covered sea ice prevails. For a given bare sea-ice albedo, the subtropical ice-albedo feedback and thus the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is sensitive to the albedo over ice-free ocean, which is largely determined by shortwave cloud-radiative effects (CRE). In the present-day climate, CRE are known to dominate the spread of climate sensitivity across global climate models. We here study the impact of uncertainty associated with CRE on the existence of geologically relevant waterbelt climate regimes using two global climate models and an idealized energy balance model. We find that the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is very sensitive to the abundance of subtropical low-level mixed-phase clouds. If subtropical cloud cover is low, climate sensitivity becomes so high as to inhibit stable waterbelt states.</p><p>The treatment of mixed-phase clouds is highly uncertain in global climate models. Therefore we aim to constrain the uncertainty associated with their CRE by means of a hierarchy of global and regional simulations that span horizontal grid resolutions from 160 km to 300m, and in particular include large eddy simulations of subtropical mixed-phase clouds located over a low-latitude ice edge. In the cold waterbelt climate subtropical CRE arise from convective events caused by strong meridional temperature gradients and stratocumulus decks located in areas of large-scale descending motion. We identify the latter to dominate subtropical CRE and therefore focus our large eddy simulations on subtropical stratocumulus clouds. By conducting simulations with two extreme scenarios for the abundance of atmospheric mineral dust, which serves as ice-nucleating particles and therefore can control mixed-phase cloud physics, we aim to estimate the possible spread of CRE associated with subtropical mixed-phase clouds. From this estimate we may assess whether Neoproterozoic low-level cloud abundance may have been high enough to sustain a stable waterbelt climate regime.</p>

EU Climate and Energy Policy: A Hesitant Supranational Turn?

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Wettestad ◽  
Per Ove Eikeland ◽  
Måns Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Vertical Integration ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Emissions Trading ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Energy Market ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Regional Energy ◽  
Climate And Energy Policy

This article examines the recent changes of three central EU climate and energy policies: the revised Emissions Trading Directive (ETS); the Renewables Directive (RES); and internal energy market (IEM) policy. An increasing transference of competence to EU level institutions, and hence “vertical integration,” has taken place, most clearly in the case of the ETS. The main reasons for the differing increase in vertical integration are, first, that more member states were dissatisfied with the pre-existing system in the case of the ETS than in the two other cases. Second, the European Commission and Parliament were comparatively more united in pushing for changes in the case of the ETS. And, third, although RES and IEM policies were influenced by regional energy security concerns, they were less structurally linked to and influenced by the global climate regime than the ETS.

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