Climate Change Governance, International Relations, and Politics: A Transnational Law Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 930-952
Author(s):  
Stephen Minas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Transnational Law ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Climate Change Governance

This chapter applies a transnational law perspective to climate change governance. Climate change is increasing the interdependence of different states and economic activities, as the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions from somewhere are felt everywhere. This has prompted an international climate politics in which diverse actors grapple with growing interdependencies. The transnational nature of the climate crisis is however but partially reflected in international climate law. The chapter argues that the Paris Agreement has the potential, as a central node in a still-heterarchical climate governance, to interlink instruments and mechanisms from different levels of law and from the public and private sectors. The chapter also draws attention to interactions with often-overlooked sites of climate governance, including transnational commercial law, private international law, and contractual dispute resolution. It concludes with suggestions for further work in the domains of scholarship and practice.

The Paris Agreement and the Future of the Climate Regime

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annalisa Savaresi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Global Mean Temperature ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Climate ◽  
The One ◽  
Global Mean ◽  
Important Objective ◽  
Climate Change Governance

This chapter discusses how international law has responded to climate change, focusing on the challenges that have faced implementation of existing climate treaties, and on the suitability of the Paris Agreement to address these. Expectations of this new treaty could scarcely be greater: the Paris Agreement is meant to provide a framework to improve international cooperation on climate change, and to keep the world within the global mean temperature-change goal identified by scientists as safe. Yet, whether and how this important objective will be reached largely depends, on the one hand, on the supporting political will and, on the other, on the redesign of the international architecture for climate governance. This chapter specifically reflects on international law-making and on the approach to climate change governance embedded in the Paris Agreement, drawing inferences from the past, to make predictions on what the future may hold for international climate change law.

scholarly journals Climate change governance in the anthropocene: emergence of polycentrism in Chile

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Arriagada ◽  
Paulina Aldunce ◽  
Gustavo Blanco ◽  
Cecilia Ibarra ◽  
Pilar Moraga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Climate Change Responses ◽  
New Institutions

Multilateral efforts are essential to an effective response to climate change, but individual nations define climate action policy by translating local and global objectives into adaptation and mitigation actions. We propose a conceptual framework to explore opportunities for polycentric climate governance, understanding polycentricity as a property that encompasses the potential for coordinating multiple centers of semiautonomous decision-making. We assert that polycentrism engages a diverse array of public and private actors for a more effective approach to reducing the threat of climate change. In this way, polycentrism may provide an appropriate strategy for addressing the many challenges of climate governance in the Anthropocene. We review two Chilean case studies: Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution on Climate Change and the Chilean National Climate Change Action Plan. Our examination demonstrates that Chile has included a diversity of actors and directed significant financial resources to both processes. The central government coordinated both of these processes, showing the key role of interventions at higher jurisdictional levels in orienting institutional change to improve strategic planning and better address climate change. Both processes also provide some evidence of knowledge co-production, while at the same time remaining primarily driven by state agencies and directed by technical experts. Efforts to overcome governance weaknesses should focus on further strengthening existing practices for climate change responses, establishing new institutions, and promoting decision-making that incorporates diverse social actors and multiple levels of governance. In particular, stronger inclusion of local level actors provides an opportunity to enhance polycentric modes of governance and improve climate change responses. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity requires establishing durable communication channels between different levels of governance.

India and international norms of climate governance: a constructivist analysis of normative congruence building

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 997-1019 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAYLEY STEVENSON
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Diffusion Process ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
Important Player ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Climate Change Politics ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article explores the process by which norms of international climate governance have diffused and evolved over time. The author develops a constructivist explanation for observed normative shifts in international climate governance. This explanation highlights the importance of building and maintaining congruence between domestic conditions and international norms. Due to the inherently fluid nature of both domestic conditions and international norms, it is argued that normative congruence building should be understood as an integral and iterative aspect of the norm diffusion process. This argument is substantiated through an analysis of the norm diffusion process in the context of India: a state commonly identified as an important player in international climate change politics, but one that has received surprisingly little scholarly attention in this area.

PRIVATE COMMERCIAL LAW CONVENTIONS AND PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE RADICAL APPROACH OF THE CAPE TOWN CONVENTION 2001 AND ITS PROTOCOLS

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Goode
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Conflict Of Laws ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Radical Approach

It is a remarkable circumstance that with a few honourable exceptions all writers on international law in general and treaty law in particular focus exclusively on public law treaties. Private law conventions, including those involving commercial law and the conflict of laws, simply do not come into consideration. Yet such conventions, like public law conventions, are treaties between States and are governed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and many of them are of great significance. Their distinguishing feature is, of course, that while only States are parties, private law conventions deal primarily, and often exclusively, with the rights and obligations of non-State parties. So while the treaty is international it does not for the most part commit a Contracting State to any obligation other than that of implementing the treaty in domestic law by whatever method that State's law provides, if it has not already done so prior to ratification.

scholarly journals Adapting of Economic Development to Climate Change

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Sandra Zajmi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Public And Private Sector ◽  
Life On Earth

Climate change is the most complex challenge that humankind has had to face in recent times. With each successive generation, redressing the imbalance will be more difficult. Diverse and complex requirements of maintaining life on Earth, collectively called the environment, can be caused both by natural, geophysical factors, and anthropogenic or social factors. There is a lot of evidence that the economic activity of mankind is a major anthropogenic factor in current turmoil of the environment on Earth. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the anthropogenic impacts on the environment are becoming increasingly important, and undoubtedly dominate. Of all forms of economic activity the greatest impact have the activities related to energy production and use in various sectors. The link between environmental conditions and economic activities has become the subject of separate scientific disciplines that are dynamically developing in the second half of the twentieth century.Economic growth of the economies, especially of developed countries, in seventies and eighties of the twentieth century, drew attention to the growing international economic, political and ecological interdependence, particulary in terms of its ecological outcome. The future economic growth of all countries on the planet thus becoming a global problem.In this context, more attention must be paid to the relationship between population, resources, and environmental outcomes on one side, and long-term sustainable economic development on the other side. In the recent time there have been noticeable the increasing number of problems that are becoming global: economic, social and energy problems, and contain ecological basis. Human decisions and acivities are dependent on ethics and view of the world, and this view depends on the culture, tradition, achieved level of development and so on.Therefore, it is necessary to adjust economic development to climate change, where a great importance plays a cooperation between the public and private sector. 

International Politics of Climate Change: A Study of Issues and Challenges

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taku Maji ◽  
Rashida Ather
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Climate Change Politics ◽  
International Climate Change

The problem of Climate Change has become an enormous political and policy issue, at the same time it is also a conceptual and deliberative challenge. Global temperature is increasing day by day because of human caused greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, and this warming is affecting both nature and human wellbeing. There is an urgent need to address the problem of climate change with all its related issues. While international environmental law has achieved notable successes and International legal programs to deal with climate change are already well underway. Indian climate politics continues to be focused on climate change as a foreign policy concern, and centred on climate negotiations; in a manner that is consistent with India’s development needs and foreign policy concerns. The present paper explores the international climate change politics; negotiation process and domestic policy. It also investigates the issues of fairness and equity in the international climate change law and policy.

A Regime Paralyzed: An Exploration of Current Climate Politics and the Urgent Need for Reform

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenna Owen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
International System ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Reduce Emissions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Climate Crisis

The science on climate change is in: legitimate scientists have been unable to provide serious scientific evidence that casts doubt on the fact that anthropogenic, that is, human-caused climate change is occurring. Less clear are the speed of climate change and the extent of damages to environmental and human health if emissions from fossil fuels continue unabated. The most recent international conference on the environment, namely the 2013 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or Conference of the Parties (COP) 19, was characterized by bitter intergovernmental negotiations and non-committal by major emitters to watered-down agreements. COP 19 exemplifies the inadequacies inherent in the current international system, which render it incapable of effectively addressing climate change; in other words, the international community remains unable to come to an agreement or agreements that mitigate the effects of climate change now, while establishing adaptation mechanisms for the future as the effects of climate change become increasingly pronounced. The efficacy of the current regime is impeded not only by its singular, non-binding approach to emissions reduction, but also by the ability of a small number of major emitters’ ability to hinder agreements. In order to make rising to the challenge of the global climate crisis politically feasible, the international climate regime must abandon the current emissions cap approach and adopt an incremental approach to negotiations, crafting sector-specific agreements that aim to gradually reduce emissions in a viable and equitable manner.

Assessing Transnational Climate Governance

2019 ◽  
pp. 161-201
Author(s):  
Alix Dietzel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Transnational Actors ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Climate Change Governance ◽  
Made In ◽  
Transnational Climate Governance

Chapter Six assesses to what extent transnational actors enable the three demands of climate justice set out in Chapter Three. The assessment makes use of both existing climate change governance research and ten examples of transnational climate change governance initiatives, providing an insight into how transnational climate change governance has developed and where it stands today. Chapter Six focuses on one demand of climate justice at a time, assessing both what has been promised by transnational actors and what has been achieved so far. The chapter puts forward that although there is room for cautious optimism, overall transnational actors fail to fully enable any of the three demands of justice. The final part of Chapter Six summarises the findings made in Part II and considers what role both multilateral and transnational actors might play in the post-Paris Agreement regime. This is expanded on in the Conclusion of the book.

scholarly journals Order out of Chaos: Public and Private Rules for Managing Carbon

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica F. Green
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Carbon Accounting ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Private Authority ◽  
Regime Complex ◽  
Private Standards

To date, much of the work on “regime complexes”—loosely connected nonhierarchical institutions—has excluded an important part of the institutional picture: the role of private authority. This paper seeks to remedy this shortcoming by examining privately created standards within the regime complex for climate change and their relationship to public authority. Public rules in the Kyoto Protocol serve as a “coral reef,” attracting private rulemakers whose governance activities come to form part of the regime complex. Using original data, I conduct a network analysis of public and private standards for carbon management. Surprisingly, I find evidence of policy convergence—both around public rules and a subset of privately created rules: there is an emerging order in the complex institutional landscape that governs climate change. The observed convergence arises from private standards' concerns about demonstrating credibility and providing benefits for users. These findings are important for scholars of institutional complexity and climate politics: public rules on carbon accounting have the potential to outlast their current incarnation in the Kyoto Protocol, as perpetuated through private authority.

scholarly journals Youth Mobilization to Stop Global Climate Change: Narratives and Impact

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heejin Han ◽  
Sang Wuk Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Combat Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Governance

Galvanized by Greta Thunberg’s idea for Friday school strikes, “climate strikes” emerged in 2018 and 2019 as a form of youth social movement demanding far-reaching action on climate change. Youths have taken various actions to combat climate change, but academics have not paid sufficient attention to youth climate mobilization. This study thus examines the questions of what has motivated youth to mobilize and how they have shaped global climate politics and governance. This study focuses particularly on the narrative of youth activists to address their understanding of climate change and their ideas regarding how to respond to it. Youth collective action has succeeded in problematizing global climate inaction and inertia and in framing climate change from a justice perspective, but activists have faced limitations in converting their moral legitimacy into the power required for sweeping changes. Overall, this study demonstrates the emergence of young people as agents of change in the global climate change arena and the urgency of engaging them in climate change governance and policymaking.

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