scholarly journals The construction of a growth-oriented global climate agenda: a critical historical analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cati Torres ◽  
Joan Moranta ◽  
Ivan Murray
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Green Growth ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Socioeconomic Metabolism

By the end of 2019, more than 11,000 world scientists declared Planet Earth is facing a climate emergency, which signals the failure of the global climate agenda (GCA). Since it took off thirty years ago, emissions have continued to increase at the planetary level. We add to the literature focusing on the economic and political dimensions shaping the GCA. In particular, we examine its economic growth roots under the umbrella of sustainable development (SD) or green growth to shed some light on whether the rules driving the world economy are shaping it. Such rules are built on the growth ideology fuelling the current extractivist socioeconomic metabolism, which in turn lies behind the socioecological crisis. We review the main international climate-focused events and document a shift in the guiding principles of climate politics from the 1980s onwards under which growth is no longer viewed as a driver of climate change (CC) but as its solution. We argue that the strategy to promote growth-based SD represents the main cause of policy failure. Indeed, the result is a policy that is highly reliant on technological solutions and market-based instruments and leads to the belief that green growth is both possible and the solution to CC. Such a belief restricts the debate to the economy’s ‘decarbonisation’ and CC adaptation and overlooks other important socio-political aspects involve in climate action.

scholarly journals How news media (de-)legitimize national and international climate politics – A content analysis of newspaper coverage in five countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (6-8) ◽  
pp. 518-540
Author(s):  
Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw ◽  
Senja Post ◽  
Mike S Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate Change ◽  
News Media ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
National Level ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Climate Change Policies ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
International Climate

Implementing global climate change policies on the national and sub-national level requires the support of many societal actors. This support depends on the perceived legitimacy of climate policies, which can be sustained by legitimation debates in domestic news media. This article analyses legitimation statements on climate politics in newspapers of five countries for three Conferences of the Parties in 2004, 2009 and 2014 ( n = 369 legitimation statements). According to our data, it is mainly the legitimacy of international climate policies (instead of national ones) which is evaluated in national fora, and it is usually portrayed negatively. However, there is a noticeable shift in the arguments used over our 10-year period of analysis, moving from efficiency as the dominating evaluation criterion to questions of fairness in the distribution of costs and gains.

Filling in for Governments? The Role of the Private Actors in the International Climate Regime

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
State Actor ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Private Actors

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change abandons the Kyoto Protocol’s paradigm of binding emissions targets and relies instead on countries’ voluntary contributions. However, the Paris Agreement encourages not only governments but also sub-national governments, corporations and civil society to contribute to reaching ambitious climate goals. In a transition from the regulated architecture of the Kyoto Protocol to the open system of the Paris Agreement, the Agreement seeks to integrate non-state actors into the treaty-based climate regime. In 2014 the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Peru and France created the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (and launched the Global Climate Action portal). In December 2019, this portal recorded more than twenty thousand climate-commitments of private and public non-state entities, making the non-state venues of international climate meetings decisively more exciting than the formal negotiation space. This level engagement and governments’ response to it raises a flurry of questions in relation to the evolving nature of the climate regime and climate change governance, including the role of private actors as standard setters and the lack of accountability mechanisms for non-state actions. This paper takes these developments as occasion to discuss the changing role of private actors in the climate regime.

The climate change problem: is an LNG sectoral agreement part of the solution?

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
David Hodgkinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Change Problem

Recent reports and papers reveal the scope of the global climate change problem. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics (2012) concludes the sum total of existing policies, in place or pledged, will very likely lead to warming in excess of 2°C. Additionally, a report from Vieweg et al (2012) concludes limiting global warming to below 2°C remains feasible if there is sufficient political ambition and action to introduce the required measures and policy changes now. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol have failed to address this climate change problem; other ways to address the problem should be considered. One alternative way forward would be to break the climate change problem into different pieces, to contemplate a more decentralised arrangement in which particular issues are discussed and negotiated—a regime complex, for example. Indeed, the UNFCCC regime may actually constrain agreement on addressing the climate change problem, and a shift away from a top-down, Kyoto-style architecture for international climate action—to a more bottom-up approach, with smaller agreements between particular groups of states and sectors—could result. An international LNG sectoral agreement could form part of such an approach, or as a stand-alone agreement, because natural gas offers the most immediate method of transitioning to a lower-emissions global economy. After examining the UNFCC/Kyoto regime and other approaches to, and frameworks for, addressing the climate change problem, this peer-reviewed paper outlines the nature of sectoral agreements and their advantages, together with the rationale for, and benefits of, a sectoral agreement for the LNG industry.

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.

Multi-Scalar Practices of the Korean State in Global Climate Politics: The Case of the Global Green Growth Institute

Antipode ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 657-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Tae Hwang ◽  
Sang-Hun Lee ◽  
Detlef Müller-Mahn
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Green Growth ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Korean State

Are Cities Taking Center-Stage? The Emerging Role of Urban Communities as “Normative Global Climate Actors”

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
Christine Bakker
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
International Climate ◽  
The One ◽  
Global Emissions ◽  
Domestic Level

Cities around the world are playing an increasingly active role in global climate governance. Considering their share in global emissions on the one hand, and the direct threats they face from climate-related disasters on the other, urban communities are at the forefront of mitigation and adaptation actions. While cities generally implement such actions as part of their State’s international climate commitments, they sometimes go beyond, or even against the nationally adopted policy stance. This article explores the evolving normative role of cities in relation to climate change, considering how they can contribute, both to the development of new rules of international law, and to the implementation of existing norms for climate action at the domestic level. Based on an analysis of current developments and concrete examples, the article reflects on the potentialities and constraints of cities as “normative global climate actors”.

scholarly journals Global Climate Policy and Collective Action: A Comment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Kennard ◽  
Keith Schnakenberg
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Action Model ◽  
International Climate

In a recent issue of Global Environmental Politics, Aklin and Mildenberger (2020) argue against the prevailing characterization of climate change cooperation as a problem of free riding or collective action. The authors argue that models of collective action imply (1) policy reciprocity and (2) inaction in the absence of formal agreements to limit free riding. They argue that neither empirical implication is supported by an review of states' climate policy to date. In this comment we note that standard collective action models imply neither of the above hypotheses. As a result the empirical tests advanced in the original article are uninformative as to the explanatory power of the collective action model for international climate politics.

scholarly journals Big data for climate action or climate action for big data?

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172098203
Author(s):  
Maria I Espinoza ◽  
Melissa Aronczyk
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
User Data ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Depth Interviews

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability.

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