scholarly journals THE U.S INACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE: REALISM AND ITS INTERPRETATIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Anu Unny
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
International Climate ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Expected Outcomes

President Donal Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and stated that the withdrawal was mainly to protect its national interests. The U.S. economic ambitions, the China factor and the intricacies of U.S domestic politics had played a major role in deciding the U.S. position on the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. There are some who are sceptical on whether the Paris Agreement would successfully achieve its expected outcomes in the absence of U.S. participation. The objective of this study is to examine the factors that have discouraged the U.S. to partake in the international climate change agreements. An analytical framework was employed for this study that examines the insights and conceptions from the textual data, based on realism. The study concludes that the U.S. outlook on climate change had more or less adhered to the realist stance, even though realism is considered a theoretical approach with significant drawbacks, particularly when dealing with issues of climate change. Nonetheless, this study also asserts that there is a need for deeper engagement between the U.S. and the participants of the Paris Agreement to effectively tackle the issues of climate change at this moment.

scholarly journals Preparing the Playing Field. Climate Club Governance of the G20, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the Under2 Coalition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Unger ◽  
Sonja Thielges
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
International Climate

Abstract International climate policy is increasingly shaped by alternative forms of governance. Coalitions of national, subnational and/or non-state actors have the potential to address the global challenge of climate change beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. While initially such ‘clubs’ spurred hope that they could be an option to achieve climate action more effectively than the UNFCCC, more recently their role has been seen as preparing and orchestrating climate policy. In spite of its conceptual proliferation, literature on climate clubs stops short in examining practical evidence and conducting analyses beyond categorization and labelling of climate clubs. This article aims at contributing to filling this gap with a comparative perspective on three specific governance initiatives that act on different governance levels: The G20, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the Under2 Coalition. What contribution do these club-like initiatives make to global climate governance and how does it relate to existing structures such as the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC process?Our paper applies central aspects of clubs research, namely membership, public goods, and the provision of additional benefits as an analytical framework to examine the three cases. We find that these club initiatives, though highly diverse in their origin and membership, make a similar contribution to international climate governance. Their largest contribution lies in preparing emissions reductions through raising awareness, orchestrating different actors and actions, and establishing a large cooperation network. They complement the UNFCCC and especially the Paris Agreement.

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 Shifting Traction: Differential Treatment and Substantive and Procedural Regard in the International Climate Change Regime

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Huggins ◽  
Md Saiful Karim
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Common But Differentiated Responsibilities ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Treaty Implementation ◽  
Robust Framework ◽  
International Climate Change

AbstractThe Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signifies a shift in how the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) manifests in the international climate change regime. Unlike the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement does not enshrine differentiated substantive mitigation obligations for developed and developing countries. However, an increasingly proceduralized variant of the CBDR principle, which facilitates regard for the interests of developing countries with respect to treaty implementation yet does not guarantee favourable substantive outcomes for these states, is evident in the emerging regime. The experience of the International Maritime Organization’s climate change regime provides a cautionary tale with respect to procedurally oriented differentiation that is not reinforced by effective processes to ensure that developed states honour their finance and technology transfer commitments. Accordingly, this article posits that strong accountability mechanisms are required to transform opportunities for procedural differentiation in the Paris Agreement into a robust framework for procedural regard for the interests of developing states.

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.

scholarly journals The Norway–Colombia Agreement to Protect Rainforest and Reduce Global Warming: Success or Failure?

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Sollund ◽  
Angela M Maldonado ◽  
Claudia Brieva Rico
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Oil Extraction ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
The South ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
The North ◽  
International Climate ◽  
And Shifts

The Norwegian government has made an agreement with Juan Manuel Santos, former Colombian president, to give Colombia US$48 million yearly to reduce deforestation. This forms part of a greater effort by Norway to aid countries in the South to halt climate change, through the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative, instituted after the Paris Agreement in 2015. The ways efforts to reduce deforestation have been implemented have been criticised. While Norway, through this investment, appears to be a climate-concerned country, it continues with oil extraction activities. Thus, Norway exhibits double standards and shifts the problem of climate change to the countries in the South. This article examines the successes and failures of the Norwegian rainforest protection efforts in the case of Colombia, assessing the governance of the deforestation policies from the perspective of green Southern criminology and incorporating a critique of the neo-colonialist means of environmental protection established by the North.

scholarly journals Paris: Beyond the Climate Dead End through Pledge and Review?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert O. Keohane ◽  
Michael Oppenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
Newly Industrializing Countries ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement

The Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015 marks a decisive break from the unsuccessful Kyoto regime. Instead of targets and timetables, it established a Pledge and Review system, under which states will offer Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to reducing emissions that cause climate change. But this successful negotiation outcome was achieved at the price of vagueness of obligations and substantial discretion for governments. Many governments will be tempted to use the vagueness of the Paris Agreement, and the discretion that it permits, to limit the scope or intensity of their proposed actions. Whether Pledge and Review under the Paris Agreement will lead to effective action against climate change will therefore depend on the inclination both of OECD countries and newly industrializing countries to take costly actions, which for the OECD countries will include financial transfers to their poorer partners. Domestic politics will be crucial in determining the attitudes of both sets of countries to pay such costs. The actual impact of the Paris Agreement will depend on whether it can be used by domestic groups favoring climate action as a point of leverage in domestic politics—that is, in a “two-level game” simultaneously involving both international and domestic politics.

scholarly journals The Paris Agreement and the Prospects for Socialization into the Climate Norm: Lessons from the U.S. and China

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-97
Author(s):  
Jinhyun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
The Us ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The U.S

The Paris Agreement made a breakthrough amid the deadlock in climate negotiations, yet concerns are raised regarding how much impact the new voluntary climate regime can make. This paper investigates the socialization mechanism that the Paris Agreement sets up and explores the prospects of “institutional transformation” for it to make a dent. It examines the factors that can facilitate voluntary climate action by using the cases of the most recalcitrant emitters, the United States and China. It argues that the US and China cases suggest that the socialization from the bottom-up by domestic actors may be one of the critical elements that determine states’ position on climate change.

scholarly journals The U.S. Withdrawal From the Paris Agreement: Challenges and Opportunities for China

2018 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 281-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyuan Yu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
The U.S

President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is both a major reversal of the Obama administration’s climate policy and a huge blow to global climate governance. The comprehensive regression of President Trump’s climate policy manifests mainly in three aspects: abolition of the clean energy plan, exit from the Paris Agreement, and a return to traditional energy policies, which reflect the cyclical and volatile nature of the U.S. climate policy. With its lasting negative impact, the China-U.S. cooperative leadership in global climate governance is stranded. In this light, China should strive for a bigger role in leading global efforts to address climate change and enhance cooperation through various mechanisms. Under the current U.S. policy environment, China can still strengthen cooperation with the United States in such fields as traditional energy, infrastructure investment, global energy market, and green finance.

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