Climate governance
Climate governance is the diplomacy, mechanisms and response measures "aimed at steering social systems towards preventing, mitigating or adapting to the risks posed by climate change". A definitive interpretation is complicated by the wide range of political and social science traditions that are engaged in conceiving and analysing climate governance at different levels and across different arenas. In academia, climate governance has become the concern of geographers, anthropologists, economists and business studies scholars.
Climate governance – that is, effective management of the global climate system – is thus of vital importance. However, building effective collective mechanisms to govern impacts on the climate system at the planetary level presents particular challenges, e.g. the complexity of the relevant science and the progressive refinement of scientific knowledge about our global climate and planetary systems, and the challenge of communicating this knowledge to the general public and to policy makers. There is also the urgency of addressing this issue; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has underlined that the international community has a narrow window of opportunity to act to keep global temperature rise at safe levels. Modern international climate governance is organized around three pillars: mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation. Under each pillar are many issues and policies, illustrating the many ways climate change affects society.
In the first decade of the 21st century, a paradox had arisen between rising awareness about the causes and consequences of climate change and an increasing concern that the issues that surround it represent an intractable problem. Initially, climate change was approached as a global issue, and climate governance sought to address it on the international stage. This took the form of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, beginning with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. With the exception of the Kyoto Protocol, international agreements between nations had been largely ineffective in achieving legally binding emissions cuts. With the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012, between 2013 and 2015 there was no legally binding global climate regime. This inertia on the international political stage contributed to alternative political narratives that called for more flexible, cost effective and participatory approaches to addressing the multifarious problems of climate change. These narratives relate to the increasing diversity of methods that are being developed and deployed across the field of climate governance.
In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed, which is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to "well below 2", and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and to achieve this goal, countries agree to peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate-neutral world by mid-century. It commits all nations of the world to achieving a "balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century." The Paris Agreement marked a new era for global energy and climate policies. Under its framework, each country submits its own nationally determined contribution based on its particular situation. Though the Paris Agreement is legally binding, as an extension to the UNFCCC, the NDCs are not legally binding. This was because a legally binding treaty would have required ratification by the United States Senate, which was not supportive.
Background
The development of climate governance can be traced firstly to climate diplomacy between inter-state actors and secondly to the development of transnational networks and non-state actors. The timeline above highlights key points throughout this process. The point of creation is difficult to determine exactly, however a definitive point in its history is the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio. This has been termed "the first major milestone in the history of climate diplomacy". The conference addressed nations from across the globe and sought to emulate the diplomatic success of the Montreal Protocol in phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals.As climate governance has continued to develop on the international stage, a string of transnational public and public-private actor networks have sought to implement its aims within their own arena, for example the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the , and the Cities for Climate Protection Programme. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 was a 'trigger' for this process. Existing regional and local networks adopted its emissions reduction targets and began to consider how they could be achieved at a local level. An example is ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability that adopted the convention's Framework Convention on Climate Change as part of its commitment to link local action to internationally agreed-upon goals. Under the umbrella of internationally agreed climate targets, innovative climate governance methods have also developed that seek to reduce emissions using market based mechanisms, for example the 'cap and trade' mechanism. Other transnational networks include the Powering Past Coal Alliance, aimed at phasing out the use of coal for electricity, and the Under2 Coalition, aimed at fostering action to reduce emissions at the subnational level.
Thus, while the interstate process of treaty making continues to play a key part in mitigating anthropogenic climate change, it now exists as part of a wider tapestry of private and public climate governance initiatives that operate at multiple scales.
North–South divide
The North–South divide is a socioeconomic and political division. Applied to climate governance, the divide separates 'developed' northern countries that have historically emitted disproportionately high emissions from 'undeveloped' southern countries that have emitted considerably less emissions. This historic divide is the reason for the concept of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities in the UNFCCC. The divide has also been used to highlight differences in vulnerability to climate change. These divides have fed into all issues of international climate governance, bringing with them questions of social justice and equity that remain current today. A criticism of the divide is that it simplifies an increasingly complex landscape. In recent years, international trade, free capital flows and the development of some southern nations have redefined global socio-economic and political relations.Actors
Climate governance has been identified as multi-scale, multi-actor and deeply embedded in our social and physical infrastructure:- Multiple scale: Climate governance takes place and has policies enacted across diverse levels and spaces at each scale of governance. This includes supranational, national, regional and local scales. The interaction between these arenas raises important questions about where the power and authority for governing climate change lie. Traditional interpretations of "top down" authority do not necessarily apply in the realm of climate governance which exhibits a far more complex landscape. Local initiatives can be networked horizontally, for example the C40, while some national interests feed back into international agreements.
- Multi actor: The fragmented and blurred roles of state and non-state actors raises ambiguities concerning their relative roles in the realm of climate governance. Non-state actors play critical roles in shaping the positions adopted by national governments in relation to international climate agreements, for example the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. These actors include scientific, business, lobbyists and community actors. Until the late 1990s, their influence was considered to be "latent", existing outside common governance arenas. More recently, that role has been reassessed as private actors offer new sites and mechanisms that seek to address climate change.
- Embedded: The involvement of non-state actors in climate governance is partly a reflection upon the deeply embedded social and economic nature of many of the processes that lead to Greenhouse Gas emissions. The difficulties in addressing climate change are compounded by the complex range of processes that involve GHG emissions across the planet at all scales. Furthermore, decisions reached in other domains, including trade, energy security and employment inevitably impact on the efforts of climate governance to address anthropogenic climate change.
Courts
For example, courts contribute to climate governance by empowering interested and affected stakeholders and actors; imposing climate change considerations on political agendas; persuading society of the importance of climate action; interpreting and enforcing the growing body of domestic, regional and international climate laws; adjudicating disputes related to climate-induced injustices. Courts thus enable a broad range of stakeholders to use a state's adjudicatory apparatus to resolve climate-related conflicts.
Community engagement
plays an important role in the implementation of climate governance policy. There are two main reasons for this. First, where climate governance necessitates change at a behavioural level, there is a need to educate the public in order to achieve this. Where successful, this offers the possibility that communities can become self governing, for example choosing to drive less.Second, effective community engagement ensures that climate governance policies are relevant to the communities in which they are intended to be applied. This necessitates a process of "bottom up learning", as ideas are passed up from a local to national level. This approach has been identified as the normative framework of "learning organisations" and popular within environmental organisations that seek to encourage grassroots development.