Existential politics: why global climate institutions are failing and how to fix them

Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an alternative theoretical framework for reconstructing global climate policy in accordance with the polycentric approach to governance pioneered in the early 1960s by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and RobertWarren. Instead of a thoroughly top-down global regime, in which lower levels of government simply carry out the mandates of international negotiators, a polycentric approach provides for greater experimentation, learning, and cross-influence among different levels and units of government, which are both independent and interdependent. After exploring several of the design flaws of the existing set of global institutions and organizations for greenhouse gas mitigation, the paper explores how those global institutions and organizations might be improved by learning from various innovative policies instituted by local, state, and regional governments. The paper argues that any successful governance system for stabilizing the global climate must function as part of a larger, polycentric set of nested institutions and organizations at various governmental levels.

Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an alternative theoretical framework for reconstructing global climate policy in accordance with the polycentric approach to governance pioneered in the early 1960s by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and RobertWarren. Instead of a thoroughly top-down global regime, in which lower levels of government simply carry out the mandates of international negotiators, a polycentric approach provides for greater experimentation, learning, and cross-influence among different levels and units of government, which are both independent and interdependent. After exploring several of the design flaws of the existing set of global institutions and organizations for greenhouse gas mitigation, the paper explores how those global institutions and organizations might be improved by learning from various innovative policies instituted by local, state, and regional governments. The paper argues that any successful governance system for stabilizing the global climate must function as part of a larger, polycentric set of nested institutions and organizations at various governmental levels.

From Global to Polycentric Climate Governance

The Climate Commons and a Global Environmental Organization C. Ford Runge (bio) Over the period 2000 to 2008, the United States maintained a largely hostile posture toward multilateralism, ranging from military adventurism to rejection of international norms for human rights and climate change. Its support for the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations was undercut by a failure to live up to global commitments to foreign assistance (the Millennium Challenge) and protectionist and retrograde 2008 agricultural legislation. If this experience shows America anything, it is that renouncing its role as a constructive multilateral leader (dating to 1945) has been a disaster for its foreign policy and the esteem in which it is held. This desultory period is now at an end, and a fresh start can be imagined in which U.S. leadership over multilateralism returns. One of the most pressing challenges relates to global climate change and atmospheric carbon emissions. This issue is emblematic of environmental challenges that are transboundary in nature, in which sovereign nations must coordinate effective interventions with one another. These issues of global commons, of which the climate commons may be the most urgent, may provide an opportunity to push forward an agenda of institutional change. The specific change considered here is the creation of a Global Environmental Organization (GEO), which can give authority and responsibility to multilateral climate negotiations. My argument is that the creation of new multilateral institutions responding to global environmental challenges such as climate change is imperative. Fortunately, though these institutions would be new, their rationale and even their structure can be guided by experience with multilateral trade and commercial transactions, notably the World Trade Organization (WTO) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) system and the International Labor Organization (ILO).1 Just as the GATT/WTO emerged from the postwar conferences [End Page 139] as a rules-based response to global commercial interdependence, and an earlier ILO from global labor solidarity, so multilateral responses to environmental challenges reflect a growing recognition of nations' ecological interdependence, and a need for rules to coordinate their responses to these global challenges. This chapter is organized in five sections. First is a brief review of the trade-environment nexus and the rationale for global environmental rules over climate that can coexist with trade regimes. Second is a specific proposal for a GEO, a major responsibility of which would be to coordinate nations' responses to climate change. Third is an appraisal of the implementation of a GEO. Fourth is special consideration of the role of developing countries. A final section offers conclusions. The Trade-Environment Nexus In the last two decades, strident criticisms have been leveled at multilateral institutions such as the WTO, describing them as faceless international bureaucracies with programs harmful to the environment.2 Although hostile to multilateral institutions, these criticisms raise the question: If not these institutions, then what others? Though many criticisms of the global economy and global institutions may have merit, it is hard to think of a future in which trade and global institutions, or issues of environment, will play little or no part. Accordingly, the task is to redefine objectives in a global economy, and to restructure institutions to meet these objectives, especially the urgent challenge of climate change. The climate change debate has played out, like many other transboundary environmental issues, as a multilateral negotiation over a protocol agreement, the Kyoto Protocol of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) adopted December 11, 1997, which entered into force in February 2005. As of May 2008, 182 parties had ratified the protocol, including 36 developed and 137 developing countries (the United States is the only developed country not to have ratified it). Kyoto commits countries to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (GHGs) or to engage in emissions trading to offset such commitments. Partly due to a failure of leadership by the United States, and partly due to exemptions written into the agreement for developing countries, especially large GHG emitters such as China, the protocol has been roundly criticized. [End Page 140] This chapter argues that successful multilateral environmental agreements on climate change, as well as many other transboundary environmental issues, may require...

As the climate crisis deepens, efforts to incorporate climate issues into finance intensify. However, a significant limitation of the ongoing climate-related initiatives and policies in finance is that they ignore global climate justice issues, enhancing thereby processes that increase injustice. This paper first provides a classification of the channels by which climate finance initiatives and policies are exacerbating global climate injustice. These are (i) the ‘exposing by self-protecting’ channel that reflects how the ongoing attempts of private finance to protect itself from climate risks can increase climate vulnerability in the Global South, (ii) the ‘decarbonising by exploiting’ channel that captures how climate finance can exacerbate green extractivism and (iii) the ‘climate derisking’ channel that refers to the attempts of private global financial institutions to create new sources of profitability at low risks by exploiting the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Global South. The paper then puts forward three pillars that should be incorporated into national and international climate finance so as for climate finance injustices to be addressed and the financial system to become consistent with global climate justice principles. Pillar I refers to the differentiated climate responsibilities for Global North and Global South financial institutions. Pillar II captures the need for Global North financial institutions’ climate mitigation actions to be consistent with global justice. Pillar III suggests the establishment of permanent mechanisms by which the Global North will support the financing of climate spending in the Global South, based on climate debt responsibilities as well as capabilities associated with the hierarchies of the global financial architecture. The paper also outlines the political economy and technical challenges that the incorporation of these pillars into the global financial system would face.

Following the failure of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in 2009 in Copenhagen, the European Union has significantly altered its negotiation strategy in the global climate regime. It moved from an emphasis on ‘leadership by example’ and an insistence on top-down, binding targets within a framework of strong global governance institutions (impartiality in global justice terms) towards a strategy of shared leadership, increased dialogue (mutual recognition) and acceptance of more voluntary instruments (non-domination). This article traces this shift through an examination of EU policy documents and makes sense of it by reference to learning effects of an EU with solidarist ambitions in a pluralist international society, and the changing power distribution and contestations of the post-Cold War liberal order on the global level. Furthermore, it assesses the consequences of the shift for international society (especially concerning different ‘solidarisms’) and global climate justice. We argue that while a changed EU approach has been vital to maintaining the EU's status as a relevant actor and to secure the Paris Agreement, too much emphasis on the pluralist dimension and non-domination may also hinder effective global solutions to climate change. It is therefore vital that the EU continues its solidarist ambitions by pushing for rigorous measures of accountability, but also by alleviating structural domination in the climate regime and particularly by better recognizing and including civil society actors from the global South.

Since 2008 the world has been convulsed by social and economic change with financial upheaval and social unrest becoming increasingly prevalent in the global North and South. As the latest United Nations Human Development Report puts it: ‘Global economic and political structures are in flux at a time when the world faces recurrent financial crises, worsening clima te change and growing social unrest’ (UNDP. 2013: 2). it goes on to suggest that: ‘Global institutions appear unable to accommodate changing power relations, ensure adequate provision of global public goods to meet global and regional challenges and respond to the growing need for greater equity and sustainability’ (p. 2). The effects of the 2008 financial crisis have been particularly severe in economies most closely wedded to the neoiiberal development paradigm and this chapter considers the effects of the downturn on development education policy and practice in the European Union, the largest funder in the sector, and in its member states. It begins by considering the causes and effects of the crisis in neoliberalism and the challenges this has presented to development education.KeywordsInternational Monetary FundDevelopment EducationSovereign DebtGlobal Public GoodInternational Monetary Fund LoanThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper argues that periodic waves of crowding-in to 'hot' issue fields are a recurring feature of how globally networked civil society organizations operate, especially in countries of the Global South. We elaborate on this argument through a study of Indian civil society mobilization around climate change. Five key mechanisms contribute to crowding-in processes: (1) the expansion of discursive opportunities; (2) the event effects of global climate change conferences; (3) the network effects created by expanding global civil society networks; (4) the adoption and innovation of action repertoires; and (5) global pressure effects creating new opportunities for civil society. Our findings contribute to the world society literature, with an account of the social mechanisms through which global institutions and political events affect national civil societies, and to the social movements literature by showing that developments in world society are essential contributors to national mobilization processes.

Global institutions and national governments have failed to provide effective policy guidance or leadership on tackling climate change. The extraction and combustion of fossil fuels continues apace, resulting in continual rising of greenhouse gas emissions, which pose a threat to all life on earth. However, the global climate regime continues to underestimate the need for immediate, radical and powerful action. Dominant framings of the problem continue to emphasise behaviour change rather than system change, and fail to challenge the power of fossil-fuel capital. This failure makes it difficult to be optimistic about the future but there may be hope in a new kind of politics based on non-violent direct action and mass civil disobedience. This form of action is directed at delegitimising fossil fuels and stopping their extraction, and acting as a ‘radical flank’ in positively influencing political decision-making towards a democratically agreed just transition.

Many countries, including India, promise ambitious climate goals. Yet global institutions and national incentives often make these promises hard to keep. This article examines the “Climate Security Paradox”, the gap where policy commitments and security outcomes diverge. It questions how India’s climate commitments interact with incentive structures, finance, and equity within global climate governance and finds three interlinked barriers. First, short-term growth incentives often favor continued coal use and infrastructure choices that keep emissions high. Second, climate finance remains uncertain and slow, which delays state-level adaptation projects and local resilience investments. Third, resource allocation often sidelines vulnerable groups, reducing trust and disengages from climate programs. By introducing an analytical triad, “incentives, finance, equity”, and presenting the trade-offs between sovereignty, development, and global cooperation—a clear, practical framework is created for analyzing climate-policy failure in developing countries. Reshaping national incentives, securing predictable finance, and embedding fairness are each necessary to narrow the paradox and specific policy steps are suggested: phased responsibilities, stable finance mechanisms, and stronger local institutions. It also calls for predictable loss-and-damage funds and targeted investments to protect local livelihoods in climate hotspots urgently. These measures can help India and similar countries align commitments with measurable climate security outcomes.

Abstract. Initialized climate predictions are routinely carried out at many global institutions that predict the climate up to next ten years. In this study we present 30 year long initialized climate predictions and hindcasts consisting of 10 ensemble members. We assess the skill of the predictions of surface air temperature on decadal and multidecadal timescales. For the 10 year average hindcasts, we find that there is limited added value from initialization beyond the first decade over a few regions, but no added value from initialization was found for the third decade (i.e. forecast years 21–29). The ensemble spread in the initialized predictions grows larger with the forecast time. However, the initialized predictions do not necessarily converge towards the uninitialized climate projections within a few years and even decades after initialization. There is in particular a long-term weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) after initialization that does not recover within the 30 years of the simulations, remaining substantially lower compared to the AMOC in the uninitialized historical simulations. The lower AMOC mean conditions also result in different surface temperature anomalies over northern and southern high latitude regions with cooler temperature in the northern hemisphere and warmer in the southern hemisphere in the later forecast years as compared to the first forecast year. The temperature differences are due to less transport of heat to the northern hemisphere in the later forecast years. These multi-decadal predictions therefore highlight important issues with current prediction systems, resulting in long-term drift into climate states inconsistent with the climate simulated by the historical simulations.

This Teaching Paper provides a structured overview of international organizations and networks central to climate and development practice. It highlights the mandates and functions of key institutions such as UNFCCC, IPCC, GCF, GEF, IIED, CAN, IRENA, WRI, FAO, and UNDP, showing how they contribute to global climate governance. By linking research, finance, advocacy, and technical support, these organizations shape opportunities for non-profits and practitioners. A case study illustrates how engagement with global institutions can scale local initiatives, while practical tips help navigate barriers such as complex funding systems. For academics, the resource bridges theory with institutional analysis; for practitioners, it provides guidance for aligning projects with global frameworks, mobilizing resources, and strengthening advocacy.

ABSTRACTEcosystem-based adaptation (EbA) has recently emerged as an important way to address the impacts of climate change. EbA suggests that harnessing ecosystem services can help communities adapt to climate change, thereby limiting threats to social systems and human security. What are the arguments for and against EbA? Who favours EbA? What does EbA mean in practice? What are the limits to EbA as global average temperature rises? Reviewing documents of non-governmental organisations, governments, intergovernmental organisations and scholars helps answer these and related questions. As climate change results in increasing challenges for society, the more important all forms of adaptation, including EbA, will become. Yet, while useful and appropriate in certain contexts, EbA might not be sufficient if climate disruption becomes severe, which would require consideration of a transformational change in global institutions and practices.

The future of coal investment, trade, and stranded assets

Interactions of global climate institutions with national energy policies