Global climate cooperation under the 2 °C goal: Mechanisms and pathways via a coupled CGE–ABM framework

This paper explores the effects of the technological development of key low-carbon power technologies (photovoltaic (PV), wind, and carbon capture and storage (CCS)) on the stability of global climate cooperation under several assumptions about climate-related damage. The methodology combines cooperative game theory with a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model allowing us to endogenize testing of stability of the global coalition and to include macroeconomic effects. Global cooperation is found to be stable only under mean or pessimistic assumptions about the development of key low-carbon power technologies and when damage is severe. If the technological development is favorable or climate damage is not severe, the gains from global cooperation are not sufficient to compensate for mitigation costs, because a nonglobal coalition of willing countries can then achieve emission reductions close to the global optimum. Finally, our findings support establishing nonglobal ‘climate clubs’ to overcome the lack of global cooperation in international climate policy.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in Korea is the National Designated Entity (NDE) of Korea for technologyBRcollaboration home and abroad under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). To facilitate global climate technology cooperation and diffuse Korean climate technologies abroad, the MSIT as an NDE established three strategic plans for global climate technology cooperation in 2015, 2016, and 2018. Currently, ahead of the year 2021 when the Paris Agreement is to be implemented, the MSIT is planning to revise the existent 2018 strategic plan. In the revision process, the most important factor is to reflect the Paris rule book, which was drawn out in December 2018 and will act as guidelines for implementation of the Paris Agreement. For the specific implementation rule on technology development and transfer, this Paris rule book elaborated the technology framework. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore a way to better revise the existing plan by reflecting the essential points of the technology framework in terms of global cooperation on climate technology. For this, a life-cycle approach for technology transfer projects was utilized as an analytical tool to extract essential points from the technology framework in four major stages of i) technology matching, ii) project planning, iii) project implementation, and iv) project evaluation. Another essential element that applies to all four stages is the active role of an intermediary organization. With this stage-based analytical frame, the technology framework is analyzed to extract essential elements for global climate technology cooperation in new climate regime. Second, analysis is undertaken on whether the extracted elements are included in the MSIT’s existing strategic plans and put into practice. Third, policy suggestions are made for Korea’s future national strategy for global climate technology cooperation. This paper concludes with some research limitations and additional research prospects.

Financial incentives to poor countries promote net emissions reductions in multilateral climate agreements

This paper explains the ideational foundations of Donald Trump’s rejection of global climate cooperation and its implications for the future of global climate governance. We argue that Trumpism’s antipathy is a fundamental normative challenge to the key ideas that underpin global climate cooperation. Here we explore two specific norm contestations: (1) Collective action versus extralegal sovereignty, and (2) Common but Differentiated Responsibility versus fairness-as-reciprocity. Trump’s aggressive norm rejections are quite novel. His rejection of climate politics in particular and his desire to return to a status quo ante in world politics, positions him as a distinct type of actor in the spectrum of norm contestation – a reactionary norm entrepreneur. We contribute an ideational explanation of Trumpism’s rejection of global climate cooperation by identifying the fundamental clash of ideas and his role as a reactionary norm entrepreneur within the broader framework of global climate governance. It offers a case study in a high-profile instance of norm contestation and its implications for the survival of the global climate change regime.

This article examines how China’s vision of a green world order affects global climate cooperation. It argues that China’s global green vision is technology driven, combining green industrial policy with geopolitical ambitions. While not fundamentally different from the Western vision, China’s strategy seeks to reposition the country at the center of the order through leadership in green technologies and by geopolitically leveraging its vision in international politics. This global green vision thus extends beyond climate mitigation, entering the realm of geopolitical competition and ultimately undermining international climate cooperation. Theoretically, the article develops a world-ordering perspective grounded in the concept of global green visions, demonstrating that green industrial policy can function not only as a domestic strategy but also as an instrument of international order building. Empirically, the analysis draws on a qualitative content analysis of primary sources, including official documents and semistructured expert interviews.

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.

Assessments of the benefits of climate change mitigation—and thus of the appropriate stringency of greenhouse gas emissions abatement—depend upon ethical, legal, and political economic considerations. Global climate change mitigation is often represented as a repeated prisoners’ dilemma in which the net benefits of sustained global cooperation exceed the net benefits of uncooperative unilateral action for any given actor. Global cooperation can be motivated either by circumspection—a decision to account for the damages one’s own actions inflict upon others—or by the expectation of reciprocity from others. If the marginal global benefits of abatement are approximately constant in total abatement, the domestically optimal price approaches the global cooperative optimum linearly with increasing circumspection and reciprocity. Approximately constant marginal benefits are expected if climate damages are quadratic in temperature and if the airborne fraction of carbon emissions is constant. If, on the other hand, damages increase with temperature faster than quadratically or carbon sinks weaken significantly with increasing CO2 concentrations, marginal benefits will decline with abatement. In this case, the approach to the global optimum is concave and less than full circumspection and/or reciprocity can lead to optimal domestic abatement close to the global optimum.

Interests, Norms, and Mass Support for Global Climate Cooperation

The potential re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 presents significant ramifications for international relations, global dynamics, and the strategic balance of power. His “America First” policies, characterized by a focus on nationalism, protectionism, and skepticism toward multilateral institutions, have already strained traditional alliances and shifted global alignments. A second term could exacerbate tensions within NATO, the United Nations, and other international bodies, while catalyzing the formation of new coalitions of like-minded states. This shift in U.S. foreign policy would impact global trade, security, and climate cooperation, potentially leading to a more fragmented global order. Nations and organizations must prepare for a world where U.S. leadership is less predictable, and power dynamics become increasingly multipolar, with a greater emphasis on regional alliances and strategic autonomy.

The world can be characterized by dynamics of acceleration. The African population will double during the next three decades; global urban infrastructures will double by 2050; to stay below the 2 °C guardrail and to avoid dangerous climate change, emissions need to peak by 2020 and be reduced to zero by 2050; The decisions of states, firms and political actors during the next one or two decades will create very long-term path dependencies in the emerging global society. Acceleration, path dependencies and very long-term impacts of current decisions need to be taken into account in Global Cooperation Research. The Kate Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research therefore brought together scenario experts, integrated assessment scholars and science fiction authors with global cooperation researchers. All of them agreed that shaping the future, organizing transformation processes towards sustainability and investing in global cooperation to make globalization work for all means building on new narratives about possible futures. Narratives are about imagination, creativity, innovation, diversity. Without transformative narratives, we cannot go beyond incremental changes. This Global Dialogues publication builds important bridges between scholars from very different disciplines which can help us to merge the knowledge of future scenario thinkers and pioneers of global cooperation research. (from the Preface)

Broadening the scope of loss and damage to legal liability: an experiment

International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper, I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e., insufficiently severe) policy instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence also indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. More generally, the results show the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision.

Because a significant portion of the American electorate identify themselves as evangelical Christians, the evangelical position on climate policy is important to determining the role the United States could play in global climate cooperation. Do evangelicals oppose all climate policies, or are they particularly opposed to certain types of policies? We argue that American evangelicals oppose climate policy due to their distrust of international cooperation and institutions, which has been a prominent feature of evangelical politics since the beginning of the Cold War. Using data from the 2011 Faith and Global Policy Challenges survey and the 2010 Chicago Council Global View survey, we find support for the theory. Evangelicals are equally likely to support domestic climate policy as other Americans, but they are significantly less likely to support international treaties on climate cooperation. The findings suggest that proponents of climate policy could win more evangelicals to their side by focusing on domestic action, instead of multilateral negotiations or international institutions.

As a global public good, climate change cannot be addressed without global cooperation and action, which in turn depends on an equitable distribution of responsibility. There are numerous problems with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for designating national responsibilities for CO2 emissions (NRCE) – including the dispute over the equity of production-based mechanisms and vague definitions of historical emissions. Therefore, it is necessary to re-think the principles that should govern the allocation of NRCE. The essence of the dispute over production- or consumption-based emissions accounting is the distribution of the CO2 trade balance (CTB) between two partners. “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities” (CBDR) provides a foundation for discussing equity in global climate policy. Based on CBDR, this article proposes a rubric of equity principles for defining NRCE: first, there are “horizontal allocation rules”, according to which the CTB between trading partners is distributed according to their respective levels of development (as measured by the Human Development Index), emissions per capita and gains from the trade; second, there are “vertical extending rules”, according to which the historical emissions of a country are accounted for with reference to the horizontal allocation rules and added to the present-day NRCE of the country. We argue that considering global climate policy coordination in this light will contribute to formulating a more robust definition of NRCE.

Climate issues require a coordinated global response. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, remain in the atmosphere for a long period of time and exert a strong influence. Carbon emissions are transnational and intergenerational in nature; they also present a “free-rider” problem due to their role as global public goods. This makes it necessary for nations to go beyond their own decision-making processes and seek global cooperation to solve the problem of climate change. In fact, in the absence of supranational governance bodies, it requires transnational negotiations and consultations to build a global climate governance system. However, under existing technological systems and energy resource endowments, responding to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions may impose constraints on economic development. Looking back at global cooperation in tackling climate change, we find that disputes between countries in politics, economy, science, and technology have posed challenges to the creation of a “fair and effective” global climate governance model. Of course, from a broader perspective, global climate governance has spillover effects, due to its interplay with other fields of international cooperation, such as security, trade, investment, and technology. For example, the carbon border tax proposed by the EU may have a profound impact on current international trade patterns, and high-emission industries could bear the brunt of such actions. In addition, addressing climate change and achieving sustainable development also impose new requirements for the development of global climate finance. Lastly, as a large economy, China will play an important role in promoting the establishment of a global governance system that is fair and reasonable, and focuses on win–win cooperation. For example, we believe China will be an important leader along with the US and Europe in the global response to climate change, and that it will also cooperate with “Belt and Road” countries on climate issues in its process of “going global.”