Global governance for climate justice: A cross-national analysis of CO2 emissions

Abstract

Sustainable energy transitions are key to achieving climate justice for all. Carbon dioxide emissions’ (CO2) unequal distribution globally is one of the many issues preventing climate justice. Efforts to reduce global CO2 impacts are vital for environmental justice efforts and a future free from climate change issues. Researchers have long been interested in how the rise of global governance initiatives, such as multilateral treaties, impact environmental outcomes across the world. However, little is known about how global governance concerning energy usage and technologies impacts CO2 emissions across the world. Using two-way fixed effects regression analysis from 1996 to 2011, we test how 24 multilateral environmental treaties with an energy focus impact CO2 emissions per capita, CO2 emissions as a percentage of gross domestic product, and total CO2 emissions for 162 nations. The multilateral energy treaties were collected from Ecolex. This analysis assesses how the legitimacy of global contracts may impact actual decreases in CO2 emissions, resulting in climate justice outcomes. Additionally, this analysis considers how factors of institutional state governance, including control of corruption, rule of law, political stability, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality moderate the impact of multilateral energy environmental treaties and CO2 emissions. We find that stocks of environmental treaty ratification are associated with decreases in all three types of CO2 emissions. Renewable energy consumption, GDP per capita, and urban and total population are associated with increased CO2 emissions. We also find some support for the idea that treaties are associated with larger decreases in emissions in nations with higher levels of state governance. Understanding how state accountability, transparency, and legitimacy factor into the effectiveness of multilateral environmental treaties on reducing CO2 emissions is essential to combating climate change issues.