Great Power Responsibility and International Climate Leadership

Abstract

This chapter relates the concept of great power responsibility to literature addressing leadership in global environmental politics. It proposes that the division between management and leadership offers a nuanced analytical lens to contemplate the ways is which great power responsibility can be conceptualized within the English School of International Relations. After developing a concept of great climate power, the chapter examines what sort of special responsibilities great climate powers can be expected to shoulder in international climate politics. It argues that great powers have managerial and leadership responsibilities to tackle climate change, but the ways they can—or should—carry out those responsibilities varies in time and place, depending on where international society falls along the pluralism–solidarism spectrum. Based on empirical analysis of the contribution of great powers to the United Nations climate regime, however, the chapter concludes that none of the conventional great powers have assumed great power responsibility in international climate politics.