The state of coalitions in international climate change negotiations and implications for global climate policy

Abstract

This paper presents a method of identifying negotiation coalitions and determining their stability. We provide insights into the structure, issue emphasis, and internal coherence of coalitions at the 17th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and emphasise the implications for climate policy. Countries are grouped into 'natural' coalitions using latent class analysis (LCA) according to the negotiation issues stressed in their opening statements. We compare the LCA results to existing coalitions and find that the LCA coalitions differ from existing coalitions and are more robust by various measures. Existing coalitions are largely heterogeneous according to both issue emphasis and region, which confirms the fragmentation of coalitions and highlights the problematic nature of overlapping preference assumptions common in analyses of climate negotiations. Nevertheless, the UNFCCC is essential to facilitate open and transparent communication as countries move beyond the Paris Agreement.