Climate Change Cooperation Research Articles

Individual attendance data for over 30 years of international climate change talks

The international community has formally negotiated over climate change since 1991. The annual meetings that host these negotiations have seen an ever-growing number of individuals representing countries, international organizations, or non-governmental organizations. These meetings and their attendees have accordingly become the focal point of international climate change cooperation for both the international community and scholars studying climate change politics. Yet, researchers have been unable to access and analyze comprehensive attendee-level data pertaining to these negotiations in terms of attendees’ names, genders, job titles, delegations, divisions, and affiliations. In applying text-as-data techniques to attendance roster PDFs, we extract and build attendee-level datasets for all annual negotiations held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its precursor, 1991–2023. These data include original language and English-translated information on 27,470 unique delegations and 310,200 attendees over a 32-year period. Summaries and validations in turn highlight the promise of our data for the study of attendance patterns and characteristics across delegations and over time.

Strategies for promoting climate change transparency and inclusive growth through south-south climate change cooperation

Strategies for promoting climate change transparency and inclusive growth through south-south climate change cooperation

Driving Factors and Feasibility Analysis: China–Mongolia Collaboration on Climate Change under the Belt and Road Initiative Framework

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers great opportunities for China and Mongolia to collaborate on tackling climate change. However, few studies have focused on China–Mongolia collaboration on climate change under the BRI’s sustainable development framework; in particular, studies have neglected the factors and feasibility of collaboration. Focusing on China and Mongolia, this study first discusses the evolution of legislation in China and Mongolia in the context of dealing with climate change and then explores the factors that influence China–Mongolia collaboration on climate change mitigation from the perspectives of climate environmental governance and energy development at the domestic level. Subsequently, the paper analyzes the Paris Agreement to identify international factors that can influence climate change cooperation between the two countries. Finally, based on the results of this analysis, this paper identifies geopolitical relations, the energy supply, technology and investment, and the demand for a transition to sustainable development as the main driving forces for China and Mongolia to collaborate on climate change mitigation under the BRI. Finally, the paper concludes that collaboration between the two countries is highly feasible.

Spatial distributions of stranded fossil asset costs and benefits from climate change mitigation

A global 2 °C climate target is projected to generate significant economic benefits. However, the presence of fossil fuel assets that are stranded as a consequence of climate change mitigation could complicate cost-benefit considerations at the country level. Here, we quantify the spatial distribution of stranded asset costs (SAC) together with that of the GDP benefits of climate mitigation (BCM). Under a 2 °C scenario, global total SAC is $19 trillion while global BCM is $63 trillion by 2050. At the country level, the sign of a country’s net benefit, the difference between BCM and SAC, is largely determined by the sign of its BCM. Net benefits are broadly positive across subtropical and tropical countries where high baseline temperatures imply GDP damage from climate change and negative across temperate countries where low baseline temperatures imply GDP gains. Notably, even major fossil fuel producers such as India, China, USA, and Saudi Arabia are projected to receive positive net benefits from a 2 °C scenario by 2050. Overall, 95% of global net benefit will be borne by low and lower-middle income countries. These results could inform the geopolitics of global climate change cooperation in the decades to come.

Analysis of the Future Trend of the Sino-US Trade War on the Energy Cooperation and Game Between the Two Countries

Since the Biden administration took office, it has inherited the Trump administration's perception that China is a major strategic competitor, so China and the United States have entered a competition-oriented dynamic. Political and economic changes around energy will add new instability factors to Sino-US relations and open new areas for China and the US. Under the background of the Sino-US trade war, this paper discusses that America and China, as the most influential representatives of developed and developing countries to achieve global energy goals, the game between the two sides around the economy and other fields will affect the development of Sino-US climate change cooperation status quo. At the same time, the paper studies the existing cooperation foundation under the current context of the intensified energy game between China and the United States, such as new energy vehicle technology. The energy transition is the general trend for the world's largest energy consumer, and carbon emitter. Both countries may achieve a win-win situation by joining hands in energy transition and cooperation to tackle the climate crisis. All possible cooperation will also provide new opportunities for Sino-US relations, but the changes they trigger may exacerbate the existing fierce game, and even create new conflicts. Therefore, accurately grasping the two-way interaction between China and the United States in the energy field is of great benefit to the global energy transformation and the development of green technology.

Comment: Global Climate Policy and Collective Action

Abstract In Global Environmental Politics (“Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma: Why Distributive Conflict, Not Collective Action, Characterizes the Politics of Climate Change,” 20 (4): 4–27), Michaël Aklin and Matto Mildenberger argue against the prevailing characterization of climate change cooperation as a problem of free riding or collective action. The authors argue that models of collective action imply, first, policy reciprocity and, second, inaction in the absence of formal agreements to limit free riding. They argue that neither empirical implication is supported by an review of states’ climate policy to date. In this comment, we note that standard collective action models imply neither of the above hypotheses. As a result, the empirical tests advanced in the original article are uninformative as to the explanatory power of the collective action model for international climate politics.

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

Mitigation effects of global low carbon technology financing and its technological and economic impacts in the context of climate cooperation

This study developed a climatic-economic-technological integrated assessment model named CIECIA-TD-F. Based on model, the implementation effects of low carbon technology financing on climate mitigation, technology promotion, and economic development in the context of climate change cooperation were studied. The results indicate that carbon reduction, under the current pledged climate financing scale, is limited. Global surface warming in 2100 is still around 2.38 °C even when the technologies are globally shared. Low carbon technology financing improves technology R&D and absorptive capacities of the least developed countries. Their carbon reduction rates reach 50 percent under the capacity principle. However, donations impair the R&D inputs of developed countries and delay their advanced technological progress, leading to 1 percent more carbon emissions. This limits the imitations of China and Russia in turn by decreasing their imitation numbers by 1–2 percent. Collecting 800 billion USD per year from 2030 to 2100 is a climatically effective means. It holds global warming to 1.99 °C. However, the donors suffer more than 1 percent of economic losses. That indicates the economic feasibility of this means is weak. On this basis, we proposed a Pareto-improvement scheme which combines financing with technology sharing and national R&D improvements. This policy mix both achieves the 2 °C goal and protect the economic benefits of all countries. Thus, policy mix combining different measures will be more suitable for improving reduction effects and achieving multiple goals. Compared with sole technology financing, it has more significant global carbon governance meanings and is noteworthy in future climate negotiations.

A comparative study of stage characteristics and factorial decomposition of CO2 emissions between China and the USA.

CO2 contributes a lot to the greenhouse effect. The total CO2 emissions of the two countries, China and the USA, as the world's top two economies, have exceeded 40% of the total global carbon emissions. In this context, the exploration of the evolution of carbon emissions from energy consumption in China and the USA and the comparison of the characteristics of carbon emission drivers in different periods play a significant role in the policy formulation and climate change cooperation between China and the USA. In this study, the BP structural breakpoint test was used to divide the carbon emission stages of China and the USA from 1970 to 2019. The generalized Divisia index model (GDIM) was developed to decompose the growth of carbon emissions in China and the USA into eight items, GDP, carbon intensity of GDP, energy use, carbon intensity of energy, population, carbon emissions per capita, GDP per capita, and energy intensity, and to analyze the characteristics and cumulative contribution of carbon emission drivers at each stage. Based on the stage and cumulative characteristics of carbon emissions between China and the USA, the USA should take the initiative to assume the legal responsibility of carbon emissions and further deepen the cooperation with other countries in the field of climate change. China should transform the economic growth mode, optimize the energy structure, and improve the efficiency of resource utilization to help achieve the peaking carbon emissions and the carbon neutrality smoothly.

US-China Cooperation on Climate Change at COP26: Policy Implications for Environment and Energy

Despite fierce strategic competition, the United States and China reached to a breakthrough agreement at COP26. This article addresses how and why the two superpowers chose to cooperate on environment and energy. Scientific evidence of global warming pressured the largest and second-largest carbon emitters to bear the responsibility and burden of climate change.
 In addition, there has been a growing interdependence between them since the Obama administration. As the US became an oil and gas exporting country in the late 2010, the Trump administration pushed ahead with selling oil and gas surpluses to China that rapidly increased energy imports. In pursuit of a Global Green New Deal, the Biden administration made efforts to help China achieve carbon neutrality as early as possible. For China, natural gas can be a second-best option during energy transition because it emits less carbon than coal. US gas also contributes to diversifying energy imports. These mutual interests played a crucial role in insulating climate change cooperation from strategic competition.

International Trade Linkage in Climate Change Cooperation

International Trade Linkage in Climate Change Cooperation

The ‘ASEANization’ of non-ASEAN stakeholders in regional climate change cooperation

AbstractThis article examines the inward–out influence from Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) to extra-regionally based actors, here defined as non-ASEAN stakeholders, in regional cooperation on climate change. The case study on the ASEAN Multi-Sectoral Framework on Climate Change (AFCC) indicates that non-ASEAN stakeholders underwent ‘ASEANization’ when adapting their rhetoric and practices in line with regional normative contexts and interests. In the forestry sector of AFCC where power asymmetry favored non-ASEAN actors, a relatively low level of ASEANization occurred as non-ASEAN stakeholders glossed over complex issues and constructed coherence between local and outside agendas. In the agricultural sector where power asymmetry was not as prevalent, a higher level of ASEANization unfolded where non-ASEAN stakeholders became more flexible on mitigation agendas, given strong regional resistance to go beyond adaptation. Moreover, inward–out influence existed in both sectors as long-term socialization led to coordination and adjustments of expectations and practices concerning cooperation efforts on both sides.

Banning Coal: A Modest Proposal for U.S.-China Climate Change Cooperation

The U.S. and China can and should reinvigorate global climate change action through a joint commitment to achieving (or approaching) carbon neutrality by 2045 in the run up to the next major international climate summit (COP26) in November 2021. Such a joint pledge would restore the constructive competition on climate change and clean technologies that emerged for a brief period around the conclusion of the Paris Agreement. As the harms of climate change (e.g., fires, glacial melt, extreme storm events, drought, sea level rise) become more apparent, aggressive action from the world’s two largest emitters is essential.

Systemic failures in north–south climate change knowledge transfer: a case study of the Congo Basin

ABSTRACT Climate change cooperation projects in the Congo Basin are often rooted in a paradigm based on scientific knowledge transfer between north and south. Their outputs, however, have often been criticized by both policymakers and scientists in Central African countries who claim that the projects are not contributing to the development of the Congo Basin. This study used the Research-Integration-Utilization framework to identify and document how the combination of power imbalances and misalignment of actors’ incentives undermined the capacity building potential of a large, multi-year north–south knowledge transfer project. Using data from documents, interviews and participant observation, we found that, under the umbrella of a development project, experts from developed countries pushed the specific aims of research toward global modelling instead of focusing on local impacts on land use in the Congo Basin, which were the primary concerns of stakeholders in the area. Moreover, both the integration and utilization phases were undermined by the power imbalance and resulted in a product of little relevance or utility for Congo Basin countries. Key policy insights As currently conducted, north–south scientific climate change knowledge transfer is not substantially supporting either the development prospects or the capacity building needs of Congo Basin countries. The main cause of this problem lies in domination of the scientific climate change knowledge transfer process by power games, along with misalignment of actors’ incentives. Identifying the interests and agendas of all actors at the integration stage before the research stage would be a useful strategy for such projects moving forward.

The Emerging Threats and Opportunities for Implementing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Sustainable Development Goal 7: Policy Insights from sub-Saharan Africa and Malawi

Aim: Despite the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce climate change vulnerability and inequality particularly in the Global South, it is probable that the SDGs and NDCs might not achieve their objectives. The aim of this article is to identify how countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can address their climate change governance and cross-sector coordination challenges in order to reduce climate change vulnerability and augment SDG 7 (universal energy access) implementation.
 
 Design / Research methods: A qualitative content analysis was undertaken using research articles, project reports, a case study and policy briefs exploring the nexus of climate change governance, SDG 7 implementation and SDG 13 implementation in the context of SSA and Malawi.
 
 Conclusions / findings: The study suggests that climate change governance and attaining SDG 7 in the Global South might be improved by harmonising NDC activities so that NDC activities can be aggregated and monitored from a regional perspective similar to the case of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Programmes of Activities (PoAs).
 
 Originality / value of the article: The paper is of value to global policy makers as it shows that increasing climate change ambitions and ratcheting-up in the context of SSA should include increasing the deployment of renewable energy technologies as well as initiating new international institutional arrangements for climate change governance through South-South Climate Change Cooperation modalities.
 Keywords: Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), climate finance, renewable energy, South-South Climate Change Cooperation, Sustainable Development, Malawi. 
 JEL: G38, O13, O55, Q01, Q28, Q54, Q56.

Border Carbon Adjustments in a Post-Paris World: Same Old, Same Old, but Different?

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, nations ushered in a new era of international climate change cooperation. To meet the Agreement’s goals, countries need to adopt increasingly ambitious national emissions control pledges. While the Agreement covers all countries, ambition levels and the implementation of policy measures will likely vary. Any unevenness in ambition or implementation will increase pressure on policy makers to prevent loss of competitiveness, relocation of carbon-intensive production to other countries (carbon leakage), and free rider behavior. Addressing these issues will likely require measures providing some form of remedy for producers subject to carbon constraints. This paper focuses on one such proposal: border carbon adjustments, which are charges levied on the greenhouse gases emitted during the production of a good. In recent years, policy makers have increasingly pushed for the development of a carbon charge imposed at the border. However, if border adjustments are implemented, policy makers need to address concerns about violating international trade law. This paper outlines how such a design could be developed. First, we introduce the concept of border carbon adjustments and explain how they have featured in policy discussions thus far. We then examine the compatibility of border carbon adjustments with World Trade Organization (WTO) law. Finally, we outline several design principles that could guide the adoption and implementation of such measures.

A key role in natural disaster mitigation and prevention

The Japan Meteorological Agency works to help improve public welfare. With a focus on areas including natural disaster prevention and mitigation, transportation safety, industrial prosperity, monitoring of climate change and international cooperation activities, its beneficial impact is far-reaching and wide-ranging.

Reassessing the climate change cooperation performance via a non-compensatory composite indicator approach

Abstract International cooperation is the key factor in mitigating the climate change impacts on the human and environmental system. Climate change cooperation index can incentivize countries to embrace international agreements to achieve an efficient mitigation. This paper argues that non-compensatory rule can generate a more theoretically meaningful climate change cooperation index if the preferential independence between indicators cannot be guaranteed, sub-indicator weights are assigned with the meaning of the importance and compensability between sub-indicator is not desirable. Hence, this paper introduces a non-compensatory composite indicator approach to construct a new climate change cooperation index for cooperation performance evaluation. The main results are reported and discussed. An uncertainty analysis shows that the non-compensatory index has relatively good robustness on both weight factor and data inaccuracy.

International carbon markets under the Paris Agreement: Basic form and development prospects

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement introduces two international carbon markets that receive extensive attention and are expected to play an important role in the post-2020 climate regime. Three key elements of the two international carbon markets, including the scope, the types of tradable units and the governance, are identified, as the basis to clarify their basic forms. Based on the key issues and their different designs identified in negotiations, this study analyzes the contributions and challenges for China to participate in international carbon markets. Considering the inherent needs of climate change mitigation, climate finance, the development of a green “Belt and Road” and the China South–South cooperation in climate change, along with the existing domestic capacities on market mechanisms, this study puts forward the short-, medium- and long-term development prospects of the two international carbon markets.

Paying for Mitigation: How New Zealand Can Contribute to Others’ Efforts

Purchasing international emission reductions (IERs) can help New Zealand make a more ambitious and cost-effective contribution toward global climate change mitigation and support developing countries in accelerating their low-emission transition. However, New Zealand must avoid past mistakes by ensuring international purchasing does not derail its own decarbonisation pathway. Furthermore, the Paris Agreement has fundamentally changed how countries will trade IERs over the 2021–30 period. This working paper, which evolved under Motu’s ETS Dialogue process from 2016 to 2018, focuses on how we can balance our international and domestic mitigation efforts. It explores how many IERs we may want, how we should integrate international mitigation support with participants’ obligations under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS), and what mechanisms we can use to fund international mitigation effectively. Fundamentally, the New Zealand government will need to ensure that all IERs counted toward its targets and accepted in the NZ ETS have environmental integrity and are both approved and not double counted by seller and buyer governments. This paper presents a working model for New Zealand’s purchase of IERs, in which the quantity is controlled by government, purchasing is managed by government for the foreseeable future (with potential participation by private entities), and the quantity is factored into decisions on the NZ ETS cap and price management mechanisms. If NZ ETS participants are able to purchase IERs in the future, then a quantity limit should apply as a percentage of the surrender obligation and the volume should offset other supply under the cap. The paper also highlights an innovative “climate team” mechanism for international climate change cooperation that could facilitate purchasing by the New Zealand government. Two companion working papers address interactions between decisions on international purchasing and the choice of NZ ETS cap and price management mechanisms. The three working papers elaborate on an integrated proposal for managing unit supply, prices, and linking in the NZ ETS that was presented in Kerr et al. (2017).