International Climate Change Negotiations Research Articles

Quantifying energy transition vulnerability helps more just and inclusive decarbonization.

The COP28 agreement signals "beginning of the end" of the fossil fuel era, calling on countries to contribute to global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner. While a quantitative assessment of country's vulnerability in energy transition is a prerequisite for national and international policy makers to ensure a just and inclusive transition, it is notably absent in the existing research. Here, we develop a conceptual framework based on the vulnerability scoping diagram (VSD) method to assess differences in energy transition vulnerability across countries, with a specific focus on the challenges associated with transitioning away from fossil fuels. The resulting energy transition vulnerability index (ETVI) scores reveal that countries in the Global South generally exhibit higher vulnerability in their energy transition compared to those in the Global North, and this gap has widened over the past decade. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the decade-long trend of continuous decline in global energy transition vulnerability. This study also provides two important applications of ETVI scores, aligning them with major global sustainable development agenda. Firstly, we identify substantial differences in the dynamics of transition vulnerability across seven major party groups in the international climate change negotiations and distinguish four energy transition statuses in relation to achieving global climate goals: Stressful, Leapfrog, Potential Challenges, and Less Painful. Secondly, we demonstrate crucial synergies between energy transition resilience and the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Enhancing Climate Change Resilience: Assessing Adaptation Needs, and Significance of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems

Losses and damages from climate change related extreme weather events and disasters require the development of adaptation measures to increase resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change. In line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement's Global Goal on Adaptation, Parties have developed strategies that include adaptation actions, but there are significant gaps in identification of adaptation needs and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of actions to address them. Adaptation M&E systems are critical for measuring the success of adaptation actions, providing feedback from the implementation process, and identifying new actions. There is no global methodology for adaptation M&E. At international climate change negotiations in 2023, it was agreed that countries should operationalize their national adaptation M&E systems by 2030. The aim of this study is to evaluate adaptation M&E methodologies developed by countries at different development levels and to present future policy recommendations for the adaptation M&E system planned to be established in Turkey. The study reveals the necessity of up-to-date socio-economic data as well as climate data in determining adaptation needs and adaptation M&E systems. In Turkey, which is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, for the success of adaptation actions, besides the rapid operationalization of adaptation M&E system, establishment of the system with an approach that includes all stakeholders in the process and considers adaptation actions as integrated with disaster risk management actions is an important requirement in the context of Turkey's international commitments, national security, and development.

The road to Durban and beyond: The progress of international climate change negotiations

The road to Durban and beyond: The progress of international climate change negotiations

When fairness is not enough: The disproportionate contributions of the poor in a collective action problem.

Many of our most pressing challenges, from combating climate change to dealing with pandemics, are collective action problems: situations in which individual and collective interests conflict with each other. In such situations, people face a dilemma about making individually costly but collectively beneficial contributions to the common good. Understanding which factors influence people's willingness to make these contributions is vital for the design of policies and institutions that support the attainment of collective goals. In this study, we investigate how inequalities, and different causes of inequalities, impact individual-level behavior and group-level outcomes. First, we find that what people judged to be fair was not enough to solve the collective action problem: if they acted according to what they thought was fair, they would collectively fail. Second, the level of wealth (rich vs. poor) altered what was judged to be a fair contribution to the public good more than the cause of wealth (merit vs. luck vs. uncertain). Contributions during the game reflected these fairness judgments, with poorer individuals consistently contributing a higher proportion of their wealth than richer participants, which further increased inequality-particularly in successful groups. Finally, the cause of one's wealth was largely irrelevant, mattering most only when it was uncertain, as opposed to resulting from merit or luck. We discuss implications for policymakers and international climate change negotiations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Transformational learning and engagement on climate action for students attending a climate negotiation

When Greta Thunberg addressed world leaders at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s 24th Conference of Parties (COP24), it highlighted how young people including Indigenous youth are seeking to influence international climate change negotiations. However, young people face barriers to effectively engaging in the COP processes with few opportunities to learn about the structure and practices for COP Observers. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a structured learning experience developed to support students conducting research related to climate change and their engagement with international climate negotiations. Before attending the COP24, students were given in-person and online training about the UNFCCC, its processes, and major issues under negotiation. They also developed and presented their work during a COP side event. Through pre- and post-surveys and in-depth interviews, we asked students about their expectations and degree of engagement and agency at the COP and more broadly on climate action. Students reported that the academic scaffolding before and during the COP provided most of the students with tools for navigating the complexities of the COP. For all of the students, learning through engagement with the COP24 process supported greater self-efficacy and literacy in relation to climate change action.

A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations.

The last 35 years have been a period of intense and continuous international negotiations to deal with climate change. During the same period of time humanity has doubled the amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There has, however, been progress and some notable successes in the negotiations. In 2015, at COP21 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 196 countries adopted the Paris Agreement stating that they would limit global temperatures to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and would pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The first review of the Paris Agreement was at COP26 in Glasgow with many countries pledging to go to net zero emissions by the middle of the century. But currently these pledges, if fulfilled, will only limit the global average temperature to between 2.4°C and 2.8°C. At COP27 in Egypt the core agreements from the Glasgow Climate Pact were maintained and countries finally agreed to set up a loss and damage facility - although details of who will provide the finance and who can claim are still be to be worked out. This article reviews the key moments in the history of international climate change negotiations and discusses what the key objectives are for future COP meetings.

Türkiye’s Climate Policy: Aligned with International Climate Politics

The aim of this article is to assess Türkiye’s national climate policy framework within the context of international climate change negotiations. Türkiye, as an emerging economy and developing country, has implemented a number of climate actions and measures and has ratified significant multilateral climate agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement.

China Carbon Neutralization Research Status and Research Frontier Tracking

In the context of global joint response to climate change, carbon neutralization has become one of the main measures for governments, enterprises, and even individuals around the world to deal with global warming. This article explores the current research status and frontier trends in the field of carbon neutralization, which can not only provide theoretical reference for the follow-up research of carbon neutralization but also provide useful ideas for the policy-making of carbon neutralization. The study is built on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Core Journals Database, the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index database, and the Chinese Science Citation Database as the literature retrieval database platform. Using CiteSpace optical measurement software, 370 pieces of literature in the field of carbon neutrality research in China were systematically analyzed to track the situation and impact of research by various research institutions and prominent authors in China in this field and to analyze the research hotspots in this field, which is of great significance for the follow-up research of carbon neutrality. The research results show that 1) the number of publications in China’s carbon-neutral field has increased significantly with the change of years and has strong development potential. 2) Journals with many articles are more concentrated and are generally published in three journals: Natural Gas Industry, Proceedings of the CSEE, and Chinese Science Bulletin. 3) In terms of the major research institutions, the Institute of National Conditions of Tsinghua University, the School of Public Administration of Tsinghua University, the School of Grammar of Beijing University of Technology, and the Economic Development Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration have published more articles and muscular scientific research strength in the field of carbon neutrality. 4) In terms of the principal authors, four typical research teams have been set up: low-carbon economy, low-carbon cycle, carbon trading, sewage carbon neutrality, environmental science, and resource utilization, and the authors of each research team cooperate closely. 5) In the future, the research hotspots in China’s carbon-neutral field are still the themes of carbon emission reduction, green and low carbon, new energy, etc., and the research hotspots have begun to shift to the concept of development, from the very beginning of environmental protection and carbon emission reduction to the current new energy development. Carbon neutrality is currently a hot research field in China, and in the future, special attention should be paid to the full use of machine learning and extensive data mining to solve complex social, economic, and ecological problems. It is suggested that China should introduce the concepts of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and “consumer responsibility” in the international climate change negotiations in the formulation of carbon neutralization policies, so as to fully protect the right to the development of China’s underdeveloped regions and avoid the injustice caused by the blind formulation of carbon neutralization policies.Systematic Review Registration: [https://review.frontiersin.org/review/896524/16/1295417/#tab/History]

Climate clubs embedded in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement

Recent times have witnessed an increasing number of countries and private firms pledging carbon neutrality by mid-century. Whilst representing a significant improvement in intentions to tackle climate change, such pledges lack substance and structure. For instance, individual pledges lack coordination and aggregation among peers, while strategies and measures to achieve ambitious targets are largely absent. Moreover, current disagreements obstructing progress in international climate change negotiations further undermine the reliability of carbon neutrality objectives. Effective international policies are needed to foster aggregate mitigation ambitions and the creation of adequate supporting mechanisms. This theoretical paper describes a governance innovation aimed at overcoming such shortfalls and disagreements through a unifying yet customizable pathway towards carbon neutrality. It does so by first outlining a political governance framework based on a climate club interpretation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Secondly, it proposes carbon emission mitigation effort sharing on a per capita basis to ensure efficiency, equity and political feasibility. Thirdly, this paper describes how the supply of certified mitigations of carbon emissions required to satisfy effort sharing-based demand can be assetized as carbon credits by operationalizing Article 6 as a joint certification mechanism. The resulting governance architecture for managing demand and supply of mitigations shifts efforts to tackle climate change from a ‘problem-driven’ cost approach to ‘opportunity-driven’ value creation pathways towards carbon neutrality.

Disability, Human Rights, and Climate Justice

The universally dire threat of climate change disproportionately affects marginalized populations, including the over one billion persons with disabilities worldwide. States that disregard the Paris Agreement, or exclude disabled persons from climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, are violating agreed-upon human rights obligations. Notably, the rights contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, are threatened by climate change. To date, however, disability has largely been excluded from international climate change negotiations as well as national-level discharge of climate-related measures. By contrast, a disability human rights approach views disabled persons as disproportionately experiencing environmental threats and unnatural disasters due to their exclusion from state laws, policies, and services available to their non-disabled peers. Additionally, a disability human rights approach mandates the removal of exclusionary barriers and the implementation of positive measures to ensure the equitable treatment of individuals with disabilities. Achieving disability-inclusive climate justice requires “participatory justice”—empowering persons with disabilities to ascertain climate mitigation and adaptation approaches that are efficacious for, successfully implementable by, and accountable to disabled people. Disability-inclusive climate justice solutions are in synergy with universal climate justice goals and benefit entire societies, not “only” those with disabilities.

Inequity in International Climate Change Negotiations

The adoption of international climate agreements requires thorough negotiation between parties. This study aims to analyse the inequities between developed and developing countries in climate negotiations. This was done through a scrutiny of the main stages of these negotiations from the Rio Conference to the advent of the Paris Agreement. Our analysis has shown pervasive inequities along the climate negotiations over time. The UNFCCC made a qualitative separation between developed and developing countries in the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. Furthermore, the Kyoto Protocol emphasized this with the commitment of developed countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5%. The Kyoto Protocol by introducing flexibility mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) contributed to increase inequalities. The Paris Agreement has increased inequity by requesting each country to submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) even though the global emission of developing countries remains very low. The negotiation style of developing countries is mostly limited to compromise and accommodation to the desires of the powerful states, as is the case in most international cooperation. The reality of the climate change negotiations mirrors the inequalities between developed and developing nations.

China’s Fairness Discourses and Allocation of Climate Responsibility

Abstract The idea of ‘fairness’ may be viewed as fundamental to a nation’s participation in the development of the international legal system governing climate change. As the second-largest economy and the largest Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitter in the world, China’s actions on climate change are critical to the global response. Indeed, international cooperation on climate change is unlikely to succeed without China’s active engagement. Therefore, China’s perception of the fairness of responsibility allocation will significantly influence its attitudes toward its international climate responsibilities. However, limited work has been done to date to concretely examine China’s perspective of the fairness of responsibility allocation and to understand its fairness discourses and practices of climate responsibility in a dynamically evolved process. This article aims to fill that gap in the literature by elucidating how China perceives the fair allocation of climate responsibility and how its fairness discourses and practices have evolved over the course of the three phases of international climate change negotiations. It will be shown that China has perceived the factors of historically accumulated emissions, per capita emissions and capability to lie at the very core of its understanding of fairness.

The failure of Deep Decarbonising of Europe (DDE) by 2050 in line with the Paris agreement: a losing player analysis

Some international climate change negotiations result in apparent successes. Others seem to fail or simply flat line. The 2015 Paris Accord reflects a formal global climate change management transi...

Beyond good intentions, to urgent action: Former UNFCCC leaders take stock of thirty years of international climate change negotiations

ABSTRACT The authors, who have all held senior positions in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, take critical stock of what has been achieved since the negotiations were launched 30 years ago in December 1990. The assessment is made against seven functions or roles of multilateral processes (e.g. developing international law, setting goals, and supporting developing countries), and based on clear-eyed expectations of what multilateralism can and cannot do in a world of sovereign states and powerful economic interests. The authors point to some important successes, but also serious shortcomings, particularly in terms of failure of governments to deliver on agreed goals, and inadequate action and coordination within the UN system. The authors conclude that continuing at the pace of the last 30 years is unthinkable. Key policy insights The international climate change negotiations have successfully delivered three landmark treaties, providing the basis for a coherent international response to the climate crisis, but their impact is constrained by the realities of the multilateral system. Particular successes include the climate treaties’ goals – especially the UNFCCC’s ultimate objective and Paris Agreement’s temperature rise thresholds and ‘global net zero’ target – systems for data sharing and transparency and growing engagement of stakeholders. The principal shortcoming is failure by governments to fully implement treaty obligations, exacerbated by the still inadequate response of the business community. The rate of global emission growth over the 30-year period testifies to this failure, with the levels of support to developing countries also falling short of what is required. The principal role of the multilateral climate change negotiations must now be to promote full implementation of agreed commitments and ensuing national actions. Maximum use should be made of every mandated deadline. International agreement on clear and precise targets for 2030 and 2050 will be important, but only if accompanied by strong and specific policies. ‘Business as usual’ in climate change negotiations will mean failure to avoid dangerous climate change. Fuller engagement by leaders is crucial to ensuring an all-of-government approach. The UNFCCC process should address its unwieldiness and act in line with the urgency of the issue.

A Two-Level Hierarchical Graph Model for Conflict Resolution with Application to International Climate Change Negotiations

A novel two-level hierarchical graph model is developed to analyze international climate change negotiations with hierarchical structures: the negotiations take place between two nations and between each nation and its provincial governments. The two national government are two decision makers at the top level. Within each nation, the two provincial governments negotiate with the national government at the lower level. The theoretical structure of this novel model, including decision makers, options, moves, and preference relations, are developed. The interrelationship between the stabilities in the two-level hierarchical graph model and the stabilities in local models are investigated by theorems. These theorems can be utilized to calculate complete stabilities in the two-level hierarchical graph model when the stabilities in local graph models are known. The international climate change negotiations as the illustrative example is then investigated in detail. The extra equilibrium, uniquely obtained by this novel methodology, suggests that opposition may still be from one provincial government when the national government does not sign the international climate agreement and implements existing environmental laws. Compared with other approaches, this novel methodology is an effective and flexible tool in analyzing hierarchical conflicts at two levels by providing decision makers with strategic resolutions with broader vision.

Climate Change and European Cities

The year 1950 has been a tipping point for Europe, as most of the European population became more urban than rural. Since that moment such a transition never stopped, and, projections say that by 2050, the number of urban inhabitants will approximately reach 75% of the total population in Europe, likely imposing further urban sprawl in one of the already most urbanized regions worldwide. As cities are responsible for 75% of the global carbon dioxide emissions, a questionabout how cities are dealing with climate change raises. Climate change threatens cities in numerous ways and at different scales. For instance, urbanization entails local increase in urban temperature, compared to the rural environs, known as Urban HeatIsland (UHI) effect. Both big and small-sized European cities are experiencing UHI. Previous research shows that in Paris, Rome and Barcelona, the UHI is as high as 8, 5 and 8.2 °C, respectively. In addition to urban and microscale temperature surges, anthropogenicclimate change has amplifiedthe intensity and frequency of mesoscale warming phenomena: heat waves. Particularly relevant have been the heat waves recorded in 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2017. In Europe, from June to August 2003, the heat wave caused about 35000 deaths. In 2018, persistent high temperature anomalies were recorded in Europe, and in particular in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Most important, estimates show that mesoscale warming phenomena will become more frequent in the coming years. On top of these warming phenomena, global land-ocean temperatures are continuing increasing in the last decades. In 2017 the global surface temperature resulted being 0.9 °C higher than the average global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980. The increase in global temperature entails the ice cap melting which causes sea level rise. At present, globally, sea level is 89.7 mm (±0.80 mm) higher than in 1993. In particular, in Europe, both northern European countries and Mediterraneanones, have experienced, in the last 45 years a sea level rise ranging from 0.5 to 3 and from 0.5 to 4 mmper year, respectively. Projections show that, in the coming years, both Northern and Southern European countries will be affected by an increase in the sea level ranging from 0.1 to >0.4 m. As sea level is projected to rise in the coming years, coastal cities—which represent 90% of urban areas globally—will likely be threatened by flooding. Without adaptation strategies, the number of people in Europe annually affected by coastal flooding will be about 0.05 -0.13% of the 27 EU population in 2010. In particular, the Netherlands is ranked among the 20 most exposed countries worldwideto flooding, with potential economic loss of approximately US $1670 billion. Although climate change is a well-known phenomenon—already in 1988 Dr. James Hansen predicted that the increase in greenhouse gases would have led in 2017 to an increase in global temperature of about 1.03 °C compared to the average temperature recorded from 1950 until1980—the global greenhouse gas emissions continue rising, showing that climate negotiations are either still gridlocked or not sufficient to decrease climate altering emissions. If, on the one handinternational negotiations are slow,on the other hand, cities, especially in the last years, are proactivelyimplementingadaptationand mitigation plans. 66% of the European cities have adopted adaptation or mitigation plans. In the list of the top 5 countries with the highest percentage of cities with mitigation or adaptation plans there are Poland, Germany, Ireland, Finland, and Sweden. However, such plans are compulsory just in a minority of countries (i.e., Denmark, France, Slovakia and the UK). As international climate change negotiations fail in addressing climate urgency, as demonstrated by COP24 held in Katowice (Poland) on December 2018, cities, which are among the major causes and the main victims of climate change, have demonstratedto own the right political agility to put in place efficient mitigation and adaptation urban plans. However, as isolated actions would not lead to any measurable global effect, just coordinated efforts, harmonized either at upper scales or among municipalities globally, can provide global mitigation benefits.

International climate change negotiation: the role of Brazil

The increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere raises the average temperature of the planet, triggering problems that threaten the survival of humans. Protecting the global climate from the effects of climate change is an essential condition for sustaining life. For this reason, governments, scientists, and society are joining forces to propose better solutions that could well-rounded environmentally, social and economic development relationships. International climate change negotiations involve many countries in establishing strategies to mitigate the problem. Therefore, understanding international negotiation processes and how ratified agreements impact a country is of fundamental importance. The purpose of this paper is to systematize information about how climate negotiations have progressed, detailing key moments and results, analyzing the role that Brazil played in the course of these negotiations and the country’s future perspectives.

Unpacking the unequal representation of Northern and Southern NGOs in international climate change politics

Limited research has been done on non-governmental organisation (NGO) heterogeneity and its representation in global governance. Using the example of international climate change politics, we demonstrate that Northern and Southern NGOs tend to pursue different perspectives which are very unevenly represented in international climate change negotiations as NGOs from the Global North still constitute the large majority of NGOs taking part in these negotiations. In contrast to more hopeful outlooks, NGOs, hence, do not automatically contribute to a more democratic and legitimate global governance.

Analysis of Internal Factors of the Swing States in the International Climate Change Negotiations: A Case Study of Poland in COP24

The objective of this paper is to generate insights into the role of states in the international climate change negotiations and implementation of climatic agreements by considering their internal factors based on recent climate change conferences. In this paper, the notion of swing states and recognition are used to determine influential drivers in Poland as it played out a different role over climate change agreements recently. The case study of Poland demonstrates how international obligations, domestic factors, and formation of policy can change the function of a state at international negotiations such as Katowice Conference of Parties—COP24—in December 2018. This research through reference to qualitative indices elaborates how the position of Poland in the recent international climate change negotiations—Cop24—has been shaped? In the conference of parties 24, Poland approached other developed countries that shared its tendency for cutting emission, delivered signals of political attention and solidarity in finding a common landing ground. In sum, the framework of analysis and our results revealed the importance of economic interest, domestic political interests, and passive public awareness to set up to the task in the international agreements such as Katowice negotiation by Poland. To be clearer, the most influential factor of Poland in affecting its role in international climatic negotiations is internal political and economic interests.

Low-carbon governance in China – Case study of low carbon industry park pilot

China is under the pressure of international climate change negotiation, domestic energy security and haze reduction. Replying to these pressures positively, China announced to reduce 40%–45% CO2 per unit Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020, 60%–65% CO2 per unit GDP in 2030 based on 2005 level, and to carry out ambitious reduction measures. To achieve this target, low-carbon governance is necessary. The central government expects to build low-carbon society and develop low-carbon economy through pilots. This paper analyzes the framework of low-carbon governance in China. The government plays a guidance role in the governance process which involves enterprises, NGOs and citizens. Different types of measures, policy tools and actions have been implemented as response to the pressure. The governance can be achieved through the integration of technical, spatial and social pathways.The paper analyzes the framework by using Suzhou Industry Park (SIP) as case study which is a very important part of low carbon management of cities. Although the total CO2 amount in the Park has increased, its CO2 intensity per unit GDP has been reduced in recent years after the efforts made by its Park Council and enterprisers. The policy implementation indicates that the guidance role of local governments and the process are still based on a top-down management at park level, although the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) hopes to carry out pilot program and summarize experiences from a bottom-up mechanism. Target Responsibility System (TRS) is still the key working mechanism and makes contribution to the reduction of CO2 per unit GDP. The low-carbon governance experiences of SIP can be learned by other cities, while local government displays positive attitudes towards low-carbon practices.