International Climate Politics Research Articles

A New Kid in Town? The Evolution of the EEAS Headquarters’ Involvement in EU Climate Diplomacy

Relatively little is known about the precise activities of the European External Action Service (EEAS) headquarters in the European Union’s (EU’s) international climate diplomacy, especially since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. This article therefore sketches the evolution of the climate diplomacy activities undertaken by EEAS headquarters between the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in 2015 and COP26 in 2021. Based on a triangulation of official documents and twenty semi-structured interviews, the article finds that although the EEAS headquarters continues to coordinate and mainstream EU climate diplomacy, it has also become more outwardly-involved and entrepreneurial. This entrepreneurship can be explained by the creation within the EEAS of an Ambassador at Large for Climate Diplomacy, the working style of the appointed ambassador, increased resources at EEAS headquarters dedicated to climate diplomacy, and a favourable institutional context within the EU. These findings provide a detailed and updated insight into the involvement of EEAS headquarters within EU climate diplomacy. Accordingly, they improve our understanding of the EU as a climate actor and also demonstrate the importance of individuals in shaping how the EU conducts its climate diplomacy. EEAS, European Union, climate diplomacy, international climate politics

Who believes in green growth? Strategic framing and technology leadership in the UNFCCC negotiations

ABSTRACT Policymakers and governments increasingly frame climate protection in terms of green growth, arguing that continued economic growth and climate protection are complementary and mutually beneficial. With such framing, governments hope to overcome the global common goods problem associated with climate change and to enable higher ambition on climate action within and across states. Yet, no empirical evidence to date has been provided on how widespread the support for green growth is in international climate politics. This paper, therefore, investigates which countries employ green growth framings at UNFCCC negotiations, and whether this relates to domestic factors, in particular economic structure, level of development and climate impacts. We conduct panel-data analysis on green growth positions derived from hand-coding a unique dataset of High-level Segment statements at the Convention of the Parties (COPs) from 2010 to 2019 for 151 countries. The results reveal that, to date, green growth proponents are those countries with the most advanced national clean energy technology (CET) capacities – as measured by the Green Complexity Index. The findings highlight that green growth is not promoted by all countries at international climate negotiations. Key policy insights: In international climate negotiations, climate protection is increasingly framed as a green growth opportunity to motivate global ambition. Clean Energy Technology (CET) leading countries are more likely to use green growth framings than other less-technologically advanced peers and those with high exposure to climate risks. Mechanisms to support green growth pathways for all countries should be scaled up, including technology transfer and finance to foster local capacities and human capital. Given that green growth framings are not universally endorsed, further emphasis should be placed on additional co-benefits of climate action beyond economic growth, such as food and energy security, adaptation and resilience-building.

Moral power of youth activists – Transforming international climate Politics?

Youth Climate Activists are important norm entrepreneurs as humanity is increasingly awakening to the realities of accelerating climate change. They push for seeing climate change not merely through cost-benefit analysis frames but through frames of multiple climate justices. But how successful have these activists been in shifting perspectives in the context of international climate politics? This paper aims to investigate (1) to what extent the normative framework advanced by this movement is increasingly penetrating the international public climate debate, changing arguments, priorities, and frames around the annual UNFCCC COP conferences and (2) the key actors pushing for normative change. Using a unique and comprehensive Twitter dataset for the period between 2014 and 2021 revolving around the annual UNFCCC COP conferences and major youth climate protest events we combine various computational methods, including transformers-based topic modelling and social network analysis in this study. We find that indeed the normative framework advanced by the movement has successfully penetrated the discourse around UNFCCC and that youth climate activists were able gain support from central actors outside the movement, which is further contributing to the diffusion of their normative framework. We conclude that while these results demonstrate the moral power of youth climate activists, more research is needed to understand the influence on the actual negotiations outcomes

Applicability of leadership modes outside the negotiation framework: insights from China

Drawing insights from a qualitative content analysis of China’s national climate reports between 2016 and 2019, this article examines the extent to which classical leadership typologies introduced by Oran Young, Arild Underdal, and Raino Malnes in the early 1990s have explanatory power outside of international climate negotiation frameworks. Mode by mode, we assess the strengths and weaknesses of four classical leadership modes—directional, ideational, instrumental, and structural—to grasp the manifestation of international climate leadership in a domestic context. While the analysis points out some substantial weaknesses in classical leadership modes, it indicates that China has taken consistent efforts to offer climate leadership in a domestic context. Given the huge gap between the leadership literature and the planetary reality; however, the article concludes that the key shortcoming of the leadership literature is that it tends to focus exclusively on the negotiation phase of international climate politics. Therefore, prospective studies on climate leadership have to pay more attention to the locus of leadership.

Egyptian Media Coverage of International Climate Politics: A Case Study of COP27

Egyptian Media Coverage of International Climate Politics: A Case Study of COP27

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.

Climate nationalisms: Beyond the binaries of good and bad nationalism

AbstractClimate nationalism has attracted renewed interest among scholars and analysts of international climate politics, security studies, and international relations more broadly. However, the most prominent arguments about climate nationalism follow a storyline of “good nationalism” or “bad nationalism”—a “positive civic nationalism” versus a “destructive ethnic nationalism.” In this article, we review these debates by drawing on prominent strands of scholarship on climate nationalism, mapped onto three key aspects: climate securitization, political populism, and Civic nationalism. To further ground our review in real‐world politics outside of the United States and Western Europe, we offer a snapshot of climate nationalism narratives deployed by political elites in three large countries in the Asia‐Pacific: Australia, India, and China. Our review shows that considering the multiscalar, multisectoral, and global scope of climate action, it may be futile to look for a conclusive answer to the question of whether nationalism is good or bad for fostering effective and enduring transformations suitable for a climate‐changed world. Instead, we recommend a research agenda focused on investigating the myriad ways in which political and economic elites fuse discourses of nationalism with various aspects of climate politics and climate action. A proper understanding of elite interests, discourses, and strategies, in ways that account for varied national and regional political and economic contexts, we argue is crucial for a fuller understanding of how narratives of nationalism may affect climate action.This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance Climate and Development > Knowledge and Action in Development Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy

Who takes the lead? A disaggregate analysis of the EU's engagement in the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation

Action is needed from all the major emitting economies if we are to achieve global net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Climate action takes place at various levels of the political system. In this study, we concentrate on cooperation between the major economies on clean energy technologies in the frame of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM; initiated in 2010) and Mission Innovation (MI; initiated in 2015). More precisely, building on research on the European Union's (EU) leadership in international climate politics, we concentrate on how the EU Commission and the EU member states have exerted leadership in these two organizations in the period 2013–2022 (for the CEM) and 2017–2022 (for MI), respectively. We use descriptive techniques and cluster analysis to investigate our original dataset. We find that, first, the EU Commission has been more active in MI than in the CEM. Interestingly the EU Commission's leadership in MI even surpasses that of the United States. Second, the EU Commission has been more active than the EU member states in MI but not in the CEM. Third, Germany and the United Kingdom, together with Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark, stand out as particularly active in terms of (co-)leading workstreams.

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.

Non‐ and sub‐state climate action after Paris: From a facilitative regime to a contested governance landscape

AbstractThe Paris Agreement marks a significant milestone in international climate politics. With its adoption, Parties call for non‐ and sub‐state actors to contribute to the global climate agenda and close the emissions gap left by states. Such a facilitative setting embraces non‐state climate action through joint efforts, synergies, and different modes of collaboration. At the same time, non‐state actors have always played a critical and confrontational role in international climate governance. Based on a systematic literature review, we identify and critically assess the role of non‐state climate action in a facilitative post‐Paris climate governance regime. We thereby highlight three constitutive themes, namely different state‐non‐state relations, competing level of ambition, and a variety of knowledge foundations. We substantiate these themes, derived from an inductive analysis of existing literature, with illustrative examples and propose three paradigmatic non‐state actor roles in post‐Paris climate governance on a continuum between compliance and critique. We thereby highlight four particular threats of a facilitative setting, namely substitution of state action, co‐optation, tokenism, and depoliticization. Future research should not limit itself to an effective integration of NSSAs into a facilitative climate regime, but also engage with the merits of contestation.This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance

A feminist geopolitics of bullying discourses? White innocence and figure-effects of bullying in climate politics

This paper examines discourses of bullying in international climate politics. Drawing on two cases, first the (social) media coverage which surrounded climate activist Greta Thunberg’s visits to the UK in 2019, and second Thunberg’s interactions with former US President Donald Trump, alongside a theoretical framework inspired by feminist geopolitics, the paper argues that discourses of bullying can be conceptualised as a series of figurations (the ‘bully’, the ‘bullied’, and the ‘anti-bully’) which reproduce individuated relations of power. Overall, the paper argues that individuating bullying discourses perpetuate a politics of white innocence which preserves petro-masculine power in international climate politics. To contest these unequal power dynamics, the paper argues for an anti-bullying politics grounded in collective, intersectional challenges to climate injustice.

U. S. climate institutions and the intelligence community: Domestic and international collaboration

Climate change presents an actorless threat. The most powerful world jurisdictions are undertaking efforts to tackle this global threat multiplier. The Biden-Harris administration, returning the U. S. back to international climate politics, claims the leadership role. The author of the article examines how the administration’s climate rhetoric is backed up organizationally. The institutional architecture that powers Biden’s climate policy is put at the center of the article’s analysis. The United States intelligence community has been entrusted with a significant role in running current U. S. institutional climate recovery efforts. The article approaches the engagement of the intelligence community in climate policy from such angles as policymakers’ expectations of the intelligence community and its role and capabilities for domestic and international collaboration. The article proceeds through three stages. The first stage presents theoretical frameworks for new-institutional analysis approaches to climate policy of the United States. The second examines how the Biden-Harris administration organizes institutions in the system of climate policy. The third approaches the role and functions of the U. S. intelligence community in climate change prevention policy. The author concludes that the U. S. intelligence community possesses a strong capacity to provide for responsible decision making in regard to the climate, however, mechanisms for domestic and international climate intelligence exchange have yet to be determined.

Making Industrial Policy Work for Decarbonization

AbstractIndustrial policy has begun to move into the center of debates on climate policy. This represents a shift away from climate policy as we know it—as classic environmental policy. Industrial policy and environmental policy differ in their policy goals, policy instruments, and distributional effects, one primarily concerned with economic development, the other with cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This raises questions about policy interactions between industrial and environmental policy in broader climate policy mixes and how these affect global decarbonization. This article identifies complementary and conflictual dynamics between industrial policy and environmental policy in both domestic and international climate politics. It shows how green industrial policy can advance climate goals and cooperation but can also present challenges to deepening climate cooperation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing an understanding of policy interactions is central to leveraging the potential of industrial policy to accelerate global decarbonization.

The evolution of climate governance in China: drivers, features, and effectiveness

ABSTRACT Understanding the underlying forces of China’s climate governance, and assessing the effectiveness of China’s climate institutions, are critical to the global climate governance architecture. This paper reviews the evolution of China’s climate governance system over the past three decades, and examines how factors such as socioeconomic transitions, cognitive shifts associated with climate change, as well as international climate politics have influenced China’s climate institutions. We argue that the evolution of climate governance is influenced by the varying dynamics between climate change and Chinese state’s quest for performance legitimacy. The positive co-benefits between climate change, energy conservation and environment quality triggered the creation of a dedicated climate agency, which then become an anchor to China’s Five-Year Plan and a centerpiece of climate policy communities. The announcement of a climate neutrality target marked a new moment for China as climate change become a new source of performance legitimacy.

Interrogating the promises and perils of climate cryptogovernance: Blockchain discourses in international climate politics

This article interrogates the assumed promises and perils of climate cryptogovernance or deployment of cryptographic technology (i.e., blockchain) within climate governance. We distill how climate cryptogovernance is being discussed by influential climate policy actors, and the implications for reinforcing or challenging how climate governance currently occurs. Specifically, through discourse analysis, we explore how blockchain technology is presented in the communications of international organisations and multistakeholder initiatives in the climate policy space. We identify a dominant storyline being advanced that views blockchain as an enabler of ambitious climate action, through its potential to enhance the reliability, transparency, accountability, and democratic quality of climate governance. We critically interrogate each of these component elements of the dominant storyline, arguing that, taken as a whole, they tend to privilege a technocratic, market-oriented approach to climate governance. We conclude by reflecting on whether this risks reinforcing a problematic ‘post-political’ turn in environmental governance in the future.

From Kyoto to Paris and Beyond: The Emerging Politics of Climate Change

Anthropogenic climate change has emerged as the most disruptive socio-political issue in the last few decades. The Kyoto Protocol’s failure to curb the rising greenhouse gases emissions pushed the UNFCCC-led negotiations towards a more flexible, non-binding agreement at the Paris COP21 meeting in 2015. The Paris Agreement’s hybrid approach to climate change governance, where flexible measures like the nationally determined commitments are balanced against the ambition of limiting the global temperature within the two-degree range, ensured the emergence of an increasingly complex and multi-stakeholder climate change regime. The article outlines the roadmap of the transition from the top-down approach of Kyoto Protocol to the legally non-binding, bottom-up approaches adopted for the post-Paris phase. The article outlines the post-Paris developments in international climate politics, which hold long-term geopolitical and geoeconomic implications. The article focuses on the fundamental shifts and balances within the UNFCCC architecture and examines the four fundamental features of this transition—the interpretation of differentiation and common but differentiated responsibilities, the evolving role of emerging economies in the negotiations, the rising profile of non-party stakeholders in shaping the climate action strategies and the emergence of climate justice movements as an alternate site of climate action.

Making Industrial Policy Work for Decarbonization

Industrial policy has moved into the center of debates on climate policy, as the EU’s Green Deal, China’s green industrial strategy, President Biden’s climate agenda, and green stimulus packages such as South Korea’s reflect. This represents a shift away from climate policy as we know it—as classic environmental policy. Industrial policy and environmental policy differ in their policy goals, policy instruments, and distributional effects. One primarily concerned with economic development, the other with cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This raises questions about policy interactions between industrial and environmental policy in broader climate policy mixes, and how these effect global decarbonization. This paper identifies complementary and conflictual dynamics between industrial policy and environmental policy in both domestic and international climate politics. It shows how green industrial policy can advance climate goals and cooperation, but can also present challenges to deepening climate cooperation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing an understanding of policy interactions is central to leveraging the potential of industrial policy to accelerate global decarbonization.

The UNFCCC, the EU, and the UNSC: A research agenda proposal for the climate security question

This study proposes climate security: a research agenda proposal with certain research significance. It acknowledges the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as current institutional case studies (and key actors) for international climate politics. It answers the question of the extent to which climate security scholars have mapped the field with respect to these three institutions. To do this, it reviews relevant literature of climate security and concisely summarizes the literature views. Although climate security scholars have studied how these specialist institutions have understood global climate governance, a comparative coverage of how the institutions have conceptualized climate security is missing in existing literature. The key finding shows the concepts of epistemic communities, climate securitization and climate-riskifications as appropriate analytical themes for interpreting the emerging norm of climate security. Arguing that conceptual development persists even though the institutions original mandates did not require such conceptualization, the study uses discourse analysis of relevant literature on climate security to orient future research on climate change and climate security given the knowledge that speech-acts on climate security (henceforth speech-acts) now seem like potential policy consideration in the foreseeable future.

“United we stand, divided we fall”. The effects of US contestation on EU foreign climate policy ambition

ABSTRACT A number of key governments’ active diplomacy and leadership, including the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA), drove the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015. Less than two years later, international climate politics looked very different: Former key proponents strongly contested climate policy, most prominently exemplified by President Trump’s 2017 announcement to withdraw the USA from the Paris Agreement. Our analysis focuses on the EU’s response to this hard contestation, as a central actor in the multilateral climate regime, the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter and an active proponent of achieving the Paris Agreement goals. We trace how the European Council, the Council of the EU, and the European Parliament (EP) responded to the USA’s climate U-turn. Our qualitative content analysis finds that the EU overall pursued a rhetorical containment strategy by reinforcing its commitment to ambitious climate policy and the Paris Agreement.

Equity, climate justice and fossil fuel extraction: principles for a managed phase out

ABSTRACT Equity issues have long been debated within international climate politics, focused on fairly distributing reductions in territorial emissions and fossil fuel consumption. There is a growing recognition among scholars and policymakers that curbing fossil fuel supply (as well as demand) can be a valuable part of the climate policy toolbox; this raises the question of where and how the tool should be applied. This paper explores how to equitably manage the social dimensions of a rapid transition away from fossil fuel extraction. Fossil fuel extraction leads to benefits for some people (such as extraction workers) and harms for others (such as pollution-affected communities). A transition must respect and uphold the rights of both groups, while also staying within climate limits, as climate impacts will fall most heavily on the world’s poor. This paper begins by reviewing how extraction affects economies and communities and the different transitional challenges they face. Based on that review, it then examines three common equity approaches – economic efficiency, meeting development needs, and effort-sharing. Drawing lessons from the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, the paper proposes five principles as a basis for equitably curbing fossil fuel extraction within climate limits: (1) Phase out global extraction at pace consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C; (2) Enable a just transition for workers and communities; (3) Curb extraction consistent with environmental justice; (4) Reduce extraction fastest where doing so will have the least social costs; (5) Share transition costs fairly, according to ability to bear those costs. Key policy insights: Fossil fuel extraction is unlikely to be a viable path to development because the Paris Agreement goals require most fossil fuel use to be ended within a generation; Extraction should be phased out fastest in diversified, wealthier economies that can better absorb the transitional impacts; Governments of extracting countries should enact ambitious industrial policy to diversify their economies, alongside economic and employment policies to enable a just transition; The costs of a just transition should be borne by those most able to bear it: poorer countries can reasonably demand financial support.