Polycentric Climate Governance Research Articles

Seen but overlooked? The emergence of regional leadership in polycentric climate governance after Paris

Seen but overlooked? The emergence of regional leadership in polycentric climate governance after Paris

Procedural climate justice: Conceptualizing a polycentric solution to a global problem

This article introduces a conceptual framework for climate governance. It provides an insight into how a system of governance can cope with the uncertainty and pluralism that are prevalent in climate governance. In our framework, we combine polycentric climate governance, procedural climate justice and directed technical change policy. We show that following norms of procedural justice can enhance the desired properties of polycentric systems. In turn, polycentric systems are a suitable environment for fulfilling procedural justice norms. As to the policy dimension: There is reason to assume that innovation and adaptation policies work well in polycentric systems, while carbon pricing relies more strongly on a global treaty to be effective. And innovation and adaptation profit from procedural justice norms being followed. Polycentrism, procedural justice, and innovation and adaptation policy all possess specific properties that can cope very well with a complex environment where there is positive uncertainty about the future and many parties with different normative outlooks. They combine to a system that is flexible and adaptable over time. This constitutes the particular strength of our conceptual system as a framework for climate governance, policy, and research.

Polycentric Governance, Coordination and Capacity: The Case of Sargassum Influxes in the Caribbean

The merits of polycentric climate governance have attracted considerable discussion. On the one hand, polycentric governance offers an alternative to top-down state-centric forms that have so far proven elusive. On the other, highly networked systems increase coordination challenges. Less attention has been paid to the varying capacities required to achieve coordination. In this article we explore the coordination of polycentric governance via a case study of sargassum influx management in the Caribbean. Since 2011, large quantities of sargassum seaweed have been washing up on Caribbean beaches with adverse socio-economic impacts. Our analysis of sargassum management policies reveals that a nascent polycentric system has generated significant cooperation in policy development and application across the region. However, there remain national capacity deficits to engage in this form of governance and to implement agreed actions. We conclude that advocates of a polycentric climate governance regime need to consider how capacity shapes participation, to the advantage of the largest and strongest. Polycentric governance can be useful for solving disparate cross-border environmental problems, but it also imposes a cost on the smallest that has thus far been unacknowledged and undertheorized.

Governing the diverse forest: Polycentric climate governance in the Amazon

The Amazon is rapidly approaching its tipping point, which could turn a once enchanted tropical rainforest into a dry, carbon-emitting savannah. This will have catastrophic impacts well beyond the South-American continent and its inhabitants. The region is facing a nowadays familiar challenge of combating climate change and promoting social justice. International climate governance is proving ineffective, as it fails to incorporate the long term wellbeing of local communities. Demands for justice have led to calls for more polycentric climate governance. This approach aims to provide a culture-specific and place-based approach to dealing with the possible consequences of climate change for social justice and sustainable livelihoods. This article examines the scope for introducing Intercultural Polycentric Climate Governance (IPCG) to the Amazon. We select two examples of subnational climate governance and indigenous peoples’ participation in the Amazon as our case studies: the State of Acre in Brazil and the regional department of Ucayali in Peru. Both are seen as pioneers of intercultural climate governance in their national contexts, and both have established indigenous working groups geared to promote the provision of intercultural fairness within their regional governance mechanisms. We conducted a qualitative content analysis, both of our interviews and relevant policy documents. Our study highlights three challenges for successful IPCG: 1) overcoming intercultural injustices; 2) increasing meaningful participation; and 3) filling governance gaps. Our findings reveal that there is still some way to go to meet these outcomes. Bridging polycentricity and interculturality, diverse systems of knowledge and their adherents need to be better appreciated and incorporated as part of the process of reassessing the purpose of IPCG. Only then, will we see the handling of the future of the enchanting Amazon in a holistic way: so much more than mere carbon storage.

“All in” climate regime: federated states as autonomous participants to the Paris Agreement the cases of Québec and California

ABSTRACT In a context where the province of Québec (Canada) and the state of California (United States of America) have committed to take ambitious actions in line with the Paris Agreement independently of their central government, this paper asks whether these federated states are truly implementing the provisions of the Paris Agreement in their own jurisdictions. This paper first describes the climate regime’s gradual expansion beyond United Nations member states to a form of “all in” multilevel and polycentric climate governance. It then identifies what the Paris Agreement expects of signatory Parties and presents case studies of Québec and California to assess whether they meet its provisions. The analysis reveals that both are indeed implementing the key provisions of the Paris Agreement in their own jurisdiction. These findings confirm that some federated states, as part of their paradiplomatic climate strategies, acts as autonomous actors within the global climate regime structured around the Paris Agreement. More broadly, these findings demonstrate the role and contribution of subnational governments in helping to bridge the effort gap to provide an adequate response to the climate emergency.

Research on the carbon neutrality governance under a polycentric approach

Carbon neutrality has increasingly become a crucial agenda within global climate governance. Meanwhile, recent observations show that the governance architecture for carbon neutrality is transforming to polycentricity. However, there is still a lack of systematic investigation on carbon neutrality governance under the polycentric approach. Against this background, this study attempts to investigate the emergence and structure of polycentric climate governance, and to figure out to what extent the evolving polycentric system can contribute to the climate change governance towards carbon neutrality. The results show that efforts made by actors at transnational and subnational levels within the polycentric system can greatly complement the deficits of carbon neutrality governance by international regime and state government in many different domains. Besides, the identified issues, that are critical to carbon neutrality including climate legislation, adaptation, technology deployment and data authenticity and transparency, can be addressed in a more effective way through the coordination among multiple actors at multiple levels. Finally, further research should be conducted to address the dynamic linkages between international regimes as well as the issues related to small and medium-sized cities, and develop a comprehensive evaluation and accounting system for the risks and benefits of polycentric climate governance.

Introduction

AbstractAcknowledging the exponential growth and global dimension of climate litigation, this introductory piece to this Special Section starts by situating this phenomenon in the context of the scholarly debate on polycentric and multi-level climate governance. It highlights both the strategic use of climate litigation as a tool to establish responsibilities and push for a more ambitious mitigation and adaptation agenda, but also as an opportunity to better understand the role of courts in public policy governance. The second part of the article then proceeds to discuss the main findings arising from the various contributions grouped in this section, and concludes by arguing that further research is needed in order to properly understand the role and contribution of climate change litigation to transnational climate governance.

Five dimensions of climate governance: a framework for empirical research based on polycentric and multi‐level governance perspectives

AbstractGovernance of climate mitigation and adaptation has been discussed within polycentric and multi‐level governance perspectives. Both perspectives on climate governance are intimately related but yet in some regards are distinctly different ‐ as one perspective has evolved from empirical research within the United States and the other in the European Union. Within an increasingly global discourse on climate governance, there is a need in the literature to bring both discourses together. The findings are based on a systematic literature review of 42 climate governance papers published since 2000. This paper discusses how multi‐level and polycentric climate governance perspectives converge and diverge along five dimensions. The five dimensions provide insights for applying a multi‐level or polycentric governance perspective to empirical research.

Governing Climate Change: Polycentricity in Action? By Andrew Jordan, Dave Huitema, Harro van Asselt, and Johanna Foster, editors. 2018. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

<i>Governing Climate Change: Polycentricity in Action?</i> By Andrew Jordan, Dave Huitema, Harro van Asselt, and Johanna Foster, editors. 2018. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Role of Non-State Actors in Climate Law

This chapter engages the key legal debates surrounding the role of non-state actors (NSAs) in climate law. NSAs—a wide category that reflects the expansion of international climate governance beyond the state—include entities as diverse as individuals, companies, international organizations, industry associations, cities, indigenous peoples, and civil-society organizations. Over the past decades, and especially since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the many roles of NSAs in addressing climate change have attracted significant interest from treaty negotiators, business man-agers, environmental activists, policymakers, and researchers. Seen as performing vital functions ranging from innovation and agenda-setting to implementation, monitoring, and enforcement, NSAs are widely considered as bringing about dynamic forms of climate governance. The potential of direct mitigation effort by NSAs, such as voluntary emission-reduction commitments by companies and cities, is similarly highlighted as a key component in any future solution to climate change. The growing climate action by NSAs forces a rethink of the legal underpinnings of the climate regime and opens new perspectives on the logic of NSA-driven climate governance. This chapter discusses the legal dynamics of non-state climate governance. Using three archetypical NSAs—companies, cities, and civil-society organizations—as proxies, the chapter isolates three primary debates that frame the interactions between NSAs and climate law. These debates focus on the responsibility of NSAs for causing climate change, the legal techniques of NSA governance, and the role of NSAs as agents of legal change and they reflect the rise of polycentric climate governance and illustrate the expansion of climate law beyond its original emphasis on states. However, the discussion also exposes the difficulties that emerge when embedding different NSAs in a single conceptual frame, as well as the limits of NSA-driven governance more broadly.

Moral duties, compliance and polycentric climate governance

Contributions to the climate governance literature have highlighted the importance of recognizing its new polycentric nature, which includes roles for non-state and subnational actors in climate change mitigation and in leadership for climate action. Yet, the literature is missing a normative cartography—that is, a mapping of the distribution of moral duties in the real world—which is tailored to a context of polycentric governance. This paper answers the question: how can moral duties be distributed in a context of polycentric climate governance such as to diminish the problem of non-compliance? This implies the following question: do duties change in situations of non-compliance in a context of polycentric governance, and if so how? Acknowledging polycentric governance is the key to an effective distribution of moral duties, as it allows for a more accurate mapping of non-state and subnational actors’ duties in leading the charge against climate change. Correspondingly, a normative cartography fitted to this context will be instrumental in showing how morally informed climate governance can diminish the problem of non-compliance. This paper focusses on the distribution of moral duties in a context of polycentric governance as a contributing factor to inducing agents to act according to the collective goal. It argues that a more fine-grained distribution of climate duties, tailored to polycentric climate governance, contributes to addressing the problem of non-compliance.

Justice through polycentricity? A critical examination of climate justice framings in Pakistani climate policymaking

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which the existence of a polycentric climate governance regime in Pakistan has enabled diverse framings of climate justice to emerge and be operationalized within policymaking. A two-part analysis is conducted through systematic coding and textual analysis of interview transcripts and policy documents. Firstly, an analysis based on climate justice framings reveals that, whilst national governmental actors predominantly adopt an international framing of climate justice, non-state actors have increasingly adopted vulnerability, human rights and transformational framings of justice, thereby supporting the theory that polycentricity is widening the space for voicing diverse framings. Secondly, a polycentric governance-based analysis reveals that several institutional barriers limit the ability of non-state actors to operationalize these framings, particularly capacity and resource constraints, limits of scale and scope, changing legislation and the unequivocal power held by the state. Hence, Pakistan’s overarching climate change strategy prioritizes justice between countries, while obscuring domestic inequalities, poverty and vulnerability, which are only addressed by non-state actors through isolated activities rather than in a coordinated manner within national policy. This finding suggests that polycentric governance can diversify climate discourse, but also that the intergovernmental climate regime may reinforce the nation state’s international framings of justice at the expense of domestic justice concerns.Key policy insightsNon-state actors within the polycentric climate governance regime in Pakistan are increasingly adopting framings of climate justice beyond those of the nation state, thereby bringing attention to issues of domestic poverty, inequality and vulnerability.Differences in power between state and non-state actors limit the extent to which different justice issues can be addressed through nationally and internationally-led climate policy.There are limitations to the ability of national-level polycentric climate governance regimes, when embedded in intergovernmental negotiations, to engage in redistributing power and advocating for different framings and dimensions of justice being raised by local actors.

Follow the leader? Conceptualising the relationship between leaders and followers in polycentric climate governance

ABSTRACTExisting scholarship on climate governance has not sufficiently considered the relationship between climate leaders/pioneers and followers. Because of the global commons nature of climate change, unilateral leadership or pioneership by one or a small number of actors will be insufficient to combat climate change effectively. The need to take seriously the relationship between leaders and followers is all the greater in the wake of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which emphasises diffuse, bottom–up action. The relationship between leaders and followers in polycentric climate governance is unpacked in this contribution. What types of actors can be climate followers? Through what pathways can followership emerge and how can we capture the essential characteristics of leader–follower relationships? What conditions facilitate (or hinder) followership? The utility of the approach is illustrated using cases of EU climate leadership and (non-) followership of other actors.

Climate pushers or symbolic leaders? The limits to corporate climate leadership by food retailers

ABSTRACTCorporate climate leadership and its relationship with state regulations are discussed. First, a typology defining corporate climate leadership is introduced and distinguished from the other strategic behaviours corporations may adopt in response to climate change. A conceptual framework to explore the mechanisms enabling corporate climate leadership within a given policy system is then presented. This framework is applied to two big Swiss food retailers, considered as typical of corporate climate leaders, firms that showed an early interest in climate protection, as a result of ecological values, third actors’ lobbying and particular market incentives. Most importantly, the two companies were set in motion by a regulatory framework that featured stringent policy goals associated with flexible instruments and economic sanctions. The importance of these findings for understanding the role of corporate leadership in polycentric climate governance is discussed.

Pioneers, leaders and followers in multilevel and polycentric climate governance

The environmental governance literature has seen a proliferation of analytical terms to describe actors who try to engender change for the improvement of the environment/climate, such as entreprene...

Climate change governance in the anthropocene: emergence of polycentrism in Chile

Multilateral efforts are essential to an effective response to climate change, but individual nations define climate action policy by translating local and global objectives into adaptation and mitigation actions. We propose a conceptual framework to explore opportunities for polycentric climate governance, understanding polycentricity as a property that encompasses the potential for coordinating multiple centers of semiautonomous decision-making. We assert that polycentrism engages a diverse array of public and private actors for a more effective approach to reducing the threat of climate change. In this way, polycentrism may provide an appropriate strategy for addressing the many challenges of climate governance in the Anthropocene. We review two Chilean case studies: Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution on Climate Change and the Chilean National Climate Change Action Plan. Our examination demonstrates that Chile has included a diversity of actors and directed significant financial resources to both processes. The central government coordinated both of these processes, showing the key role of interventions at higher jurisdictional levels in orienting institutional change to improve strategic planning and better address climate change. Both processes also provide some evidence of knowledge co-production, while at the same time remaining primarily driven by state agencies and directed by technical experts. Efforts to overcome governance weaknesses should focus on further strengthening existing practices for climate change responses, establishing new institutions, and promoting decision-making that incorporates diverse social actors and multiple levels of governance. In particular, stronger inclusion of local level actors provides an opportunity to enhance polycentric modes of governance and improve climate change responses. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity requires establishing durable communication channels between different levels of governance.

Regulating GHG Emissions from shipping: Local, global, or polycentric approach?

Climate change has recently been a subject of increased attention in the shipping sector. Along with technical issues of GHG emissions reduction, a question of appropriate governance has been raised. The argument regarding the role of global, regional, and local policies in curbing shipping emissions is a part of a broader theoretical debate on forms of global governance. This paper examines the recent literature on polycentric climate governance and suggests principles for environmental regulation in shipping based on a polycentric approach.

Carbon Trading: Who Gets What, When, and How?

Carbon Trading: Who Gets What, When, and How?

Orchestration: Strategic Ordering in Polycentric Climate Governance

This paper considers how the soft and indirect mode of governance known as orchestration has contributed to the growth and structure of the increasingly polycentric climate governance system – a system with multiple centers of authority, public and private, at different governance levels. It also considers the implications of orchestration’s significant role for some of the major propositions of polycentric governance theory. First, that theory suggests that governance organizations emerge spontaneously through local self-organization, yet governments, international organizations and other actors have orchestrated the formation of many climate governance organizations. Second, the theory suggests that governance organizations coordinate their activities on a decentralized basis through mutual adjustment, yet orchestrators have helped to structure the climate governance system and modestly coordinate its constituent organizations. And third, the theory suggests that polycentric governance encourages experimentation, innovation and learning, yet climate governance lacks an organized system that can promote systematic experimentation and learning. The paper concludes by considering how, in this and other areas, further orchestration would be beneficial.

A Polycentric Approach to Global Climate Governance

As international climate negotiations under the UNFCCC have adopted the goal to limit the increase in global mean temperature to well below 2° C, a highly differentiated—but largely uncoordinated—global climate governance system has emerged. Although coordinated global collective action for mitigating climate change sufficiently to meet the 2°-C goal is still lacking, a multitude of multilateral, minilateral, transnational, national, subnational, and nonstate actors have emerged. This article offers a critical specification of the attempt by Elinor Ostrom and those influenced by her in the literature to conceptualize this climate governance reality as a polycentric approach. We claim that the concept of polycentricity offers high descriptive value for understanding the horizontal and vertical differentiations of current climate governance, and present systematic analysis of a polycentric approach to deliberately enhance the design of the emerging global climate governance architecture. To systematize the Ostromean literature on polycentric climate governance, we identify and specify four key features for climate mitigation governance and their related mechanisms: an emphasis on self-organization, a recognition of site-specific conditions, the facilitation of experimentation and learning, and the building of trust. After discussing objections to a polycentric approach, we conclude by tentatively evaluating its potential to enhance the effectiveness of climate mitigation, and identify central tasks for the efficient design of a polycentric global climate governance regime.