Agency dynamics of International Environmental Agreements: actors,contexts, and drivers

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - The structural elements of global environmental governance are notoriously difficult to change and align with the needs of a...     

Reinforcement of multilevel governance dynamics: creating momentum for increasing ambitions in international climate negotiations

Compared to the disappointment of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the results of the recent Conferences of the Parties can be regarded as positive progress. This was made possible due to lesson drawing and learning among states. Recent evidence from the UNFCCC negotiations suggests that countries began to reflect on the “Copenhagen experience.” They are setting up domestic climate legislation in the form of low carbon development plans and share their knowledge and experiences in the international climate change negotiations. Country representatives engage in workshops and roundtables to showcase their mitigation plans and low carbon development initiatives, thereby raising ambitions and creating group pressure on other countries. This article examines how the diffusion of policies across countries is motivated and facilitated by knowledge transfer and learning within multilevel-reinforcing governance dynamics between the domestic level and international negotiations. It analyzes how changes in the negotiation setting from confrontational formal negotiations to a more open forum and bottom-up pledge-and-review process, in combination with a positively framed win–win low carbon economic development narrative resulted in the diffusion of climate policies across developed and developing countries. Communicating these climate initiatives on the national level has shifted the debate. Countries emphasize less the win–lose perspective of economic costs and sacrifice. Thus, they focus less on the question of who should reduce emissions’, but identify co-benefits instead. The institutionalized knowledge sharing within the UNFCCC is also creating positive competitive dynamics among countries to increase their ambition and to take on a leadership role. This shift in the negotiations carries potential for a more ambitious aggregate negotiation outcome and opens up a window of opportunity.     

‘Neutral’ experts? How input of scientific expertise matters in international environmental negotiations

This contribution analyses under what conditions expert input is most likely to be regarded by government representatives as useful and how government representatives use input provided by experts. It widens the analytical lens examining multilateral negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between 2009 and 2011. The findings confirm the importance of deep knowledge, long-term involvement in the policy subsystem and networks. This research illustrates the importance of policy-entrepreneurial strategies such as proactively approaching government representatives and volunteering knowledge. Joining government delegations can increase expert input as they may gain access to the negotiation text. It is crucial to provide input early on in the negotiation cycle before the national negotiation position is decided. Scientific consensus on climate change facilitated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in a convergence of the actor’s beliefs towards understanding climate mitigation and adaptation as normative imperative. Actors, however, interpret expert input based on the consensual IPCC findings differently depending on their conflicting political objectives. Thus, instrumental and political use of expert input by the interest groups overlaps in the UNFCCC.     

Multilevel reinforcing dynamics: Global climate governance and European renewable energy policy

This article breaks new ground by revisiting the Multiple Streams Framework as central public policy theory and modifying it to take into account multilevel reinforcing dynamics. This is important as it allows policy change to be explained more accurately given the empirical interdependencies between policy‐making on the national, regional (e.g., European) and international levels, which so far have not been sufficiently taken into account by traditional public policy theories. It process‐traces how EU‐level policies motivated by energy security considerations and global climate leadership ambitions influenced international‐level agenda‐setting. Global climate change commitments in turn influenced European renewable energy and climate policy. Such multilevel reinforcing dynamics were central for the 2009 European Renewable Energy Directive, the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework and the 2050 European Green Deal proposal to emerge and subsequently facilitated the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which in turn motivated developed and developing countries to legislate and implement climate and renewable energy policies.