Search results

This article explores strategies in consensus-making processes in international climate diplomacy. Specifically, it examines the consensus-making politics, in the case of negotiating historical responsibility within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In doing so, analytical concepts from the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe are utilized to look for rationales that underpin discursive structures as well as agreement. To conclude, three rationales have dealt with conflicts over historical responsibility. While the first rationale hid conflict behind interpretative flexibility, the second reverted to "reasoned consensus," excluding perspectives commonly understood as political rather than scientific. The third rationale has enabled equivocal use of the concept of historical responsibility in several parallel discourses, yet negotiators still stumble on how to synthesize these with a potential to foster future, more policy-detailed, consensuses with higher legitimacy. Understanding the history and current situation of negotiations on historical responsibility from this perspective can help guide policy makers toward decisions that avoid old pitfalls and construct new rationales that generate a higher sense of legitimacy. ; Funding agencies: Formas [2011-779]; Swedish Energy Agency [P35462-2]

Assessments of the past are essential to the struggle over the right to define the normative position of history under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Despite this importance, attempts to analyze the use of history in this context are rare. This thesis aims to investigate how assessments of the past are used in UNFCCC negotiations on responsibilities to act, focusing on negotiations on historical responsibilities. The research questions concern how discourse on historical responsibility: 1) can be structured, 2) is influenced by UNFCCC negotiating practice, 3) has been structured in the UNFCCC, and 4) has enabled agreement despite considerable conflict. Official UNFCCC documentation between 1991 and 2011 was studied using discourse analysis. This study suggests: first, the UNFCCC discourse on historical responsibility conveys two main assessments—a proportional and a conceptual one—of how the past could be used to differentiate responsibilities to act. Second, the strong consensus focus necessitates rationales underlying an "agreeable history" that is neither too flexible, allowing arbitrariness, nor too rigid, reducing Parties' likelihood of ratifying. Third, as the past evolves, new situations challenge discourse that potentially engages policy makers with a need to rearticulate history. Fourth, if the context changes, so may the importance ascribed to particular assessments of the past. If the stakes increase over time, even more effort is required to reach agreement, which simultaneously becomes more important in solving problems of common concern. Fifth, power seems difficult to circumvent, even by means of cleverly designed negotiating practice. If so, multilateral environmental negotiations could increase the legitimacy of outcomes among Parties in two principal ways: first, by identifying the core conflict that drives negotiations and, second, by evaluating how multilateral environmental negotiations handle conflict. Obscuring or ignoring conflict will likely only reduce the legitimacy of the negotiations.

This report tracks the history of historical responsibility in negotiations to and under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The concept aims at attributing individual country burdens in mitigating climate change based on the relative levels of past emissions. A hermeneutic approach and discursive theory has been applied to the empirical material consisting of documents form the main bodies of the UNFCCC. The historic narrative constitutes a basis for an analysis of how the UNFCCC framing of historical responsibility have affected discussions on equity and inclusiveness across the North-South divide. Even though the concept was part of the discursive struggle over the content of the UNFCCC, it has been more central in the struggle to make the principles on equity, established in the Convention, operational. Historical responsibility has been most elaborated in a proposal by Brazil to the 1997 pre-Kyoto negotiations. This proposal combined a biophysical approach (preferred by the North) with that of a political economic approach (preferred by the South). However, the proposal was soon pushed off the central agenda and discussions on the topic turned technical and centred on scientific uncertainties. The biophysical framing excluded discussions on equity. As the proposal was marginalised within UNFCCC as a whole it became central in discussions on comprehensive approaches to historical responsibility. Any who wanted to discuss comprehensive approaches were referred to this forum wherein talks on equity were excluded by rules of discussion. This echoes a world system with a periphery in the global South dependent upon core countries in the global North. The last mentioned have the capacity to set the agenda. The resulting discursive rules, excluding talks on equity, have not been good to the inclusiveness of Southern participants in the discussion process nor favoured much needed dialogue across the North/South divide in climate change negotiations.