Suchergebnisse

India is a key actor in global climate governance, a result of its emissions profile, economic performance, and leadership role in the developing world. This article examines the new dynamics that are affecting the Indian position in global climate negotiations, which until recently has reflected a very traditional developing country position, tinged with neocolonial rhetoric. To analyze the Indian position in the era of thickening international legalization, the article considers the different basic views among the Indian policy-making elite. A significant national consensus exists on the notion that the developed countries have not "taken the lead" as was agreed in 1992 with the adoption of the U.N. Climate Change Convention. However, there is an intensive political debate in India revolving around the extent to which the country should take unilateral action on climate change and whether and how to link such measures to the international legalization process, as well as the respective role of per capita entitlements in the Indian international position. Influenced by international negotiations, the domestic policy dialogue is also shifting in India in important ways toward a more "internationalist" and proactive approach.

Reporting and review arrangements are often portrayed as vital for keeping countries informed about each other's climate intentions and actions. They are set in order to enhance accountability and mutual trust, ultimately securing more ambitious climate actions.This Briefing Paper provides an updated analysis of state engagement with the recent reporting requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The analysis shows that the performance of countries continues to vary greatly. The full data of the research is available to be requested from the authors.Understanding current trends of engagement with reporting is crucial for informing the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. Indeed, the Agreement calls for an "Enhanced Transparency Framework" to be implemented by 2024. This represents a major ramping up of transparency obligations, especially for developing countries.Significant challenges lie ahead in the implementation of ever more stringent transparency requirements. Political reluctance to report on national climate actions (or lack thereof) to multilateral institutions such as the UNFCCC is a likely obstacle to the functioning of the new transparency framework. Technical obstacles may also limit the disclosure of information. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This article examines the concept and metaphor of fragmentation and its
underlying assumptions in international law and global governance. After
engaging with fragmentation historically, we analyze current debates through
five conceptual perspectives. Fragmentation is oft en perceived as a process, a
gradation, a process with a single direction, a prognosis, and normatively as
either loss or liberation. These interlinked tendencies carry conceptual implications,
such as making fragmentation apparently inevitable or provoking
positive revaluations of fragmentation in terms of differentiation. Furthermore,
the conceptual coupling of fragmentation with modernity enhances
these effects with an historical thesis. Consequently, fragmentation appears as
a ubiquitous and necessary, rather than contingent, feature of modern law—a
conceptual implication that may hinder empirical work, and that merits critical
analysis.

Geopolitics and geoeconomics are often addressed together, with the latter seen as a sub-variant of the former. This article shows the usefulness of differentiating them at a conceptual level. By juxtaposing traditional geopolitics and geoeconomics, we suggest that they have remarkably different qualities and implications for their targets, on both national and international levels. Importantly, these include the formation of alliances, and whether they are driven by balancing, bandwagoning or underbalancing dynamics. An analysis of Russia's shifting geostrategy towards Europe shows these differences in practice. Russian geoeconomics has long been successful as a 'wedge strategy', dividing the EU. As a result, the EU has underbalanced and its Russia policies have been incoherent. The observable tendencies in 2014-15 towards a more coherent European approach can be explained by the changing emphasis in Russia's geostrategy. Russia's turn to geopolitics works as a centripetal force, causing a relative increase in EU unity. Centripetal tendencies due to heightened threat perception can be observed in the economic sanctions, emerging German leadership in EU foreign policy, and discussion on energy union. The analysis calls for more attention to the way strategic choices-geopolitics versus geoeconomics-affect the coherence of threatened states and alliance patterns. (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)

This paper explores possibilities to strengthen the global climate change negotiations by improving the efficiency of the negotiations process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of continuing growth of global greenhouse gas emissions and already observable impacts of climate change. Given the urgent and multifaceted nature of the climate change problem, the expanding international climate policy agenda and the various new institutions and processes created under the UNFCCC in recent years, the efficiency of the negotiations process is an important challenge. This working paper was commissioned by the Nordic Working Group for Global Climate Negotiations (NOAK) to serve as a discussion paper for a workshop "Strengthening the Global Climate Change Negotiations" that took place at the Nordic Council of Ministers in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 2012. The paper was subsequently updated to reflect discussions at the workshop on the basis of the Chatham House rule. It aims to address the state-of-play in the UNFCCC negotiations, identify some of the main problems and develop concrete proposals to enhance the effectiveness of the climate regime. In doing so, the paper focuses on three main clusters of procedural issues: organization of the work, institutions exercising oversight of the negotiation process, and the decision-making of the COP. Inputs from outside the regime are also briefly addressed. The paper does not intend to give mature suggestions on the way forward, but rather, it seeks to identify issues and themes concerning the efficiency of the UNFCCC negotiations for further discussion.

AbstractThe international norms that are developed as tools of global governance can be placed on a continuum from traditional "hard law" treaties to the vaguest and voluntary "soft law." In this article we develop an analytical framework for comparing norms on different positions along the continuum, thus for comparing international hard and soft law. We root the framework in both the rationalist and the constructivist paradigms of international relations by focusing on two overarching evaluative criteria: effectiveness and legitimacy. These broad concepts are divided into smaller building blocks encompassing mechanisms through which norms can exert influence; for example, by changing material incentives, identities, and building capacity, and by contributing to building source‐based, procedural, and substantive legitimacy. We illustrate the applicability of the framework with three norm processes of varying degrees of "softness" in global climate governance.

The rise of authoritarian populism has disrupted the patterns of party competition in many Western societies. Related to this development, the current debates in the United States and European Union illustrate how empirical science on climate change may become intensely politicized, and all ambitious climate policies challenged in the contemporary political landscape. We set out an analytical framework with three ideal types of political strategies for opposing climate policies: climate science denialism, climate policy nationalism, and climate policy conservativism. Empirically, the article investigates populist resistance to ambitious climate change policy in the Nordic context, where countries have sought to assume global leadership in climate politics and have considerable public support for climate action. In an analysis of the evolving positions of populist parties in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden in recent elections, the article sheds light on the interconnection between populism and climate change policy.