The latest UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw highlighted the role that smaller states can play in negotiations

Climate change negotiations aimed at an eventual deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol have proved extremely challenging in recent years. Federica Genovese writes on the UN Climate Change Conference held in Warsaw last month. She argues that while a distinction is traditionally made between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states in negotiations, supposedly weaker states have far more capacity to shape decisions than is commonly recognised. This was apparent in Warsaw where the Philippines played a pivotal role in shaping the discussions

States? interests at international climate negotiations: new measures of bargaining positions

To advance empirical research on international environmental institutions, new data on national positions at the international climate change negotiations are introduced. The observations cover more than 90 countries at two historical moments of climate change decision making: the pre?Kyoto Protocol enforcement (2001?2004) and the post?Kyoto Protocol (2008?2011) meetings. Data were collected from different types of written text. Coding entailed a qualitative (dictionary-based) content analysis and a quantitative text analysis. By systematically exploring these new data, I offer a ?map? of national preferences at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). I also propose a discussion of the dimensions of conflict and policy competition over 10 years of climate negotiations

Climate change campaigners should be cautiously optimistic after the latest UN Climate Summit

World leaders met in New York on 23 September for a ‘Climate Summit’ with the aim of discussing some of the measures that will be contained within a new climate change agreement in 2015. Federica Genovese writes that while the summit provided little in the way of new commitments, it nevertheless demonstrated that the international community of climate policy supporters is growing ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December

Market Responses to Global Governance: International Climate Cooperation and Europe’s Carbon Trading

International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e. insufficiently severe) instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. It also shows the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision

Market responses to global governance: international climate cooperation and europe's carbon trading

International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper, I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e., insufficiently severe) policy instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence also indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. More generally, the results show the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision

Domestic sources of ‘mild’ positions on international cooperation: Italy and global climate policy

This paper investigates Italy's position on global climate change politics in order to explore the larger question of why this country, like similar middle powers, may adopt ambiguous positions on global public policy issues. I start from the observation that in recent history Italy has taken a rather mild position on international climate cooper-ation and climate policy more broadly. To explain this, I propose an argument in divergence with those who claim Italy has low salience in the issue or lack of interest in international climate leadership. I put forward a political economy perspective and claim that different salient concerns motivate the domestic actors that shape the country’s international position. I maintain that these different concerns offset each other, resulting in overall mild preferences. I present support for my theory, zooming in on the motivations of two domestic sources of interna-tional positions: economic sectors and public opinion. The empirical data largely corroborates the theory

The politics of sea migrants in Southern Europe: public attitudes and policy implications

This brief report reviews some recent research on the politics of sea migration at the Southern European border, and in particular Italy, with two primary objectives. First, I seek to briefly illustrate how public attitudes towards migrants at sea in this region are neither monolithic nor unconditionally concentrated in certain areas; rather, public reactions correspond to a combination of emotional and utilitarian considerations that exist across many receiving communities and make public opinion sensitive to migrants’ life experiences. Second, I note the implications of sea migration events and their associated public reactions for policy and agenda setting. I hereby discuss how public opinion activation is fundamental for policy reactions, and why institutional responsiveness has been disrupted and limited

Empathy, geography and immigration: political framing of sea migrant arrivals in European media

How is European media framing sensitive to events such as refugee border crossing and irregular migrants’ arrivals? While news outlets adjust the tone around immigration following ideology, do the contextual characteristics of these incidents matter? This article explores two factors that could explain the varying framing of these highly political events in European mainstream media. One explanation focuses on the role of migrants’ conditions, such as migrants’ way of transit and subsequent human sufferance (or lack thereof). Another emphasizes the role of geography, in particular the location of migrants’ territorial identification relative to the receiving communities. Focusing on the case of sea migration and small boat arrivals in Southern Europe, I argue that the emotional triggers determined by migrants’ transit and their geographical point of detection systematically moderate each other, and jointly affect how the media describe these cross-border immigration events. Empirically, the article presents original newspaper data from Greece, Italy and Spain that collates geospatial information on immigrants’ sea transit and the related number of injuries and deaths during transit. Statistical results indicate that media framing is more sympathetic to events involving suffering migrants, but that this positive framing diminishes if migrants are located only at the border of the national territory and disappears if the migrants are identified in more distant, foreign waters. The results suggest nuanced conditions in which migration can be presented by the media aside from their ideological lenses

Ideological polarization, policy continuity: back to the majoritarian principle?

This introduction to the Italian Politics 2023 special issue gives an overview of the main events characterizing Italian politics during a year of large-scale policy reforms, presidential and parliamentary elections, and the unexpected Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authors pose three questions concerning Italian politics during the year gone by. First, from an institutional viewpoint, they ask whether the revival of majoritarianism as a principle of government formation represents the prelude to a return to enduring party-system bipolarity. Second, from an electoral and public policy perspective, they ask whether the formation of a government led by what many perceive as a radical right party betokens the start of a correspondingly radical shift in Italian public policy. Third, from an international relations perspective, they ask about the extent to which the Meloni government’s attitude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and more generally to Italy’s position on the world stage and in international affairs, is likely to differ from that adopted by Draghi. The chapter elaborates on the three questions by tracing how the events of 2022 generated much more continuity than expected