Introduction: exploring and explaining the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate

This introduction lays the groundwork for this Special Issue by providing an overview of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP), and by introducing three main analytical themes. The first theme concerns the emergence and continuation of the APP. The contributions show that the emergence of the APP can be attributed to international factors, including the United States' rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, and its search for an alternative arena for global climate governance, and other countries' wish to maintain good relations with the US; as well as domestic factors, such as the presence of bureaucratic actors in favour of the Partnership, alignment with domestic priorities, and the potential for reaping economic benefits through participation. The second theme examines the nature of the Partnership, concluding that it falls on the very soft side of the hard-soft law continuum and that while being branded as a public-private partnership, governments remain in charge. Under the third theme, the influence which the APP exerts on the post-2012 United Nations (UN) climate change negotiations is scrutinised. The contributions show that at the very least, the APP is exerting some cognitive influence on the UN discussions through its promotion of a sectoral approach. The introduction concludes with outlining areas for future research. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Multiscale scenarios for nature futures

Targets for human development are increasingly connected with targets for nature, however, existing scenarios do not explicitly address this relationship. Here, we outline a strategy to generate scenarios centred on our relationship with nature to inform decision-making at multiple scales

Read all about it!? Public accountability, fragmented global climate governance and the media

The way that the media reports and comments on key events in the fragmented global climate governance landscape is one important route to strengthening public accountability of such governance. Editorials and other opinion pieces provide key contributions to the public sphere, but have been almost entirely neglected in media research on climate change. Another understudied aspect in such research is the reporting on the fragmentation of global climate governance across numerous forums. This article provides an exploratory approach to address these two research gaps. It presents a quantitative analysis of how often leading newspapers in seven countries (Finland, India, Laos, Norway, South Africa, UK and USA) wrote about 18 meetings in six different global climate governance forums between 2004–2009 and whether they provided commentaries about them. The study shows that media coverage (articles and opinion pieces) is limited or absent for many meetings that are not attended by heads of state, are the launch of a new process or do not have the convening power of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The pattern of coverage differs significantly among individual newspapers and there is no clear distinction between developed and developing country newspapers. The article concludes that overall news coverage, and editorial commentary in particular, of global climate meetings in the selected newspapers is too low and too patchy to significantly support domestic publics to hold their own (and indirectly other) governments accountable with regard to fragmented global climate governance

Enhancing implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity : A novel peer-review mechanism aims to promote accountability and mutual learning

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – the main international environmental agreement (IEA) for securing our planet's life-supporting systems – is far from delivering its commitments: the 2010 Biodiversity Target was not met, and states are already failing to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets by the 2020 deadline. Whilst this is not an uncommon outcome in IEAs and other internationally adopted environmental goals, the important question is: how to transform this situation? Review processes on implementation of international norms are one important means for this, as resulting information has potential to mobilise criticism, praise and/or feedback from peers and civil society organisations. Criticism may in turn put pressure on and/or encourage states to justify their behaviour and to take actions. In this context, beyond normative considerations as a practice of good governance, accountability is conceptualised as an active practice of giving and demanding of reason of conduct with transformative potential. Our starting argument is that review processes that enable account-holding dynamics have potential to promote implementation of IEAs. In order to assess whether the CBD enables such dynamics, we characterise the CBD's review system, and analyse its review mechanisms from the relational perspective of accountability. In particular, we focus on a novel voluntary peer-review mechanism (VPR) that is to be applied in a pilot phase, as requested by the Conference of the Parties at its thirteenth meeting held in December 2016. We then discuss the potential of the VPR to enable transformative accountability dynamics and enhance national implementation in the CBD

Global climate governance between hard and soft law:Can the Paris agreement's 'Crème Brûleé' approach enhance ecological reflexivity?

<p>In the face of global environmental concerns, legal institutions must cultivate a reflexive capacity to monitor global ecological shifts and to reconfigure their practices accordingly. But, it remains unclear whether harder or softer legal norms are more capable of enhancing such ecological reflexivity. This article traces variations in harder and softer norms in two aspects of the evolution of the global climate change regime-national contributions to mitigation and review mechanisms- A nd their implications for ecological reflexivity. We find the regime's reflexivity has increased moderately and slowly over time but without a consistent shift towards harder or softer norms. The Paris Agreement's innovative approach, combining harder procedural commitments with softer substantive provisions (a 'crème brûleé'), has potential to encourage flexible responses to changing conditions within a stable, long-term architecture. However, the Agreement's softer, transparency-based compliance framework provides limited assurance that countries will make and fulfill ambitious commitments.</p

The impact of the US retreat from the Paris Agreement: Kyoto revisited?

<p>The United States’ decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (pending possible re-engagement under different terms) may have significant ramifications for international climate policy, but the implications of this decision remain contested. This commentary illustrates how comparative analysis of US participation in multilateral environmental agreements can inform predictions and future assessments of the decision. We compare and contrast US non-participation in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, focusing on four key areas that may condition the influence of US treaty decisions on international climate policy: (i) global momentum on climate change mitigation; (ii) the possibility of US non-participation giving rise to alternative forms of international collaboration on climate policy; (iii) the timing and circumstances of the US decision to exit; and (iv) the influence of treaty design on countries’ incentives to participate and comply. We find that differences across the two treaties relating to the first three factors are more likely to reduce the negative ramifications of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement compared to the Kyoto Protocol. However, the increased urgency of deep decarbonization renders US non-participation a major concern despite its declining share of global emissions. Moreover, key design features of the Paris Agreement suggest that other countries may react to the US decision by scaling back their levels of ambition and compliance, even if they remain in the Agreement. Key policy insightsIncreasing global momentum on mitigation since 1997 means that US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is potentially less damaging than its non-participation in the Kyoto ProtocolDespite the declining US share of global emissions, greater urgency of deep decarbonization means that the non-participation of a major player, such as the US, remains problematic for global cooperation and achieving the Paris Agreement’s goalsDifferences in the design of the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement suggest that US non-participation is more likely to prompt reluctant countries to stay within the Paris framework but reduce levels of ambition and compliance, rather than exit the Agreement altogether</p

Legitimacy in an era of fragmentation: the case of global climate governance.

Studies grounded in regime theory have examined the effectiveness of “minilateral” climate change forums that have emerged outside of the UN climate process. However, there are no detailed studies of the legitimacy of these forums or of the impacts of their legitimacy on effectiveness and governance potential. Adopting the lens of legitimacy, we analyze the reasons for the formation of minilateral climate change forums and their recent role in global climate governance. We use Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and Vihma's analytical framework for international institutions to examine three minilateral climate forums: the Asia-Pacific Partnership, the Major Economies Meetings, and the G8 climate process. These forums have significant deficits in their source-based, process-based, and outcome-based legitimacy, particularly when compared to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If assessed purely on grounds of effectiveness, the minilateral forums might be easily dismissed as peripheral to the UN climate process. However, they play important roles by providing sites for powerful countries to shape the assumptions and expectations of global climate governance. Thus, the observed institutional fragmentation allows key states to use minilateral forums to shape the architecture of global climate governance

Entry into force and then? The Paris agreement and state accountability

The entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change brings expectations that states will be held to account for their commitments. The article elaborates on why this is not a realistic assumption unless a broader multilevel perspective is taken on the nature of accountability regimes for international (legal) agreements. The formal accountability mechanisms of such agreements tend to be weak, and there are no indications that they will be stronger for the recent global goals adopted in the Paris Agreement. Looking beyond only peer review among states, national institutions, direct civil society engagement and internal government processes – while each coming with their own strengths and weaknesses – provide additional accountability pathways that together may do a better job. Scientific enquiry is, however, required to better understand, support and find improved mixtures of, and perhaps to move beyond, these accountability pathways. Policy relevance This perspective provides something of a clarion call for a variety of different types of actors at both global and national levels to engage in ensuring that states keep the promises they made in the Paris Agreement. It particularly highlights the importance of national institutions and civil society to step up to the task in the present world order, where states are reluctant to build strong accountability regimes at the global level