Non-state actors in hybrid global climate governance: justice, legitimacy, and effectiveness in a post-Paris era

In this article, we outline the multifaceted roles played by non-state actors within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and place this within the wider landscape of global climate governance. In doing so, we look at both the formation and aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement. We argue that the Paris Agreement cements an architecture of hybrid multilateralism that enables and constrains non-state actor participation in global climate governance. We flesh out the constitutive features of hybrid multilateralism, enumerate the multiple positions non-state actors may employ under these conditions, and contend that non-state actors will play an increasingly important role in the post-Paris era. To substantiate these claims, we assess these shifts and ask how non-state actors may affect the legitimacy, justice, and effectiveness of the Paris Agreement

Global governance: fit for purpose?

This report from the SNS Democracy Council provides a thorough assessment of whether the current system of global governance is fit for purpose. Do current international organizations hold the power required to develop, implement, and enforce global policies? Do these institutions wield this power with sufficient effectiveness to reduce transboundary problems? And do they possess legitimacy as governing bodies in the eyes of citizens and elites? This report explores these themes in a comparative perspective, mapping and analyzing patterns across a broad range of international organizations in areas such as development, finance, health, human rights, security, and trade. As an illustration, the report also offers an in-depth analysis of power, effectiveness, and legitimacy in respect of global climate governance.Security and Global AffairsInstitutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviou

Greening the state for a sustainable political economy

The intensifying global ecological crisis is, by any measure, among the defining political economy issues of our epoch. Questions concerning the state have recently returned to prominence in the field of environmental politics, offering a productive meeting point for research addressing environmental politics and that addressing the political economy of state transformation. The papers in this section all approach the question of the state and its relationship to ecological crisis from a political-economic perspective, foregrounding its relationship to the broader political-economic model in which it is situated. This short article introduces the four contributions to the special section and situates them amidst the broader contemporary research literature

BVOC ecosystem flux measurements at a high latitude wetland site

In this study, we present summertime concentrations and fluxes of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) measured at a sub-arctic wetland in northern Sweden using a disjunct eddy-covariance (DEC) technique based on a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS). The vegetation at the site was dominated by <i>Sphagnum</i>, <i>Carex</i> and extit{Eriophorum} spp. The measurements reported here cover a period of 50 days (1 August to 19 September 2006), approximately one half of the growing season at the site, and allowed to investigate the effect of day-to-day variation in weather as well as of vegetation senescence on daily BVOC fluxes, and on their temperature and light responses. The sensitivity drift of the DEC system was assessed by comparing H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup>-ion cluster formed with water molecules (H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup>(H<sub>2</sub>O) at m37) with water vapour concentration measurements made using an adjacent humidity sensor, and the applicability of the DEC method was analysed by a comparison of sensible heat fluxes for high frequency and DEC data obtained from the sonic anemometer. These analyses showed no significant PTR-MS sensor drift over a period of several weeks and only a small flux-loss due to high-frequency spectrum omissions. This loss was within the range expected from other studies and the theoretical considerations. <br><br> Standardised (20 °C and 1000 μmol m<sup>−2</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> PAR) summer isoprene emission rates found in this study of 329 μg C m<sup>−2</sup> (ground area) h<sup>−1</sup> were comparable with findings from more southern boreal forests, and fen-like ecosystems. On a diel scale, measured fluxes indicated a stronger temperature dependence than emissions from temperate or (sub)tropical ecosystems. For the first time, to our knowledge, we report ecosystem methanol fluxes from a sub-arctic ecosystem. Maximum daytime emission fluxes were around 270 μg m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup> (ca. 100 μg C m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup>), and during most nights small negative fluxes directed from the atmosphere to the surface were observed

The Green Economy: Functional Domains and Theoretical Directions of Enquiry

The green economy is a highly complex construct in terms of its attempts to integrate economic, environmental, and social concerns, the wide range of actors involved, its material outcomes, and the forms of governance needed to regulate processes of economic greening. As such, it poses new empirical and theoretical challenges for social science research on socioenvironmental futures. This paper has two main aims. The first is to survey the emergent features and functional domains of the green economy. The second is to consider theoretical tools that might be used to analyse the drivers and processes shaping the green economy. Focusing on literature on sociotechnical transitions, ecological modernisation, the ‘green’ cultural economy, and postpolitical governance, we argue that understanding the functional and spatial heterogeneity of the green economy necessitates a multitheoretical approach. We then explore how combining branches of research on socioenvironmental governance can lead to theoretically and ontologically richer insights into the drivers, practices, and power relations within the green economy. In so doing, we respond to calls for socioeconomic research on environmental change which is neither just empirical nor bound to one theoretical outlook to the detriment of understanding the complexity of socioenvironmental governance and human–nature relations.</jats:p

Beyond the public and private divide: Remapping transnational climate governance in de 21th century

This article provides a first step towards a better theoretical and empirical knowledge of the emerging arena of transnational climate governance. The need for such a re-conceptualization emerges from the increasing relevance of non-state and transnational approaches towards climate change mitigation at a time when the intergovernmental negotiation process has to overcome substantial stalemate and the international arena becomes increasingly fragmented. Based on a brief discussion of the increasing trend towards transnationalization and functional segmentation of the global climate governance arena, we argue that a remapping of climate governance is necessary and needs to take into account different spheres of authority beyond the public and international. Hence, we provide a brief analysis of how the public/private divide has been conceptualized in Political Science and International Relations. Subsequently, we analyse the emerging transnational climate governance arena. Analytically, we distinguish between different manifestations of transnational climate governance on a continuum ranging from delegated and shared public-private authority to fully non-state and private responses to the climate problem. We suggest that our remapping exercise presented in this article can be a useful starting point for future research on the role and relevance of transnational approaches to the global climate crisis