Climate change governance for a new global deal

Research programme 2 examines the setting of international negotiations, alternatives to state-based governance to combat climate change, and the human rights and social justice aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

International negotiations on climate change have made little progress in the past decade, despite widespread scientific agreement on the causes of climate change and its impacts, and despite economic arguments about the benefits of early mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The research programme addresses the greatest challenges in international negotiations on climate change, which include the negotiation system itself, and the wider political and institutional context within which the system is embedded.

Two projects in the research programme examine conventional and new forms of climate change governance. Together, they contribute to public policy by shedding light on the preconditions for co-operation among states on climate change, and identifying alternatives to state-centred solutions in taking international action on climate change.

• Project 2a investigates the factors that shape the prospects for international collective action on climate change, considering the extent to which the bargaining positions of countries are shaped by their perceptions of the costs, benefits and risks of climate change and associated policy interventions, and the extent to which bargaining positions are influenced by the interplay between historical and socio-political factors within complex institutional settings;
• Project 2b investigates the potential of emerging governance solutions based on the central role of non-state actors.

And since it can make or break new global initiatives, a further two projects look at social justice in relation to the governance of climate change, and aim to clarify what equity may entail in climate change, both in principle and practice.

• Projects 2c and 2d examine the implications of human rights for international action on climate change, the way that international financing of adaptation and mitigation may challenge notions of sovereignty and global equity, and the potential financial flows brought about by climate change mitigation and adaptation; they combine conceptual and empirical work in philosophy, law and social sciences.