In a world that is running against time to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat global warming, it is urgent to examine the effectiveness of the current climate framework.
UNFCCC (n.d.) Bodies[Photo]
Adverse impacts associated to global warming and climate change have been largely discussed within scientific literature. Here we will review the challenges that the UNFCCC framework and partner institutions have faced in addressing the adverse effects of climate change. To do so, it is important to understand, first, how the UNFCCC and partner institutions frame and define the problematic of climate change; second, to identify the actors involved; third, to analyse the design characteristics of the UNFCCC and to address the challenges that key actors’ participation poses to the UNFCCC in general and to the Paris Agreement in particular; fourth, to analyse the UNFCCC’s and the IPCCC’s institutional operation. We will end with a global reflection on the UNFCCC’s institutional effectiveness and with a brief recommendation for the UNFCCC.
Framing Analysis
In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter UNFCCC), member parties define the adverse effects of climate change as those effects that produce “changes in the physical environment resulting from climate change, which have significant deleterious effects on the composition, resilience or productivity of natural and managed ecosystems or on the operation of socio-economic systems or on human health and welfare” (United Nations 1992, p.7). Member parties also define climate change as “a change which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” (United Nations 1992, p.7). This definition differs from the IPCCC’s definition of climate change:
a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (…) by changes in the mean and/ or variability of its properties that persist for an extended period, and that can be due to natural variability or as result of human activity (IPCC 2018, p.544).
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) asserts that the increase in greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere over the last century is the result of the growing use of energy and expansion of the global economy. According to this organisation, “the net effect is to warm the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere because greenhouse gases absorb some of the Earth’s outgoing heat radiation and reradiate it back towards the surface” (UNFCCC 2011, p.1). Therefore, both organisations share the perspective that climate change is the result of human activity, and that this phenomenon will have devastating effects if left unattended (UNFCCC 2011, p.1).
Outside the UN system, the European Commission (EC) considers that “humans are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth’s temperature by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forest and farming livestock” (European Commission). Most NGOs working on solutions to address climate change also agree that this phenomenon represents “a change in global climate patterns caused by the increasing level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, as the result of the use of fossil fuels” (WWF, Climate Action Network).
Thus, both organisations acting within the UN system and the organisations outside this framework but focused on addressing the adverse effects of climate change give great importance to humankind’s action on climate change and call for immediate action and coordination of policies to address this urgent challenge.
Actor Analysis
The actor analysis of the adverse effects of climate change is complex, as many players intervene in climate action. Here we will only provide a superficial analysis of the network of actors that compose the climate action landscape, dividing them into four main types: states, international organisations, framework agreements and the private sector.
Among the states we find most prominently the members of the Artic Council, who are mainly concerned by the melting of the poles and who include the five Circumpolar states (Russia, US, Canada, Denmark, and Norway). The US in particular provides important resources in terms of research and its national centres are widely known for their scientific contributions on climate change, melting poles, and sea level rise. It is also worth mentioning that the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (hereinafter IPCC) have up to 198 and 195 member states respectively.
As regards international organisations, we find multiple international NGOs that can be classified by thematic areas (sea level rise, melting poles, extreme weather events) and main objectives (disaster relief, mitigation and adaptation) and organisations of the UN system such as the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization, which together have established the IPCC, “responsible for providing regular scientific assessments on climate change” (IPCC). In this group we also find the UNFCCC, the International Maritime Organization, and the UN Climate Action Summit. Other relevant international organisations include the United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR), the United Nations Development Program, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), as they provide funds and other resources to react to crises generated by climate change, while the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Oceanographic Commission are responsible for supporting global ocean science. Finally, this group also includes the main international research centres and international tribunals dealing with international cases on climate protection, such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Verheyen and Zengerling 2013, p. 22).
In relation to the framework agreements, we find the Polar Code, adopted by the International Maritime Organization to regulate shipping in the polar regions; the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as the only governing framework and applicable law for the Arctic Continental Shelf; the Antarctic Treaty System, which is the international legal regime for the Antarctica and consists of four main treaties –the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities, and the Protocol on Environmental Protection– (Bajrektarevic, 2011, p.27); the Paris Agreement, as the global framework to avoid climate change by limiting global warming to below 2°C; the Sendai framework, aimed at preventing disaster risk (United Nations 2015, p. 9); and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, the main international convention covering pollution from ships, operational or accidental.
Finally, the private sector can be divided into three main sectors: those affected by climate change, those benefitting from green transitions, and those responsible for large greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: Author's elaboration
Institutional Membership
Having mentioned the actors involved in the fight against the adverse effects of climate change and recognising the importance of the UNFCCC framework for this purpose, it is worth analysing its institutional design. Bernauer et al (2013, p .477) explore the “depth versus participation” dilemma of international relations literature from a multidimensional perspective, arguing that the depth of any cooperative effort relies on the multidimensional design characteristics of international agreements: “in particular, the specificity of obligations, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, dispute settlement mechanisms, positive incentives (assistance), and organizational structures (secretariats)”. The same authors (p.477) contend that out of these design features the first three have negative effects while the last three have a positive impact on participation in international agreements.
When contrasting this theory to the design characteristics of the UNFCCC in general, and to the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement in particular, we observed that many of this theory’s assumptions describe design features of these treaties. Thus, we notice that the specificity of obligations had a negative impact on the participation of the members of the Kyoto Protocol, which states clear emission reduction targets for the countries listed in Annex I (Bernanuer et al 2013, p.485), whereas the Paris Agreement’s bottom-up approach, allowing the signatories to act on climate change according to their own capacities, and the wide language used in the UNFCCC’s commitments enable greater participation. By contrast, the implementation of monitoring provisions under the Conference of the Parties’ periodically examinations in the UNFCCC, and under the Enhanced Transparency Framework in the Paris Agreement, didn’t have negative effects on the participation of members of these agreements, as both mechanisms were not implemented in a punitive manner and only aimed at tracking progress towards the objectives of both conventions. In addition, the provision of assistance embedded in Article 4 of the UNFCCC, stating that “the developed country parties (…) shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full cost incurred by developing countries” (United Nations 1992, p.13), along with the provision of financial, technical, and capacity building frameworks have proven effective for fostering both agreements’ ratification, especially in developing countries. Similarly, the UNFCCC’s establishment of both a secretariat and a Conference of the Parties has had a positive impact on the participation of members of this convention, as both organisms have facilitated intergovernmental climate change negotiations and have helped to advance the Paris Agreement’s implementation.
Other authors like Sprintz and Vaahtoranta (2003 p.77) have tried to understand the factors that explain states’ environmental foreign policy through an interest-based explanation of support for international environmental regulations. According to this approach, “by combining indicators of a country’s ecological vulnerability (low and high) with abatement cost (low and high), countries can be classified into four categories: pushers, intermediates, draggers and bystanders” (Sprintz and Vaahtoranta 2003, p.80).
Sprintz and Vaahtoranta (2003) Figure 1[table]
This theory is useful when analysing the behaviour of some of the key actors in the climate action landscape and the participatory gaps within its institutions. Considering, for example, the participatory gap in the Paris Agreement, the behaviour of the US, one of the greatest polluters in the world, swings between bystander and dragger. Here it is worth noting that the US have not pledged any ambitious target since the submission of their initial Independent National Determined Contributions (hereinafter INDCs) in 2016 (Korte 2021) in the frame of the Paris Agreement, and that they have chosen to cooperate, acting like a bystander, only when they have perceived that the abatement cost was low enough to collaborate. However, the US also acted as a dragger when they announced in June 2017 that they will formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement as they perceived that the agreement was unfair and that it left countries like China and India free to use fossil fuels, while they had to cut their carbon emissions (McGrath 2020).
Here you will find a short video presenting some of the Paris Agreement’s most representative design features. The video will also display a reflection on the importance of the US’s participation for the Paris Agreement.
Source: Author's elaboration
Institutional Operation
Having reviewed some of the UNFCCC’s design features, it is worth analysing the institutional operation of the UNFCCC secretariat and the Conference of Parties and of some of the UN partner agencies cooperating with the governing bodies of the UNFCCC, such as the IPCC, the UN body in charge of assessing the science related to climate change.
Some authors like Barnet and Finnemore (1999, p.699) argue that certain international organisations behave differently once they are created and that, in some cases, they act autonomously in ways unintended by states at their creation. These authors further contend that IOs are more than the reflection of state preferences as they also “create actors, specify responsibilities and authority among them, and define the work these actors should do, giving it meaning and normative value” (Barnet and Finnemore 1999, p.700). They have also highlighted i) that the IOs are independent actors with their own agendas and multiple sources of agency; ii) that the legitimacy of the rational legal authority they represent and the control over technical expertise transform IOs into autonomous sites of authority; and finally iii) that the sources of power of IOs stem from their ability to structure knowledge by classifying and organising information, fixing meanings by diffusing norms (Barnet and Finnemore 1999, p.703-714)
This theory helps us to understand the institutional operation of the UNFCCC governing bodies as well as of agencies like the IPCC. One simplistic view will argue that none of the UNFCCC bodies have been successful in achieving the goal for which they were created, that of “stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC). As a matter of fact, “in the past 20 years, while international negotiations under the UNFCCC have been ongoing, global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased almost 50 percent”(IEA 2010, p.8; Kopp 2011, p.1). The reason for this is that they rely on a decision-making design based on consensus, which makes negotiations slow and superficial in terms of commitments. However, even though the states parties of the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement and governing bodies of the UNFCCC have always been reluctant to cede autonomy, they have allowed these bodies and treaties to create common definitions on climate change, to create new bodies, to diffuse their norms, to establish global agendas, and more specifically to legally bind almost 196 countries to the objective of “limiting global warming to well-below 2 degree Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels”(UNFCCC 2015, p. 3). In the case of agencies like the IPCC, the control over technical knowledge has provided them with an objective perspective that grants them a certain level of autonomy from the state parties. Even if states agree on the language proposed in the final assessment reports, it is the IPCC that presents objective findings on climate change based on scientific observations (Aalstad 2021).
Moreover, Barnett and Finnemore (1999, p.715-719) note that some authors relate the causes of international organizations’ dysfunctions to state preferences and constraints, and others to internal organizational cultures associated with the organizations’ bureaucracies. They explain that dysfunctions within organizations can occur either when their means become ends in themselves or when they erroneously transfer technical knowledge across circumstances (Barnett and Finnemore 1999, p.720-725). We can see some of these dysfunctions within the governing bodies and treaties of the UNFCCC and within agencies like the IPCC.
As seen in the previous section, the backlashes of key actors like the US in the climate negotiations after the Paris Agreement have created pathologies in these legal frameworks resulting in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia pushing back on efforts to stop global warming (McGrath 2020). Likewise, some of the dysfunctions of these treaties and bodies under the UNFCCC can be traced back to these bodies’ bureaucracies and to the fact that the means of consensus has become the end of the agreements, neglecting other possibilities like reaching agreement in reduced but essential groups of countries like the G20, accounting for the world’s largest emissions.
To further analyse the operation and pathologies of organisations like the IPCC and WMO, I have interviewed Doctor Kristoffer Aalstad, researcher at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Oslo. Below please find the podcast of the interview.
Source: Author's elaboration
Institutional Effectiveness
In line with the literature on international organizations’ effectiveness and performance (Young 2011; Gutner et al 2010), one may wonder to what extent it can be argued that the UNFCCC’s Secretariat has been effective in supporting global efforts to mitigate climate change.
In terms of regime design, the Convention called for developed countries to support developing ones, but it does not provide developed countries with special powers and therefore it does not entail asymmetric relations. As regards regime function, the UNFCCC, together with its partner institutions, successfully develops scientific knowledge about climate change. In relation to context sensitivity, the UNFCCC’s activities are highly sensitive to the external context and to member states’ interests.
In relation to participation vs depth, the Kyoto Protocol failed when it tried to bind only developed countries, placing a heavier burden on them under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities” (United Nations 1997, p.10). After the Kyoto Protocol’s failure to achieve commitments from the world’s largest and fastest growing economies, the Paris Agreement participants created an institutional design with a bottom-up approach that allows signatories to act on climate change according to their own capacities, setting their own plans, priorities and strategies known as INDCs. As regards fairness and legitimacy, it should be noted that the three UNFCCC’s legal frameworks work under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities” (United Nations 1997, p.10), meaning that as the developed nations are the larger source of past and current greenhouse emissions, they have to do the most to cut emissions in their respective territories (United Nations 1992, p.2). From this principle stems the perception of fairness and legitimacy of these legal frameworks by the member states.
In relation to policy instruments, the UNFCCC Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement all provide financial, technical and capacity building frameworks that act as positive incentives for fostering the agreement’s ratification, especially as regards developing countries. In terms of non-linearity, the UNFCCC Convention has been implementing other mechanisms (Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement) to adapt to the new context of global warming and it has been able to change its structure to gather more members in the fight against climate change.
As regards process performance and outcome performance, the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement all conducted different projects and specific tasks, such as monitoring and capacity building activities, that lead to better performance at the next level of establishment of policies, commitments and/or INDCs.
Gutner et al (2010) Pyramid of perfomance[graph]
In terms of baselines and beholders, the UNFCCC faces the eye of the beholder problem (Gutner et al 2010, p.233). States will praise its efforts in coordinating global response to the threat of climate change, while civil society organizations and part of the scientific community will be skeptical of these framework’s contribution to the general objective of limiting global warming. As a matter of fact, most experts agree that the Paris Agreement “will not be enough to prevent the global average temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius” (Maizland 2021). In relation to performance under anarchy, the organizations under the UNFCCC play a limited role in climate governance as they share responsibility with the member states of each framework. As we have seen in the Kyoto Protocol, the top-down approach was not successful to gather efforts to mitigate climate change, and a bottom-up approach was needed in the Paris Agreement, as states feel more comfortable with the role of coordinating decentralized activities that these organizations provide.
As regards difficult mandates, the fact that the UNFCCC aims at stabilizing GHG emissions in the atmosphere in a way that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system (UNFCCC) prevents this framework from being perceived as effective. This objective is very ambitious, complex, and even hopeless when we look at global emissions numbers after their implementation. Finally, in terms of interdependence of global governors, in the UNFCCC structure many organizations work together to produce the best recommendations, reports, and to assist states in the implementation of policies to tackle climate change in their countries. Even if there are some organizations with similar mandates intervening in this context, synergies between scientific experts and the governing bodies of these frameworks make them work together in a coordinated manner to produce the best results.
Source: Author's elaboration
Conclusion
All in all, as many authors of international relations have argued, the depth of the cooperative efforts and the effectiveness of the legal frameworks and related governing bodies depend largely on their design characteristics (Bernauer et al 2013, p.477). As the example of the UNFCCC and related bodies shows, international organisations that attach significant greater value to consensus tend to sacrifice depth to achieve larger participation. However, schemes of cooperation with almost universal participation pose challenges such as state constraints and participation gaps, hindering the effectiveness and performance of the cooperation scheme. Therefore, the UNFCCC should continue to adapt to new realities and foster smaller cooperation efforts that can bring faster and deeper results while continuing to work on levelling up the state parties’ commitments at a global scale.
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