Climate Governance
Emily Ojoo-Massawa
for sustained capacity building in support of international climate change
negotiations
pour un renforcement durable des capacités en appui aux négociations
internationales sur les changements climatiques
european capacity building initiative
ecbi
european capacity building initiative
initiative européenne de renforcement des capacités
ecbi
• Introduction
• Forums engaging in the debate
• Synergies with other International
Agreements
• Fragmentation in the debate?
• Impacts on the G77
european capacity building initiative
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Introduction
Introduction
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Scientific evidence for climate change requires no debate.But while the problem of
anthropogenic climate change is gaining renewed attention by the media and the
wider in particular due to increase in extreme climatic events, the institutional
architecture in place seems to be rather incapable of effectively addressing climate
change.
A major obstacle that has received relatively little attention is the increasing
fragmentation of global climate governance
Policy fragmentation…Policies at play in the area of carbon trading, the emissions
trading system of the European Union (EU),CDM,Voluntary trading schemes
independent initiatives taken by U.SA. An important distinction can be made
between compliance (or mandatory) markets and non-compliance (or
voluntary)markets.
Actor fragmentation….. extends to governments, where we can distinguish at least
three different groups: industrialized countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol
and committed to limit their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent
by 2012; Major country that rejects Kyoto, but intends to develop alternative
regulatory approaches and architectures of international co-operation; and
developing countries that support Kyoto in principle, and have ratified it, but do not
need to limit or reduce their emissions within the first commitment period.
While some nations hope to maintain a universal approach towards climate
governance, others seemingly work towards new forms of a more fragmented and
flexible order.
Introduction (cont)
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• The future of global climate governance is currently
negotiated in two different ad hoc working groups, AWGKP and AWGLCA
• Difficult to generalise the position of different groups of
Parties, as national circumstances relating to global
warming vary widely
• Developing countries suffer –ve impacts and fear emission
limitations would compromise their economic
development
• A1 Parties driven by competitiveness concerns are
reluctant to agree on taking the deep emission cuts in line
with the science.
Forums discussing climate change
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G8+5,G emitters
BASIC
New international alliances
Other treaties that relate to climate change (, the UN
Convention on Desertification, CBD, Montreal
Protocol, Oceans and seas, Energy, Trade and
Investments(WTO))
• Notwithstanding the diverse instruments, the main
body of international law on climate change is to be
found in the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, as
well as the decisions taken by the COP and the
COP/CMP
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A fragmentation?
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• The difficulty in reaching an agreement in Copenhagen has
opened the debate. Are there other ways to address climate
change?
• Call into question the representativeness of multilateral
negotiations and their decision making procedures
• Why the sprouting of groups? Due to the sheer variety of
interests among the developing countries hence voices of the
vulnerable could be heard?Is there need to rethink the current
groupings?
• Problem is not strictly cooperation among a large number of
countries,difficulty lies in the diverging(or incompatible)
preferences among members of the group
• What is the impact of this fragmentation for the G77?
• How can countries position themselves to avoid being
marginalised?
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Regional governance: Exchange
of information and planning
• The African Union Commission (AUC);New Partnership
for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)
• Conference on the Environment (AMCEN);The African
Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW)
• Sub-region organizations
• IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre
(ICPAC);Economic Community of Eastern and Southern
Africa- COMESA;Southern African Development
Community- SADC East African Community –
EAC;Economic Community of West African States –
ECOWAS,African Centre of Meteorological Applications
for Development (ACMAD);Permanent Interstate
Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS);etc
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Local/National Governance
• National governance structures: how to organize
the debate within government, between ministries,
but other with the other branches?
• How do subnational governments articulate? What
role do they or should they play?
• How is climate change addressed by different
political parties, or different groups of interest?
• How do you guarantee the participation of all key
stakeholders in decisionmaking (ex. REDD+
consultation processes)
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Topics for discussion
• The discusssion on climate change in new forums
seems inevitable (?). How do you guarantee that
such a fragmentation does not affect the
transparency/equity of the negotiating process?
• What is the importance of regional forums for
negotiating/implementing? How do we stimulate
regional cooperation?
• How do you stimulate national/subnational
debates without losing agility in the negotiations?