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Climate performance in publicly traded companies has become an important focus for climate action. Non–state actor–led initiatives have emerged as influential governors in this arena, intended to plug gaps in public climate change regulation. This article addresses the key question, are such non–state led climate initiatives exerting a positive influence on corporate climate performance? To answer this question, we empirically evaluate the effects of eighteen such climate initiatives on corporate climate performance, distinguishing between "internal" and "external" initiatives. Based on an original data set of corporate climate initiatives that prioritize climate performance in the private sector, we find that each additional climate initiative has little to no impact on climate performance, modeled as scope 1 direct emissions, but does exert a positive influence on scope 2 indirect emissions. Our findings have implications for the trajectory of the private sector's climate transition, as well as the potential of corporate initiatives to steward effective climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Global Environmental Politics ("Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma: Why Distributive Conflict, Not Collective Action, Characterizes the Politics of Climate Change," 20 (4): 4–27), Michaël Aklin and Matto Mildenberger argue against the prevailing characterization of climate change cooperation as a problem of free riding or collective action. The authors argue that models of collective action imply, first, policy reciprocity and, second, inaction in the absence of formal agreements to limit free riding. They argue that neither empirical implication is supported by an review of states' climate policy to date. In this comment, we note that standard collective action models imply neither of the above hypotheses. As a result, the empirical tests advanced in the original article are uninformative as to the explanatory power of the collective action model for international climate politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hard climate policy (e.g., regulation, taxes/pricing, phaseouts) is needed to meet ambitious climate targets, but when such policy is introduced, it can sometimes trigger backlash. Backlash involves an abrupt and forceful negative reaction by a significant number of actors seeking to reverse a policy, often through extraordinary means that transgress established procedures and norms. Yet, explanations of policy backlash remain nascent and fragmented. I synthesize insights from within and beyond climate politics to argue that contested legitimacy is central to climate policy backlash, which provokes attempts toward delegitimation. I develop a conceptual pathway to explain the occurrence of climate policy backlash and generate hypotheses about how practices of delegitimation occur, and their effects. This contributes to explaining why backlash occurs, highlighting ideational factors alongside interests and institutions. Overall, I suggest the need for a contextually embedded approach to understanding the volatile dynamics of backlash, bringing political sociology into conversation with political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the puzzle of Norway and Canada, two countries that have adopted ambitious Paris Agreement targets yet are also major fossil fuel exporters. To date, both countries have taken full advantage of the international convention that assigns responsibility only for emissions within a country's borders. However, climate activists, First Nations, and green politicians increasingly have challenged fossil fuel production via campaigns centered on issues salient to voters in nonproducing regions: opposing new exploration licenses in Norway and pipelines in Canada. While supply-side campaigns have sometimes succeeded in ending expansion, neither country has seriously entertained restricting current production. We attribute these outcomes to continued public support for fossil fuel–driven prosperity; institutions that assign responsibility for production and climate to different government agencies; and the success of counternarratives that unilateral supply restrictions are futile, prosperity from petroleum exports will fund domestic clean-energy transitions, and gas exports advance global climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role that private actors play in accelerating or preventing progressive climate policy and true decarbonization is a core research interest of global environmental politics. Yet scholars have struggled to measure the political behavior of multinational firms due to lack of transparency about their activities and inconsistency in reporting requirements across jurisdictions. In this research note, we present a new data source—firms' earnings calls—that scholars might use to better understand the political behavior of major multinational polluters. To illustrate the value of earnings calls as a data source, we construct an original data set of all earnings calls made between 2005 and 2019 by major oil and gas firms. We then code these transcripts, demonstrating that although firms can be classified as more or less pro-climate, there is little evidence of the industry's public acceptance of decarbonization. These unique data could permit researchers to explore important questions about climate politics, the evolution of private governance, and the relationship between policy and firms' political behavior. Moreover, we suggest extensions of our approach, including other multinational industries that are amenable to this type of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When considering public support for domestic policies that contribute to a global public good, such as climate change mitigation, the behavior of other countries is commonly regarded as pivotal. Using survey experiments in China and the United States we find that other countries' behavior matters for public opinion, but in a contingent manner. When citizens learn that other countries decrease their emissions, this leads to support for further domestic action. Yet, support for reciprocal behavior is not a necessary consequence of other countries increasing their emissions. Responding in-kind to emissions increases abroad depends upon the home country's past behavior and who the other country is. Our results imply that the international context remains important, despite global climate policy now relying more on coordinated unilateral action and polycentric governance. They also show, however, that we need to pay greater attention to contingent effects of countries' positive and negative behavior in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversification of actors in global climate governance may entail risks, but it is also linked to enhanced democratic performance and opportunities for innovation. To what extent has this diversification fostered a parallel multiplication of perspectives in urban climate policy? To answer this question, we analyze the evolution of urban narratives based on 463 international policy documents issued between 1946 and 2020. Our analysis shows that, instead of leading to diversification, the proliferation of actors is accompanied by a growing homogenization of urban narratives. Language appears to become progressively uniform across organizations and over time, with approaches emphasizing multi-actor governance, integrated planning, and co-benefits becoming dominant. Three factors explain this homogenization. First, actors with a long history of involvement in international development exert a significant amount of influence. Second, there is a tendency toward language harmonization in international policy. Third, urban climate narratives stabilize through association with broader policy paradigms. In conclusion, the diversification of actors in international climate policy is mediated by processes of narrative alignment, which foreclose possibilities for divergent thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the urgency of responding to climate change and the insufficiency of current demand-side policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions become clearer, supply-side initiatives are beginning to gain prominence and acceptance globally. Policies such as moratoria and compensation for leaving fossil fuels unextracted in exchange for financial compensation of rights owners are likely to be effective and complementary to existing policies. A number of unknowns remain regarding the operationalization of supply-side policies, such as how to establish a binding international agreement and how to raise and allocate financial compensation for nonextraction. Nevertheless, the need for supply-side policies only emphasizes the importance of imaginative and bold initiatives within the current conjuncture of global environmental politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy (RE) will play a significant role in national climate mitigation strategies, including those put forth in the context of the Paris Agreement. This article examines the role of industrial policy in supporting renewables and how it compares to the use of other types of RE policies in both location and quantity around the world. On the basis of an original database of RE policy support measures developed for this analysis, the article illustrates which measures are most commonly being used around the world and what types of countries are using them. It highlights the use of a wide range of policy types, including many industrial policies, and a disparity in the use of industrial policies between smaller emitters and larger emitters, with important implications for which countries stand to benefit from the development of domestic RE industries and for our ability to achieve long-term climate goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial policy has begun to move into the center of debates on climate policy. This represents a shift away from climate policy as we know it—as classic environmental policy. Industrial policy and environmental policy differ in their policy goals, policy instruments, and distributional effects, one primarily concerned with economic development, the other with cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This raises questions about policy interactions between industrial and environmental policy in broader climate policy mixes and how these affect global decarbonization. This article identifies complementary and conflictual dynamics between industrial policy and environmental policy in both domestic and international climate politics. It shows how green industrial policy can advance climate goals and cooperation but can also present challenges to deepening climate cooperation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing an understanding of policy interactions is central to leveraging the potential of industrial policy to accelerate global decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic policies are the cornerstone of the new global climate governance architecture. However, what motivates vote-seeking politicians to pursue climate policies remains remarkably unclear, as the climate politics literature suggests that climate policies are usually not perceived as a vote winner. The present article revisits this issue and argues that a better understanding of the relationship between electoral competition and climate policy making requires taking into account differences both in party ideologies and in policy characteristics. Studying twenty-nine democracies between 1990 and 2016, the analysis finds that climate policy production overall tends to increase as the election approaches due to increases in "soft" policies, such as subsidies, research grants, and information instruments, and relatively stable production rates of "hard" policies like taxes and regulations over the electoral term. Regarding partisan politics, left governments are found to produce more hard, but not more soft, climate policies than center and right governments, especially before elections. This suggests that partisan and electoral incentives are important reference points in the fight against climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the use of survey experiments in China and the United States, they elucidate the mechanisms by which different actors condition their policy support - in this case, for mitigation policy - on the behavior of other countries. The article underscores the importance of research on climate governance that links the international context to unilateral climate policy at the domestic level, especially concerning public preferences toward domestic policies. Liam Beiser-McGrath and Thomas Bernauer, in "Domestic Provision of Global Public Goods", add to the timely discussion of global climate policy through a focus on public support for domestic climate policies. [Extracted from the article]

This article considers the role of generalization in comparative case studies, using as exemplars the contributions to this special issue on climate change politics. As a research practice, generalization is a logical argument for extending one's claims beyond the data, positing a connection between events that were studied and those that were not. No methodological tradition is exempt from the requirement to demonstrate a compelling logic of generalization. The article presents a taxonomy of the logics of generalization underlying diverse research methodologies, which often go unstated and unexamined. I introduce the concept of resonance groups, which provide a causeway for cross-system generalization from single case studies. Overall the results suggest that in the comparative study of complex political systems, case study research is, ceteris paribus, on par with large-N research with respect to generalizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article theorizes about the implications for domestic climate politics of three distinct roles countries play in the global carbon supply chain: fossil fuel producer, manufacturer of carbon-intensive goods, and final consumer. Because international responsibility is assigned to territorial emissions, countries at either end of the global supply chain effectively evade environmental responsibility by shifting fossil fuel combustion to manufacturing countries. In so doing, they lessen the political challenges of reducing domestic emissions. Although exporters of carbon-intensive goods are reluctant to disadvantage local producers, importers can craft policies that both reduce territorial emissions and create local jobs. Ironically, fossil fuel exporters can emerge as leaders in reducing their own territorial emissions, a finding illustrated by case studies of British Columbia and Norway. The conclusion argues that shifting responsibility for carbon emissions to the point of either final consumption or fossil fuel extraction could facilitate an international climate agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alice Mah's article, "Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics", is a second cautionary tale on how power dynamics along global value chains can thwart environmental policy agendas. Issue 21-2 of I Global Environmental Politics i is notable for exemplifying the wide variety of research topics addressed by the GEP community, including articles on climate politics, the sustainable development goals (SDGs), plastics and the circular economy, ecosystem services, global shipping, and global resource development. Schultz delves into the electoral politics of climate policy and how partisan electoral competition influences the timing and stringency of climate policy. [Extracted from the article]

Why has Europe implemented a quite-proactive climate policy while the US has adopted a far less ambitious climate strategy? Does variation in security concerns or other factors better explain this difference in policy? Using a multi-method case study approach, the authors find that in the US, constructions of climate change as a security threat play an important role in developing public support. In Europe, leadership and opportunity discourses predominate. Other factors including centralization of governance, trust in the technocratic elite, and cultural norms contribute to the variation in policy construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entrée of climate change politics to the center stage of international relations has been accompanied by broad range of strategic linkages, which have produced various institutional interactions. This special issue takes stock of the wide range of ways that international regimes are strategically linked to climate change politics. We do this with a view to better understand both how climate change is shaping the global environmental political landscape, and is being shaped itself through strategic linkages to regimes both within (i.e. forests, biodiversity, fisheries, and desertification) and beyond (i.e. security and human rights) the environmental realm. The contributions that make up this special issue explore when, how, and by whom regime linkages should be pursued, how linkage politics are affecting regime development and function, and in turn how these changes are shaping the evolution of global environmental politics and problem solving writ large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a climate policy architecture that would be conducive to wide participation and successful compliance. Compliance in particular is an aspect of climate policy that has been under-specified in current proposals for an architecture for climate policy. Although admittedly a successful regime would have to satisfy a number of criteria, including environmental goals, dynamic efficiency and cost-effectiveness, any agreement would have to be implemented and enforced. The focus here is both on how to construct a regime that is environmentally effective, and on how to reduce problems of compliance and leakage. Other criteria will be considered in the proposal, such as cost-effectiveness and how to facilitate the negotiation process, but the primary focus will be on participation and compliance. The main argument is that a climate agreement based on both emissions targets and policies and measures is the most conducive to maximum participation and a successful compliance mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on global governance has focused either on theoretical accounts of the overall phenomenon or on empirical studies of distinct institutions that serve to solve particular governance challenges. In this article we analyze instead "governance architectures," defined as the overarching system of public and private institutions, principles, norms, regulations, decision-making procedures and organizations that are valid or active in a given issue area of world politics. We focus on one aspect that is turning into a major source of concern for scholars and policy-makers alike: the "fragmentation" of governance architectures in important policy domains. The article offers a typology of different degrees of fragmentation, which we describe as synergistic, cooperative, and conflictive fragmentation. We then systematically assess alternative hypotheses over the relative advantages and disadvantages of different degrees of fragmentation. We argue that moderate degrees of fragmentation may entail both significant costs and benefits, while higher degrees of fragmentation are likely to decrease the overall performance of a governance architecture. The article concludes with policy options on how high degrees of fragmentation could be reduced. Fragmentation is prevalent in particular in the current governance of climate change, which we have hence chosen as illustration for our discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a quintessential long-term policy problem, climate change poses two major challenges. The first is to develop, under considerable uncertainty, a plan for allocating resources over time to achieve an effective policy response. The second is to implement this plan, once arrived at, consistently over time. We consider the second of these two challenges, arguing that it consists of three interrelated, commitment problems—the time inconsistency problem, the domestic politics problem, and the anarchy problem. We discuss each of these commitment problems in some detail, explore how they relate to climate policy, and suggest institutional designs that may help limit their adverse impact. While each of these commitment problems is difficult to tackle on its own, climate change requires us to cope with all of them at once. This is likely one major reason why we have so far made only modest headway on this vital issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central conundrum in the need to infuse a long-term perspective into climate policy and other environmental decision-making is the widespread belief that humans are inherently short-term thinkers. An analysis of human decision-making informed by evolved adaptations—biological, psychological and cultural—suggests that humans actually have a long-term thinking capacity. In fact, the human time horizon encompasses both the immediate and the future (near and far term). And yet this very temporal duality makes people susceptible to manipulation; it carries its own politics, a politics of the short term. A "legacy politics" would extend the prevailing time horizon by identifying structural factors that build on evolved biological and cultural factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governance of climate change has traditionally been conceived as an issue of international co-operation and considered through the lens of regime analysis. Increasingly, scholars of global governance have highlighted the multiple parallel initiatives involving a range of actors at different levels of governance through which this issue is being addressed. In this paper, we argue that this phenomenon warrants a re-engagement with some of the conceptual cornerstones of international studies. We highlight the conceptual challenges posed by the increasing involvement of non-nation-state actors (NNSAs) in the governance of climate change and explore the potential for drawing from alternative theoretical traditions to address these challenges. Specifically, the paper combines insights from neo-Gramscian and governmentality perspectives as a means of providing the critical space required to generate deeper understanding of: (a) the nature of power in global governance; (b) the relationship between public and private authority; (c) the dynamics between structure and agency; and (d) the rationalities and practices of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstracts are presented for articles on topics such as the development of long-term environmental policy, the implementation of climate policy, and methods of sharing risk in international politics.

The article presents abstracts on topics pertaining to environmental politics including oil disputes in Ecuador, governmental policy on climate change, and environmental economics.

Climate clubs, or "minilateralism," are increasingly advocated as a way to move global climate governance forward. Minilateralism supposedly carries structural advantages that facilitate effective climate governance. Some have cautioned, however, that climate clubs lack political legitimacy, commanding little domestic public support. Consequently, small coalitions might not always be politically feasible, even if they could deliver substantial mitigation. Design features like the emission share regulated, commitment structure, club goods, and sanctions against nonmembers could help mitigate this deficit. I report results from conjoint experiments testing these propositions that were conducted with nationally representative samples in the United States and India. The findings indicate that minilateral approaches per se tend to receive low public support, but that support can be increased by certain configurations of design elements, especially through a combination of club goods for members and sanctions against nonmember countries. Climate clubs therefore need careful institutional design to be politically feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanotechnology has been celebrated as driving a new global industrial revolution that has the potential to harness economic growth and remediate the environment, yet could pose risks to health and the environment. Two of the largest economic actors, the EU and the US, have made very different regulatory decisions toward nanotechnology. The EU introduced an official definition of nanotechnology and created several new nano-specific regulations in recent years, whereas the United States has followed more of a "wait and see" policy. I argue that politics, not technology, best explains the divergence between the US and the EU in creating nano-specific regulations, and I introduce a regulatory regime framework to show why, how, and where politics affect divergent environmental politics. To support this argument, I employ comparative case analysis of the EU and US from 2000 to 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have only two of the eleven original members of the Western Climate Initiative implemented a cap-and-trade system? This article compares the implementation of cap-and-trade in California and Quebec versus in New Mexico and British Columbia. Ideas around the reality of anthropogenic global warming and the legitimacy of cap-and-trade created favorable context in three jurisdictions, although institutions condition the expression of these ideas in the policy-making process. Since parliamentary institutions concentrate power, elite consensus is more important in Canada, while in the United States public opinion plays a more significant role. However, ideational factors shaped by political institutions do not explain differences in cap-and-trade implementation. Growth in shale gas production, welcomed in British Columbia and New Mexico but resisted by Quebec and marginal in California, further explain different outcomes. Ideas, mediated by institutions, are the necessary prerequisites for action, while material factors influence policy instrument choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to this special issue is the notion that the methods and conceptual tools of comparative politics can improve our understanding of global climate change politics. Building on recent advancements in the field of comparative environmental politics, the special issues offers a more comprehensive treatment of climate change politics in developed countries, emerging economies and least developed countries. In this introduction, I distil the key features of comparative politics, advocate for the more rigorous application of comparative methods in climate politics scholarship and highlight three groups of political factors--institutions, interests and ideas--that hold considerable promise in explaining climate change politics at the domestic level. The introduction concludes with an appeal to (re)think how international and domestic politics interact. Examples drawn from the articles assembled for this special issue are used to substantiate the claims made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of global climate governance have focused increasingly on alternative venues to the UN climate regime, with much attention focusing on the growth of transnational climate governance. This article considers the phenomenon of bilateral intergovernmental climate cooperation. It seeks to understand the development of EU-China and EU-India climate cooperation as possible instances of diffusion of ideas, policies, and institutions. While Chinese and Indian climate policies should be understood as primarily domestic developments, there is some limited evidence of diffusion from the EU to China. Domestic factors in China and India--particularly the degree of fit between externally promoted and pre-existing domestic ideas and frames and the underlying material conditions driving these frames--help to explain the variation between the two cases with respect to observed patterns of diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers carbon footprints as a form of climate governance. Drawing on science studies to consider the contingent nature of calculative devices and governmentality studies to examine the intrinsic relationship between how problems are framed and remedied, this article advances two arguments. First, it argues that efforts to define and deploy carbon footprints contributed to a conceptual shift in emissions accounting, from a narrower metric focused on emissions from fossil fuel and electricity use--Carbon Footprint 1.0--to a more expansive metric that includes emissions embodied in consumption and trade--Carbon Footprint 2.0. Second, this article argues that these approaches to carbon footprints at the individual level have intersected with broader discussions about allocating emissions responsibilities and examining mitigation strategies at the national and international levels, offering alternative grounds for assigning responsibility for climate-change mitigation and expanding the range of policy options available for addressing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains why the significant changes in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) for the 2013-2020 phase were adopted in 2008. The combination of a more stringent EU-wide cap, allocation of emission allowances for payment, and limits on imports of credits from third countries have strengthened the system for the post-2012 period. This will promote reduction in greenhouse gases compared to the old system. The main reasons for these changes are, first, changes in the positions of the member states due to unsatisfactory experience with performance of the EU ETS so far. Second, a "package approach" where the EU ETS reform was integrated into wider energy and climate policy facilitated agreement on the changes. Third, changes in the position of nonstate actors and a desire to affect the international climate negotiations contributed to the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of EU climate policy, a grand policy experiment, as the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. In this article, we seek to provide a broad overview of the initiation, decision-making and implementation of the EU ETS so far. We explore why the EU changed from a laggard to a leader in emissions trading, how it managed to establish the system rapidly, and the consequences to date, leading up to the 2008 proposal for a revised ET Directive for the post- 2012 period. We apply three explanatory approaches, focusing on the roles of the EU member states, the EU institutions and the international climate regime, and conclude that all three approaches are needed to understand what happened, how and why. This also reveals that what happened in the early days of developing the system had significant consequences for the problems experienced in practice and the prospects ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the signs of civic, private, local and state public sector activities for climate protection in the U.S. These activities aimed at restricting greenhouse gas emissions as well as assess whether they amount to a social movement for climate protection. It is suggested that momentum is building federal inaction on mandatory emission reductions. There is a renowned increase in opposition activity over several years. However, it is unclear whether the movement reached the take off point of the American society's closeness to the tipping point. This could be attributed to the fact that the movement has not yet found a bridging frame in bringing sub-movements together. The Movement Action Plan (MAP) model is a useful tool in locating where a movement is in its evolution.

The article focuses on the significance of local administrative level in climate policy governance in Norway. It emphasizes on the local climate planning process devoted to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate change is considered to be global and local since their causes and the effects of climate change have global and local dimension. Study shows that the municipalities conducted the planning process in the country have come up with a strong output. The local administrative level was found to have strong influence on climate policy-making. It is expected that the local action will increase. It is also relevant to involve local government to legitimize and improve the efficiency of national climate policy initiatives.

The article presents abstracts of various articles within the issue which address topics such as global environmental law, transparency in resource governance in regards to Sub-Saharan Africa's oil industry, and the reported spread of local climate change strategies in Europe.