Michele M. Betsill

Looking Back and Thinking Ahead: A Decade of Cities and Climate Change Research

To many observers of climate change politics, 1997 was an important milestone because of the completion of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. With considerably less fanfare, 1997 was also the year in...

Transnational Climate Governance

In this article we examine the emergence and implications of transnational climate-change governance. We argue that although the study of transnational relations has recently been renewed alongside a burgeoning interest in issues of global governance, the nature of transnational governance has to date received less attention. We contend that transnational governance occurs when networks operating in the transnational political sphere authoritatively steer constituents toward public goals. In order to stimulate a more systematic study of the diversity and significance of this phenomenon, the article develops a typology based on the actors involved and their authoritypublic, private, or hybridand the primary governance functions performed in order to steer network constituentsinformation-sharing, capacity building and implementation, or rule-setting. A comparative discussion of transnational governance networks for climate change illustrates each category and the value of the typology in assessing the multiple mechanisms through which transnational governance occurs. In conclusion, we suggest that our typology provides a useful starting point for future research and reflect on the implications for the study of global affairs.

Revisiting the urban politics of climate change

In our 2005 paper, Rethinking Sustainable Cities, we made a case for the increasing significance of climate change in the urban politics of sustainability. Taking a multilevel governance perspective, we argued that the ‘urban’ governance of climate protection was not confined to a local arena or to the actions of the state, but rather was orchestrated through the interrelations between global, national and local actors across state/non-state boundaries. We revisit these arguments and examine their validity in the light of the rapidly changing landscape of urban responses to climate change and the growing academic literature in this field. We consider in turn: the ways in which climate change is shaping urban agendas; the utility of multilevel governance perspectives for understanding this phenomenon; and the extent to which we can identify a ‘new’ politics of urban climate change governance and its consequent implications for the development of theory and practice in this field.

Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance

The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in June is an important opportunity to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development. Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of Earths sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.

NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: A Framework for Analysis

Current literature on global environmental politics largely considers NGO influence implicit and unproblematic. Responding to several weaknesses in the literature, we propose a coherent research framework for assessing NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. We contend that influence can be said to have occurred when NGOs intentionally transmit information that alters the behavior of negotiators, and call for collecting and analyzing evidence of NGO influence in a more systematic fashion. Our framework, which relies on the use of multiple data types, sources, and methods, controls for over-determination and allows researchers to identify, with a sound degree of confidence, instances of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. The resulting comparability provides a basis for analysis of NGO influence across cases, and ultimately contributes to better understanding of the variation of NGO influence in global environmental politics.

Governing climate change transnationally: Assessing the evidence from a database of sixty initiatives

With this paper we present an analysis of sixty transnational governance initiatives and assess the implications for our understanding of the roles of public and private actors, the legitimacy of governance ‘beyond’ the state, and the North–South dimensions of governing climate change. In the first part of the paper we examine the notion of transnational governance and its applicability in the climate change arena, reflecting on the history and emergence of transnational governance initiatives in this issue area and key areas of debate. In the second part of the paper we present the findings from the database and its analysis. Focusing on three core issues, the roles of public and private actors in governing transnationally, the functions that such initiatives perform, and the ways in which accountability for governing global environmental issues might be achieved, we suggest that significant distinctions are emerging in the universe of transnational climate governance which may have considerable implications for the governing of global environmental issues. In conclusion, we reflect on these findings and the subsequent consequences for the governance of climate change.

A Comparative Look at NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: Desertification and Climate Change

There is a need to better understand the significance of NGOs in global environmental politics. Addressing a number of weaknesses in the current literature on NGOs, we have developed an analytical framework for analysis of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. This paper demonstrates the utility of our framework by applying it to two cases: the negotiations of the Desertification Convention and of the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention. We argue that the use of our research framework enables researchers to compare with confidence NGO influence across cases and that such comparison allows for a much needed examination of factors that explain variation in NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. Analysis of explanatory factors contributes to an improved understanding of the degree to which NGOs matter in global environmental policy-making.

A Tale of Two Copenhagens: Carbon Markets and Climate Governance

Assessments of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 have tended to see it as a ‘return to realism’ — as the triumph of hard interstate bargaining over institutional or normative development about climate change. This article contests that interpretation by showing how it focuses too closely on the interstate negotiations and neglects the ongoing development of carbon markets as governance practices and systems to deal with climate change. It shows that there remains a strong normative consensus about such markets, and a deepening set of transnational governance practices. These governance practices only partly depend on the interstate negotiations. Thinking about the future of global climate governance needs to start with the complexity of interactions between these transnational governance systems and the interstate negotiations.

The Micro Foundations of Policy Diffusion Toward Complex Global Governance An Analysis of the Transnational Carbon Emission Trading Network

Greenhouse gas emissions trading (ET) systems have become the centerpiece of climate change policy at multiple scales, unexpectedly largely outside of the UN climate governance process. The diffusion of ET is best described as a case of polycentric diffusion, where ET systems diffused to multiple loci of governance, but where they all serve similar goals under a broad policy framework guided loosely by the UN-based climate regime. Using network analysis combined with qualitative data, we explain how this polycentric pattern of policy development emerged, who carried and spread it and how, and how the idea has spread into a polycentric governance system. We contribute to the policy diffusion literature in a novel way to explain diffusion toward polycentric governance, show the limits of the existing literature to explain the diffusion of ET, and show the utility of network analysis in understanding the process and mechanism of polycentric diffusion.

Transnational Actors in International Environmental Politics

Over the last decade, there has been considerable growth in academic research on actors ‘beyond the state’ as part of a broader ‘rescaling’ of global environmental politics whereby non-state actors and institutions operating at multiple levels of social and political organization are seen to shape the politics and governance of global environmental issues (Andonova and Mitchell, 2010; Biermann and Pattberg, 2008; Bulkeley, 2005; Newell et al., 2012). Non-state actors include grassroots organizations, scientific associations, special interest groups (national and international), universities, businesses, trade associations, environmentalists, individuals, the media, churches and religious organizations, independence movements, sub-national governments, political parties, government bureaucrats, foundations, think tanks, social entrepreneurs, and consumer groups. While realists dismiss claims about the significance of these actors in world politics, scholars of international environmental politics (IEP) have long recognized their importance, particularly in processes of global governance, and have shaped discussions in the wider discipline of international relations. This largely reflects the fact that non-state actors have had a stronger presence in the environmental issue area than in many other areas of concern to international relations scholars, such as security, trade, and health.