The New Geopolitics of Climate Change after the Copenhagen Summit

Abstract

The aim of the panel is to take stock of global climate policy after the disappointed outcome at the 2009 UN climate summit Copenhagen, which marked a turning in point in global climate politics. The summit can be conceived of as a watershed in climate politics with the rise of a new multi-polar climate order geared toward the US-Pacific and a decline of UN climate multilateralism. Consequently, the Copenhagen summit has been interpreted as the return to the geopolitics of climate change. The multilateral negotiations replaced by a G2 bargaining between China and the US during the last day of frantic efforts to secure a political agreement. Specifically, the panel addresses the following related questions: What are the prospects for a new global legally binding climate treaty modelled on the Kyoto Protocol with universal participation and quantitative carbon emissions? What are the implications of the Copenhagen Accord for the global climate governance architecture? What does the failure in Copenhagen entail for EU:s aspiration to leadership in global climate politics? Furthermore, this panel invites papers appraising climate governance beyond multilateral climate diplomacy. What are the impacts of the Copenhagen outcomes for the wider processes of transnational climate governance, which are characterized by the rise of public, private and hybrid networks engaged in governance function such as rulemaking, information sharing and capacity building? Beyond the UN climate regime, climate policies emerge at municipal and sub-national levels entailing corporate actors, civil society actors, public-private partnerships, and the global and regional carbon markets. Terms such as ‘global governance architecture’ and the ‘regime complex’ of climate change reflect the growing complexity of climate governance. Finally, this panel invites papers that compares the development of climate change politics and policies in five large polities (US, EU, China, Brazil and India) that constitute different kinds of policymaking systems.

Title	Details
The Sputnik Dilemma: Space for Change? (Re)presentation, the Future of Global Climate Security and the Role of the G2	View Paper Details
Determinants of Bargaining Success: The Case of UNFCCC Negotiations	View Paper Details
The Sociology of the Political Economy of the Geopolitics of Climate Change: Brazil and the USA Compared	View Paper Details
Climate Governance in Multi-level Systems: Comparing the EU, the USA, and China	View Paper Details
The Contemporary Global Climate Governance Architecture and its Implications for Key Powers	View Paper Details
Equity in the financing of adaptation: a post-Cancun perspective from distributive justice	View Paper Details
The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance and its Consequences across Scales: The Case of REDD	View Paper Details
Enhancing the Legitimacy of Multilateral Climate Governance: A Deliberative Democratic Approach	View Paper Details