International climate politics after Copenhagen and Cancún resembles a construction kit. While a grand encompassing deal is out of reach, negotiators are increasingly turning towards alternative solutions for specific topics – both within and outside of the UN climate regime. This goes in particular for those topics for which a deal is palpable, including the emerging issue of ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and land degradation’ (REDD). Within the climate regime, parties have managed to adopt a mechanism at Cancún, however leaving out sensitive issues such as a potential integration into carbon markets. Outside of the climate regime, a large diversity of multilateral and bilateral initiatives have evolved, including the REDD+ Partnership, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank, and UN-REDD. Yet, most of these initiatives are only loosely connected – among each other and in relation to the UN climate regime. Additionally, other regimes, most prominently the Convention on Biological Diversity, address core issues related to REDD from a very different angle, stressing biological diversity rather than biomass. The paper addresses this emerging institutional patchwork and its implications at different levels. First, it introduces the concept of institutional fragmentation as a structural characteristic of global governance architectures. Second, it sketches the fragmentation of global climate governance and discusses pros and cons of this phenomenon at the international level. Third, the paper addresses consequences at the domestic level – with particular focus on the issue of REDD and options for policy diffusion. As a case study for this third section, the paper presents findings from an in-depth multi-level analysis of REDD governance processes in Peru.
