Negotiating Climate Change: The Role of Coalition Groups

International negotiations are power games between the parties involved. However, in climate change negotiations countries usually do not stand alone fighting for their positions and interest, but form coalition groups with countries with similar interests, from the same geographic region, or at the same stage of economic development. Investigating the role these coalition groups play in the climate change negotiations is the topic of this paper. In a first step we analyze whether groups are distinguishable via the adopted country positions regarding emission reduction targets, mitigation finance, and adaptation finance. If group members indeed cluster around common positions, the coalitions should be clearly visible in the data. Next we examine how within-group homogeneity affects cooperation of coalition groups. For that purpose we construct a similarity index for the groups and test whether higher similarity leads to more cooperation and convergence of the adopted positions. Finally, we explore what drives the differences between groups and which coalition groups are most likely to agree (and cooperate) with each other. These questions are answered using a novel dataset on the current climate change negotiations for which data on success, positions, and strategies of participating parties were collected.