High demand, low supply: understanding the lack of reforms at the UNFCCC

Institutional reforms are crucial to meeting growing sustainability challenges. However, the scholarship recognizes that institutions are often sticky due to path dependencies (Page 2006; Pierson 1996). Nevertheless, previous scholarship has highlighted architecture and agency as important concepts in understanding how change can take shape. For instance, the literature on transformations of international organizations suggests that institutional reforms are likely when it is demanded by powerful member states, when there are external shocks, or when the international organization faces legitimacy challenges, such as when there is a growing recognized gap between rhetoric and actions (Debre et al. 2021; Hirschmann 2012). An international institution that faces growing calls for reform is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The calls for reform come from a range of actors and involve both legitimacy concerns and consideration for a change in the purpose of the UNFCCC as it enters an implementation stage (Kinley et al 2020; Hermwille et al 2017; Klein et al 2021). Nevertheless, previous calls for reform have largely failed (see e.g. Vihma and Kulovesi 2012). This paper therefore examines the prospects for UNFCCC reform through an interview study with a range of stakeholders familiar with the UNFCCC. The semi-structured interviews with (former) UNFCCC officials, climate diplomats, business and civil society representatives and academics show that there is a recognized need to reform the UNFCCC; however, few believe in the prospects of meaningful reforms. Besides the well-recognized difficulties of decision-making by consensus, the paper highlights the issue of trust – or the lack thereof – amongst member states as a stumbling block to reform. It also shows how prospects for reforms depend on the types of reforms considered, ranging on a spectrum of how politically controversial they are. The paper concludes by discussing its findings and its implications for understanding the politics of institutional reform and by identifying ways forward toward fostering reforms through adaptation and learning.