Climate translations: private regulation of climate action and the credible definition of climate positive futures

Private regulation of climate-related business action through initiatives like Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, and even those from autonomous public agencies, liked Central Banks’ Network for Greening the Financial Industry, rely on the operationalisation of concepts like alignment to the Paris Agreement, to be science-based, or to be consistent with 1.5°C global target (climate positive futures henceforth). These initiatives, along with others reviewed in the article, combine the roles of standards setters and orchestrators and were founded by private (or government-independent) businesses and financial institutions. These, however, must rely on climate science translators, an intermediation role necessary for the development of the concrete representation of climate-positive futures. This paper how the intermediation role is split between the standard setter and the target of regulation or assigned to a distinct organisation with scientific competence, and theoretically could be arrogated by public regulatory authorities willing to intervene occasionally to keep accountability of the private regulatory mechanisms. In addition to the focus on the structure of regulatory intermediation (in the RIT model), we place emphasis on organisational ecology dimensions as these initiatives are not independent of each other, producing conflicting standards and interpretations of climate positive futures that respond both to material political economy and contestation, but also the challenges to build credibility through the engagement with reputable scientific frameworks and institutions, and the recursive recognition between private governance initiatives and, ultimate, the formal recognition as quasi-public regulation –as announced by the US Government intention to require contractors to the federal government to adopt Science Based Targets.