Controlling climate change: Public-private sector interactions in climate change adaptation

Research in global environmental politics has long recognized the significant role of non-state actors, particularly transnational corporations. This research has analyzed the ways in which public and private authority interact in environmental governance, highlighting collaborative, conflictive, or chaotic interactions, and the conditions under which such interactions yield sustainability gains. However, most of the research focuses on specific government arrangements, such as public-private partnerships, and is yet to explain the inconsistent interaction patterns across issues and economic sectors. Notably, in certain issue areas, such as agriculture and biofuels, states have intervened, or coopted private regulation. In other areas, such as climate change adaptation, corporate actors appear to act independently, with minimal public scrutiny. There is a need for a better understanding of these divergent patterns of public-private interactions. This study addresses this gap by providing the first systematic mapping of public-private sector interactions in adaptation governance. Drawing on preliminary findings from a novel dataset of public-private sector interactions across two economic sectors (agriculture and mining), the study investigates the variance of governance arrangements in climate adaptation, and their implications for regulatory quality. The study explores the conditions of coordination in public-private adaptation efforts, and of state intervention respectively. In line with previous research, this study argues that public interventions in emerging private authority in climate adaptation governance is highly strategic, and not primarily driven by sustainability concerns. The study further highlights the significant role of issue entrepreneurs, a factor hitherto largely overlooked in the literature. Issue entrepreneurship highlights the capacity to create awareness and frame new issues in a way that are relevant in different institutional settings, thereby maintaining control over their framing in policy making. The preliminary findings suggest that in contexts characterized by high complexity, high technicality, and low politicization, companies can exploit issue entrepreneurship to shape perceptions of legitimate expertise and solutions to climate change. This insight reveals that public-private interactions in climate change adaptation are inherently political, driven by underlying power dynamics and strategic interests. Overall, by mapping and explaining emerging public-private interactions in climate adaptation, the study contributes to ongoing scholarly debates about the role of transnational companies in global environmental governance.