Integrity of Cooperative Climate Initiatives–Inherent Synergies and Trade-Offs for Non-State Actor Inclusion

In global climate governance, voluntary climate action by non-state and subnational actors is facilitated in large part by a proliferation of cooperative climate initiatives (CCIs). Given their expanding and transnational scope, CCIs are now recognised as playing a central role in the facilitation of voluntary climate action by way of multistakeholder participation. Often convened by non-governmental organisations and international organisations, CCIs support intergovernmental and state-led climate action by mobilising climate commitments by businesses, cities, and civil society. Though integrity of CCIs has been fundamentally contested in contradictory debates and climate governance literature provides inconsistent findings on how initiatives should facilitate high integrity climate action. This paper reviews governance literature related to integrity of CCIs, including analogous theory on legitimacy. Based on this it constructs a framework of integrity dimensions for potentially enhancing CCIs. In doing so it becomes clear that there are inherent synergies and trade-offs between integrity dimensions that affect how non-state actors participate in CCIs. By moving beyond often siloed and conflicting research findings on legitimacy and outcomes of non-state climate action, this paper offers an integrated perspective on what constitutes integrity of voluntary climate action by non-state actors.