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Climate change as a regime complex
Global climate governance is best understood as a regime
complex, which has led to more effective and legitimate
governance in the issue area.
Ahsan Syed, Johannes Ropers, Milan Ilnyckyj, Tanya Whyte, Wonmi Hwang
Summary
 1 - Defining a regime complex
 2 - Climate as a regime complex
 3 - Effectiveness
 4 – Legitimacy
1 - Defining a regime complex
 “An array of partially overlapping and nonhierarchical
institutions covering a particular issue area”
 -Raustiala and Victor (279)
 Raustiala and Victor make four observations about regime
complexes:
 They “demonstrate path dependence,” (279)
 They promote “forum-shopping” by states looking to maximize
their interests (280)
 There are legal inconstancies within complexes, which a variety
of actors negotiate at different times and places rather than in
one negotiation (280)
 States deal with inconsistencies through “implementation and
interpretation” on a domestic level (280)
2 - Climate as a regime complex
 Overlapping and nonhierarchical institutions
 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC)
 The Kyoto Protocol
 European regional climate programs, including the Emission
Trading System
 Emerging North American GHG trading systems: Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Western Climate Initiative, etc
 Voluntary private sector initiatives
 Emission reduction efforts through multilateral bodies,
including the UN, World Bank, etc
 Collaborative efforts between cities
2 - Climate as a regime complex
 Path dependence
 To a degree, the UNFCCC process is modeled on the approach
used for ozone depletion:
 A framework convention (the 1985 Vienna Convention for
ozone)
 Protocols to implement the objectives of the framework
(1987 Montreal Protocol for ozone)
 The Kyoto Protocol was meant to achieve concrete gains
toward UNFCCC objectives
 The climate process has been less effective – there are no
simple substitutes to GHGs, and a far wider variety of activities
produce them
 Still, the climate governance system demonstrates the path
dependence that is characteristic of a regime complex
2 - Climate as a regime complex
 Promotion of forum shopping
 Different states have sought to address climate change
through fora where they have influence and which they feel
will produce outcomes consistent with their preferences
 The US Senate Byrd–Hagel Resolution blocked
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol
 The US subsequently tried to address climate change
through other fora, for instance by creating the Major
Economies Forum in 2009
 States have also engaged in regional efforts at cooperation
2 - Climate as a regime complex
 Legal inconsistencies, negotiations at many different
times and places
 The UNFCCC process has already involved 19 Conferences
of the Parties, held all over the world
 In addition, there have been countless other meetings
among both governmental and non-governmental actors
 States have widely endorsed the objective of restraining
warming to less than 2˚C above pre-industrial levels, but
none have been willing to adopt and implement the
emissions reductions necessary to meet that objective
 States have also failed to live up to their specific and
voluntary Kyoto commitments, including Canada
3 - Effectiveness
 So far, at least, the climate change governance regime
has not been effective
 In order to avoid dangerous climate change, the
atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs)
must be stabilized at a safe level
 Stabilizing the concentration of GHGs requires that net
emissions fall to zero.
What stabilization would look like:
3 - Effectiveness
 “Essentially, any specific concentration or radiativeforcing target requires emissions to fall to very low levels
as the removal processes of the ocean and terrestrial
systems saturate… [T]o reach a given stabilization target,
emissions must ultimately be reduced well below current
levels. For achievement of the stabilization categories I
and II, negative net emissions are required towards the
end of the century in many scenarios considered (high
agreement, much evidence)”

Climate Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change

https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/tssts-ts-3-2-stabilization-scenarios.html
What the world has been doing:
Rising concentrations in parts per
million
(black line)
Emissions in billions of tonnes per year
(black line)
Source: Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-3.html#2-3-1
Global Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuels 1990-2008
Source: Boden, T.A., G. Marland, and R.J. Andres (2010). Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2
Emissions. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department
of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2010.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html
Emissions in most regions are rising and expected to continue to rise
Source: Climate Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/figure-8-2.html
Warming is being observed in all regions
Source: Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html
3 - Effectiveness
 The question is not whether climate change governance
has been effective, but whether the emergence of
climate change governance as a regime complex has
been more effective than the alternatives
 To assess this question requires a counterfactual: what
would have happened otherwise? A single unified
regime? No action at all?
 Given the complexity of the issue and the range of
emission sources, expecting a single regime to govern
climate change is unrealistic
4 – Legitimacy
 Legitimacy can be considered in at least three ways
 Whether a governance system is perceived to be structured
in a way that justly distributes costs and benefits between
participants
 Whether the system grants participants a meaningful
mechanism for expressing their views and preferences
 Whether the system is effective at serving its purpose
 The climate regime does best on the second criterion –
inclusion. It does poorly in relation to effectiveness, and
the fairness of the current approach is contested
4 – Legitimacy
 There can be conflicts between the different constituents
of legitimacy
 A highly democratic process might end up deadlocked,
reducing the effectiveness of the regime complex
 An approach that is perceived to constrain development
opportunities may be rejected by one group of states, while
an approach that requires no substantive action from large
and fast-growing states may be questioned by others
 A regime complex that expresses the aspiration of all states
for unending economic development will likely fail to
effectively curb climate change
 Broad inclusion in climate fora can allow states determined
to delay action to advance their aim
Conclusions
 In many ways, the global climate governance regime
represents the characteristics of a ‘regime complex’
 While the regime complex has not been effective at
adequately curbing emissions, it is not clear that there
are alternative forms of governance that would work
better
 By allowing states and other actors to engage with
climate change through multiple existing fora, a degree
of legitimacy has been conferred on global climate
governance. In some cases, legitimacy and effectiveness
have been at odds with one another