Further to my post on the take-aways from COP15, Rob Stavins has posted on the institutional implications of the Copenhagen conference for the UNFCCC. Stavins suggests that the UNFCCC is troubled by four major problems:
1. Too many voices: at a current membership of 196, the UNFCCC is just too cumbersome. Having been witness to the process, it is hard to disagree with this evaluation. Precious time is taken up with procedural discussions, pro forma statements, and political posturing. Considerations of process legitimacy support an open and inclusive forum for international negotiations that deal with the ultimate public good (the atmosphere and global ecosystem). But when it comes to crafting a political agreement between states, this concern for inclusion and formal equality may need to be suppressed.
2. The UNFCCC culture: there is one central division that runs through the UNFCCC, that between the North and South (Developed vs. Developing). Entrenched institutionally in the Kyoto Protocol division of the countries of the world into Annex I (Developed) and non-Annex I (Developing) this dichotomy is severely out of touch with the shifting realities of the international system. Stavins notes elsewhere that there are now “more than 60 non-Annex I countries now have greater per capita income than the poorest of the Annex I countries.” This distinction leads to problems of deal-making between the emerging economies (South Africa, Brazil, India, China, Mexico, South Korea) that must be on board for a meaningful climate treaty, and the developing countries that are hold a truly distinctive set of interests (China’s insistence on the omission of hard targets in the final text of the Copenhagen Accord being a case in point).
3. Decision-making rules: decisions are made in the UNFCCC by consensus. In other words, without full unanimity a final decision cannot be taken. This institutional feature has been described in rich detail in the political science literature as contributing to inaction or producing lowest common denominator outputs (the Copenhagen Accord easily fits this description).
4. A lack of leadership: the UNFCCC suffers from a lack of effective logistical leadership (self-evident in the disaster that was COP15 from a logistical standpoint) as well as a substantive inability to shape and drive forward the negotiating process (this may be a bit of a red herring, in my opinion, as the aforementioned 3 problems render the task of pushing the process forward a herculean one!)
Where does this lead? Stavins points to the need for a new institutional forum to replace the UNFCCC – either the Major Economies Forum or perhaps the G20. Either of these would help to resolve problem #1 – with the size of the meetings significantly reduced (17 members in the former, 20 in the latter). However, it isn’t clear as to how they would resolve problems #2 thru 4. The decision-making rule in both is, to my knowledge, one of unanimity (witness the anodyne statements produced by the most recent G20 meetings in Pittsburgh on climate change).
The culture of “rich and poor” or North and South may, as a result of the shifting institutional framework and the inclusion of emerging economies in the process itself, be challenged and reformulated. However, this will require dealing with the highly ambiguous principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” embodied in UNFCCC article 3.1 and finding a way to operationalize it in a manner that is politically, economically, and ethically acceptable to all parties. Not an easy task.
Lastly, the question of leadership will still hang over any attempts to shift climate negotiations to a new institutional forum. Presumably, the US will be expected to take a strong leadership position. However, their willingness to do so (and to absorb the impact of Chinese gun-slinging from the sidelines) is a matter yet to be determined.
Whether the UNFCCC remains (Stavins makes note of the high degree of international legitimacy accorded to this institution, as well as the strong political support that it holds in the developing world and especially amongst the G77) is an open question. It also seems possible that there could be an institutional reform within the UN process, rather than a forum shift as discussed above. The emergence of an environmental council analogous to the security council seems to me an open possibility.
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