Climate Change Policies

Climate change is a global issue that has proven individual state-centred responses inadequate and it necessitates sustainable collective actions. It requires cooperation and coordination at global, national and local levels to tackle with its adverse effects. This study argues that climate change's cross-cutting nature and its effects compel states to adapt a new governance approach as the most effective tool. Turkey as a part of the Mediterranean Basin is de ined as one of the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Its position on global climate change governance is intertwined with its priorities for economic development which makes it a "unique" party to the current global climate change regime because of its "special circumstances". This study analyses the case of Turkey by identifying the reasons behind Turkey's attitude and position in its integration into the global climate change regime as well as its national responses to issues arising from climate change. It aims to evaluate: the determinants of Turkey's approach to climate change governance and Turkey's formulation of its national climate change policies. Also, it interrogates the ef iciency of Turkey's steps taken towards climate change mitigation. In order to analyse Turkey's existing national structure regarding climate change governance, of icial documents such as strategy papers and action plans composed by Turkey and framework documents generated by international organisations, mainly the UN, are used as primary sources as well as the prominent publications as secondary resources. This study concludes that Turkey's climate change policies and governance structure are still at an early stage. There is a need for a shift in its policy patterns towards climate change governance in the post-Paris Agreement context.

"This volume provides an essential glossary of critical terms and concepts in the field of international environmental politics for diplomats, analysts and students. The interdisciplinary array of expert authors provide terse and authoritative overview of the key concepts and debates that have defined the field of international environmental governance over the years. The entries carefully survey the intellectual ecosystem of the concepts applied to understanding and managing our global environmental crisis." –Peter M. Haas, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

"In a truly unique way, this book helps to connect the dots and navigate between the concepts, ideas and schools of thought in global environmental policy today. As environmental issues climb higher on the global agenda, I would highly recommend this book to all who wish to better understand the insights of sustainable global governance." –Connie Hedegaard, European Union Commissioner for Climate Action

"The global community is at a crossroads in respect to addressing climate change. A solid understanding of global environmental governance empowers people to better shape positive democracy that determines a safer future. This book makes a valuable contribution to societal understanding and societal change. Those who care about the world we leave to our children should take inspiration from its many and varied contributors drawn from so many disparate but interlocking disciplines." –Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Integrating Disaster Risk Management into Climate Change Adaptation promotes the adoption of a risk management approach to climate-sensitive decision-making and serves as a reference to integrate DRM with climate change adaptation (CCA). It guides the reader on how to contribute to CCA by improving the management of climate extremes. The handbook specifically addresses those DRM practitioners who sit within:
-- the National Disaster Management Agency; or
-- line agencies and local governments and have the designated responsibility for DRM.

The handbook provides DRM practitioners with advice for integrating DRM into key adaptation processes: policies, adaptation strategies, and adaptation projects. The handbook explicitly guides the practitioner on how to support government authorities to consider and treat disaster risk through these tools. The guidance provided aims to:
-- promote the importance of DRM as a starting point for adaptation;
-- supply the practitioner with sound arguments to be used as they advocate the integration of DRM;
-- identify approaches, strategies, tools and activities for comprehensive integration of DRM into the designated adaptation processes; and
-- demonstrate the fundamental concept of integration so that the DRM practitioner can apply it wherever the need arises.

Oversight:
Developed under the overall guidance of Neil Britton, ADB, with technical oversight provided by Iftekhar Ahmed, Charlotte Benson & Bharat Dahiya.

"Expanded Brown Agenda"

“This volume presents the findings of the first systematic effort to review the Bank’s commitments to improving urban environmental quality. The brown agenda became an important part of international development assistance following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992). In order to improve the livability and quality of life in cities of the developing world, urban environmental issues need to be given increased attention.

Urban Environment and Infrastructure: Toward Livable Cities sets out the Bank’s current urban environmental goals, framed as the expanded brown agenda:
1. Protecting and enhancing environmental health in urban areas
2. Protecting water, soil, and air quality in urban areas from contamination and pollution
3. Minimizing the urban impact on natural resources at the regional and global scales
4. Preventing and mitigating urban impacts of natural disasters and climate change

This book shows that the Bank has more than US$12 billion of active commitments that address the expanded brown agenda. These are mostly in the Water and Sanitation, Urban Development, Environment, Energy and Transport sectors. The Bank’s current investments are primarily directed at providing the much-needed infrastructure and basic environmental services, especially for the urban poor. However, abating air pollution, mitigating and adapting to climate change and urban impacts of natural disasters are some of the emerging challenges that need to be more fully addressed in the future.”

This paper investigates linkages between trade and climate policies by examining commitments made in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. While environmental protection and economic growth are often perceived as conflicting policy goals, PTAs and NDCs have the potential to encourage mutually supportive approaches to climate and trade governance. Building upon three recent datasets, the paper locates a sample of 21 countries in a typology of four issue-linkage strategies across both types of instruments: policy integration, policy silos, asymmetry in favor of trade policy, and asymmetry in favor of climate policy. It finds that countries that reveal a preference for strong linkage with climate in their PTAs typically do not reveal a preference for strong trade linkage in their NDCs, and vice versa. No state from the sample favors strong policy integration. After sketching out possible explanations for this observation, the paper concludes that policy-makers have significant room for enhancing synergies between trade and climate commitments and that scholars have a role to play in this endeavor.

¿Cómo entender y resignificar las políticas ambientales latinoamericanas en una época de generalizado reconocimiento de las crisis que afectan a los ecosistemas de la Tierra?, ¿cómo reposicionar a las ciencias sociales en el pensamiento sobre ambiente y desarrollo en un escenario de cambio climático que promueve la urgencia de la acción por sobre la reflexión?, ¿cuáles son los roles y capacidades de los ciudadanos, los movimientos sociales, los pueblos indígenas, las comunidades y los territorios en el abordaje de los problemas ambientales?, ¿cómo se conjugan las condiciones de posibilidad de transformación del poder –lo político– con las normas, la técnica y la capacidad institucional –las políticas– para lograr cambios sociales y ambientales realmente sostenibles? Éstas y otras preguntas son las que inspiran los capítulos de este libro y que aspiramos a responder en las siguientes páginas; asumimos que la diversidad de crisis que afectan de manera integrada al planeta y a quienes lo habitamos demanda análisis, respuestas y propuestas que, tentativamente, exploren los contornos de nuevos paradigmas. El objetivo general del texto es ofrecer reflexiones desde distintas miradas y a partir de estudios de caso nacionales regionales de políticas ambientales en América Latina. Esperamos aportar elementos y propuestas que coadyuven a transitar y superar, en algún punto, la crisis socioambiental global. Con este propósito, este capítulo introductorio nos sitúa en la discusión conceptual en la que se enmarcan los siguientes apartados, expresando la intención general y los aportes que ofrece, así como los ejes de análisis transversales. Ofrecemos aquí los contornos de lo que pensamos es un paradigma emergente –el cambio ambiental global– que surge como respuesta al reconocimiento alcanzado por distintos agentes en torno al cambio climático.

The European Union is a pioneer in terms of integrating climate issues into trade negotiations. It is the actor that includes the greatest number and range of provisions related climate change in its trade agreements. However, the EU model does not seem to be inspiring other actors in the trade system. Despite the recent proliferation of trade agreements and the exponential increase in provisions relating to the environment in these agreements, few countries are taking inspiration from EU standards. In order to foster an integrated approach to climate change, it would be useful to reproduce on a broader scale the small number of existing climate provisions, and to innovate based on progress made for other environmental issues.

First published by the Institute of Development Studies in April 2015
© Institute of Development Studies/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro 2015
Autors: Roberto Schaeffer, André F.P. Lucena, Régis Rathmann, Alexandre Szklo, Rafael Soria and Mauro Chavez-Rodriguez. April 2015

The regulatory contribution that Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) make to global climate governance is assessed through an analysis of climate-related provisions found in 688 PTAs signed between 1947 and 2016. Provisions are analyzed along four dimensions: innovation, legalization, replication, and distribution. Innovative climate provisions are found in several PTAs that are in some cases more specific and enforceable than the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Nonetheless, these climate provisions offer limited progress because they remain weakly ‘legalized’, fail to replicate broadly in the global trade system, and were not adopted by the largest greenhouse gas emitters. Despite the inclusion of innovative climate provisions in a number of PTAs, their poor design and weak replication position them as some of the weakest environmental provisions within PTAs.

The private sector's role in climate finance is increasingly subject to political and scientific debate. Yet there is poor empirical evidence of private engagement in adaptation and its potential contribution to the industrialised countries' mobilisation of USD 100 billion of annual climate finance from 2020 onwards to support developing countries to address climate change. This paper analysed 101 case studies of private sector adaptation under the Private Sector Initiative (PSI) of the UNFCCC Nairobi work programme, and examined these against ten 'adaptation finance criteria' that were distilled from UN climate negotiation outcomes. Results show that private adaptation interventions complement public adaptation activities. Yet the ten adaptation finance criteria are not met, which demonstrates that the diplomatic UNFCCC conceptualisation of financing adaptation is dissonant from the private sector reality. For example, while the case studies' investments are 'new and additional' to Official Development Assistance (ODA), their 'predictability' remains unclear. And despite some commitment for 'up-scaling', plans and associated costs for doing so remain undisclosed. Developed countries' role in 'mobilising' private financial resources under the PSI seems limited. It is unrealistic to expect that the UNFCCC alters existing criteria to suit private initiatives, or that the private sector aligns its initiatives to meet existing criteria. This paper advocates monitoring and reporting only of those private investments that principally finance adaptation. This practical way forward would allow private finance to meet criteria such as predictability, transparency, and mobilisation, but would drastically reduce the amount of private investment that could contribute to reaching the USD 100 billion climate finance target.

This policy brief investigates the interplay of two critically important Group of Twenty (G20) agenda items: trade and climate change. We argue that there is significant room for a stronger emphasis on climate-friendly trade measures that are in line with the global trade regime. We believe that the G20 should fully tap into this potential. We recommend (1) using preferential trade agreements to leverage climate action, (2) phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, (3) seeking international cooperation and consensus on the implementation of border carbon adjustments, (4) making use of investment law and, more generally, (5) fostering trade and climate linkages through the G20.

This article considers why price-based frameworks may be inherently unsuitable for delivering unprecedented global emissions reductions while retaining the necessary public and political support, and argues that it is time to instead draw on quantity-based mechanisms such as TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas).

TEQs is a climate policy framework combining a hard cap on emissions with the use of market mechanisms to distribute quotas beneath that cap. 

The significant international research into TEQs is summarised, including a 2008 UK government feasibility study, which concluded that the scheme was “ahead of its time”. TEQs would cover all sectors within a national economy, including households, and findings suggest it could act as a catalyst for the socio-technical transitions required to maximise wellbeing under a tightening cap, while generating national common purpose towards innovative energy demand reductions.

Finally, there are reflections on the role that the carbon management community can play in further developing TEQs and reducing the rift between what climate science calls for and what politics is delivering.

This article analyzes the effectiveness of transnational multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development—also known as " Type II outcomes " of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development—in the sustainable energy sector. We combine quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitatively, we use a database of 340 partnerships, including 46 partnerships that focus on energy. Our qualitative analysis includes case studies of five partnerships that appear as the most effective and five that are operational but only with modest degrees of effectiveness. We study two competing hypotheses. The first, rooted in institutionalism, assumes that variation in effectiveness is related to organizational structures and procedures. The competing hypothesis emphasizes the power of actors and expects partnerships that involve key business actors and powerful Northern states to perform better. We conclude that the level of institutionaliza-tion is most important in explaining effectiveness, while powerful partners and the type of internal organization may further enhance effectiveness.