The Paris Agreement's Novel Mechanisms
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE PARIS AGREEMENT’S NOVEL MECHANISMS AND THEIR CAPACITY TO ADVANCE AMBITIOUS AND EQUITABLE CLIMATE ACTION An analysis of the Transparency Framework, the Global Stocktake and the Talanoa Dialogue 1 Jacopo Pasquero THE PARIS AGREEMENT’S NOVEL MECHANISMS AND THEIR CAPACITY TO ADVANCE AMBITIOUS AND EQUITABLE CLIMATE ACTION An analysis of the Transparency Framework, the Global Stocktake and the Talanoa Dialogue Written by: Jacopo Pasquero Registration No: 950516642010 Contact: [email protected] Written for: Wageningen University & Research MSc. Environmental Sciences Chair Group: Environmental Policy (ENP) Course code: ENP-80436 Supervisor: Dr. Aarti Gupta Second reader: Dr. Mattijs Smits June 2019 2 Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement is an important milestone in the United Nations climate regime: its bottom-up approach solves old conflicts between countries over equity and ambition, by introducing novel mechanisms that are intended to collectively guide the international community towards long-term climate action. However, as these mechanisms are novel and not fully scrutinized by academia, it is unclear how they will advance equitable and ambitious climate action, if at all. This study investigates how the Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework, Global Stocktake and Talanoa Dialogue seek to advance equity and ambition in the United Nations climate regime and the transformative potential of novel procedural mechanisms in global governance. To that end, a discourse analysis of written submissions, reason-giving sessions, and official policy documents is conducted. Several discourses are thus identified to understand if countries reach a shared understanding on how equity and ambition can be advanced over time. The results show that (1) Transparency checks and does not advance climate action (2) the Global Stocktake moves equity and ambition from substantive to self-determined, procedural, and information-centered and (3) the Talanoa Dialogue facilitates the exchange of best practices, but does not consistently move climate action forward. Eventually, the findings suggest that the transformative potential in global governance of novel mechanisms is limited: in fact, focus is put on procedures rather than substantive outcomes, the reference to substantive questions remains vague, and old conflicts persist even at procedural level. Key Words: climate governance, discourse theory, discursive Institutionalism, equity, Global Stocktake, Paris Agreement, public reason, Talanoa Dialogue, transparency, UNFCCC. 3 Abbreviations: CMA: Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement COP: Conference of the Parties CBDR-RC: Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities FSV: Facilitative Sharing of Views GST: Global Stocktake IAR: International Assessment and Review ICA: International Consultation and Analysis IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change MRV: Measurement Reporting and Verification UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 4 Table of contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Setting the scene ..................................................................................................................................... 9 1.2 Research objective and research questions .......................................................................................... 11 1.2.1 Research objective .......................................................................................................................... 11 1.2.2 Research questions ......................................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Roadmap ................................................................................................................................................ 12 2. Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................................... 13 2.1 Discourse theory .................................................................................................................................... 13 2.1.1 Discursive Institutionalism .............................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Public Reason Theory ............................................................................................................................ 14 2.3 Operationalizing the conceptual framework Equity ............................................................................. 15 2.3.1 Evolving conceptualization of the equity framework ..................................................................... 15 2.3.2 A shared understanding of equity and ambition to meet the Paris goals ...................................... 16 2.3.3 Analysing the evolving understanding of equity and ambition through Discourse and Public Reason theory .......................................................................................................................................... 17 3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 21 3.1 Research Design..................................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 Research scope ...................................................................................................................................... 21 3.3 Data Collection ...................................................................................................................................... 22 3.3.1 The Transparency Framework ........................................................................................................ 22 3.3.2 The Global Stocktake ...................................................................................................................... 23 3.3.3 The Talanoa Dialogue ..................................................................................................................... 23 3.3.4 Discourse hegemonization ............................................................................................................. 23 3.4 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 24 4. Background: Evolving mechanisms of climate governance ........................................................................ 28 4.1 The UNFCCC ........................................................................................................................................... 28 4.2 Developments in climate negotiations .................................................................................................. 29 4.2.1 From Kyoto to Paris ........................................................................................................................ 29 4.2.2 Implementation of the Paris Agreement and its novel mechanisms ............................................. 30 5. Transparency ............................................................................................................................................... 36 5.1 Operationalization of the enhanced transparency framework ............................................................. 38 5.1.1 Equity .............................................................................................................................................. 38 5.1.2 Ambition ......................................................................................................................................... 41 5.2 The existing transparency arrangements .............................................................................................. 43 5.2.1 Equity .............................................................................................................................................. 44 5 5.2.2 Ambition ......................................................................................................................................... 45 5.3 Discourse hegemonization .................................................................................................................... 47 5.4 Transparency’s transformative potential in global governance ............................................................ 48 6. Global Stocktake .......................................................................................................................................... 50 6.1 Equity ..................................................................................................................................................... 50 6.1.1 General reference to the equity principle, framing, and silence ................................................... 51 6.1.2 Operationalization of the equity principle: the self-assessment discourse ................................... 55 6.1.3 The scope of the Global Stocktake: the beyond-mitigation discourse ........................................... 58 6.2 Ambition ................................................................................................................................................ 61 6.2.1 A prescriptive approach.................................................................................................................