The goal of the Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below 2°C can only be reached if countries commit to and adopt ambitious climate change mitigation action. However, we often witness a gap between both aspects. While many countries are not able to keep up with their promises, others even outperform their international commitments regarding climate change mitigation.
The following questions are addressed:
This project aims to quantify and qualify the gap between international promises and national implementation. To this end, we advance an interdisciplinary theory that involves political actors from the international, national, and subnational level and the harmonization of policies between those levels. To measure this harmonization of climate change mitigation (the dependent variable), we create a vertical policy harmonization index, which reflects the divergence between international commitments and national implementation. Explaining the gap, we probe relevant macro-economic and political factors. Further, the project examines normative questions linked to vertical policy harmonization, like democratic legitimacy at both levels of decision-making, the relative success of autocracies in international bargaining agreements, and the type of bargaining strategies most beneficial to protecting the global climate.
We combine several research methods including policy network analysis, expert interviews, econometric analysis, and forecasting political negotiation outcomes. We use both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. In addition, a computer scientist will develop, maintain, and store large-scale datasets.
Our results will provide normative guidance on the set-up of institutions and specific advice for actors striving to reduce the gap between international commitments and domestic policy adoption. The results also provide a basis for a more realistic prediction of the level of the ambition gap. We partner with several NGOs to involve external and practical expertise in almost all research tasks and to disseminate the results to UNFCCC delegates, national governments, and other decision-makers.
Many countries’ current national climate change mitigation (hereafter: mitigation) policies fall short of the pledges outlined in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), limiting the likelihood of reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement. This project combines insights from various (sub)disciplines and engages with multiple research methods to investigate to what extent and under what conditions countries deviate from their international pledges at the national level.
To this end, we developed two novel indices that measure countries’ level of vertical policy harmonization along three key dimensions of mitigation policymaking (see Task 1). The Target Index compares the level and scope of the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets (hereafter: targets) of 82 countries’ NDCs and national policies – i.e., we measure whether these targets are harmonized or to what extent they deviate. The Policy Effort Index incorporates countries’ climate policy mix to assess the credibility of 36 countries’ targets. We find that despite a quarter of the countries covered having national targets that are either in line with or more ambitious than their NDC target, most countries (accounting for 70% of global emissions) fall short of their targets given countries’ relatively insufficient policy mixes. Additionally, we show that different macro-level factors (e.g., democracy and fossil fuel dependency) are associated with greater deviations between countries’ NDCs and national policies.
In Task 2, we collaborated with computer scientists to create two datasets related to participation in international climate negotiations. In the first dataset, we count how often each country makes a statement in the negotiations, and how often and in what manner it interacts with other countries or country groups. In the second dataset, we systematize information on countries’ negotiation delegations, including their size, composition, experience, and affiliation of their members. We use this data to assess the extent to which countries with a stronger engagement in the UN climate negotiations, in the broader ecosystem of international climate-related organizations, and in transnational climate governance initiatives have more ambitious NDCs and stronger domestic mitigation policies; we find substantive differences between developing and developed countries. Additionally, we examine the presence and participation of small states in the UN climate negotiations to discuss the ways by which small states can compensate for their limited personnel capacities in order to meaningfully engage in the negotiations.
In Task 3, we turn our focus to the national decision-making processes with the aim to examine which factors in a climate policy subsystem drive the harmonization of NDCs and national policies. At the domestic level, actors’ preferences and power resources can influence the political feasibility of policies, and thus countries’ ability to keep their promises. Following this, we expect certain attributes of a policy subsystem (e.g., the level of actor involvement, the presence of “two-level connectors”) to precondition the likelihood of policy adoption, in turn driving harmonization. In addressing these expectations, we draw on the Policy Effort Index. So far, we have run six policy elite surveys to collect data on the relevant factors of a policy subsystem. Ourpreliminary results indicate that the existence of “two-level connectors” are relevant in explaining the gap between countries’ NDCs and national mitigation policies.
In Task 4, we used the Predictioneer’s Game to forecast the ability or willingness of the German and Swiss governments to close the gap between their NDCs and national policies. To this end, we focused on relevant, country-specific factors that may facilitate the harmonization of NDCs and national policies.
The project makes important contributions to the study of countries’ policy responses to climate change. The Vertical Policy Harmonization Indices and subsequent analysis shed further light on countries’ ability to keep commitments and provide the basis for future research on the multilevel governance of climate change and other policy problems.
Marlene Kammerer
Coordinator
University of Bern
Karin Ingold
Co-Coordinator
University of Bern
Paula Castro
Principal Member
University of Zurich
Victor Kristof
Principal Member
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Katharina Michaelowa
Principal Member
University of Zurich
Principal Member
University of Zurich
Dominic Roser
Principal Member
University of Fribourg
Detlef Sprinz
Principal Member
University of Potsdam
Langston Jame “Kimo” Goree IV
Associated Member
International Institute for Sustainable Development
Martin Grosjean
Associated Member
University of Bern
Patrick Hofstetter
Associated Member
World Wildlife Fund Switzerland (WWF)
Jesse Keenan
Associated Member
Tulane University
Luca Lo Re
Associated Member
International Energy Agency France (IEA)
Melissa Low
Associated Member
National University of Singapore
Mary Luomi
Associated Member
International Institute for Sustainable Development
Sara Moarif
Associated Member
International Energy Agency France (IEA)
Benito Müller
Associated Member
Oxford University
Swiss Network for
International Studies