4.4.2.5 International climate governance and the diffusion of political change

Achieving global climate targets requires some degree of international cooperation, but a key question is how many cooperators are needed at the outset to sustain and increase decarbonisation goals over time. For many years, international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) were predicated on a consensus model, which resulted in weak agreements (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol). Even the Paris Agreement can be regarded as weak, as it outlines a strong set of collective goals (e.g. limit the rise of global temperatures to well below 2°C) but leaves countries largely free to choose the actions needed to meet them (Sharpe, 2023) with limited mechanisms to hold them accountable to their pledges. 

Recent work emphasises that broad consensus may not be the only or most promising pathway to addressing climate change. To date, global cooperation has been insufficient and difficult to enforce, and none of the world’s largest emitters are on target to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (Carbon Tracker). Many have argued that the lack of cooperation may stem from concerns about free-riding or from the view that addressing climate-change is a zero-sum game (Barrett 2003), made worse by the presence of catastrophic tipping points with uncertain thresholds (Barrett and Dannenberg, 2014). However, addressing climate change is in the interest of certain countries, regardless of whether all countries cooperate (Aklin and Mildenberger, 2020). For example, certain countries may have strong domestic constituencies committed to climate action (e.g. a concerned public or special interest groups and lobbying groups), which may drive their leaders to take mitigative action regardless of whether other countries act. Other countries may face greater exposure to unmitigated climate change and may thus choose to act, or to come together to pressure other countries to take action, as has happened with the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27.   

Pioneering states and small-group coalitions may be able to catalyse virtuous cycles of cooperation on climate change due to three features of mitigation efforts that challenge the zero-sum game view (Hale, 2020): 

1. Shared benefits: Investments in public goods, such as mitigation of GHG emissions, can also confer private benefits.
2. Diverse preferences: Different countries attach varying levels of importance to mitigation, which means that some countries will take action despite inaction by others.
3. Increasing returns: Previous mitigation efforts enhance the benefits and decrease the costs of future actions through a positive feedback mechanism.

One way to increase ambition is thus through the creation of climate clubs – i.e. a small group of countries committed to ambitious climate goals and deeper cooperation that might involve sectoral agreements and corporate partners. Climate clubs can act as ‘tipping sets’ which, by switching to a more desirable equilibrium state, can lead others to follow (Grimalda et al., 2022; Heal and Kunreuther, 2011). A few key countries, especially large emitters, working together to speed up the development of green technologies coupled with well-designed broad-based market mechanisms could help accelerate global progress on climate change (Sharpe, 2023). Additionally, such climate clubs can concentrate negotiation power (Meckling and Karplus, 2023) and can be crucial for establishing new norms such as anti-fossil fuel norms (Green, 2018, van Asselt and Green, 2022; Meckling and Karplus, 2023, Linsenmeier et al., 2023). International institutions can in turn amplify this cycle through information sharing, capacity building and the elevation of certain norms (Park, 2006; Meckling and Karplus, 2023). 

International norms have been described as evolving according to a patterned ‘life cycle’ (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). Norm entrepreneurs convince states to adopt norms that they deem desirable or appropriate – e.g. the conceptualisation of climate change as an issue of justice and fairness (Mitchell and Carpenter, 2019). If a critical mass adopts the new norm, this can, under certain conditions, create a tipping point after which it spreads, eventually becoming institutionalised. For example, in recent years, SIDS have acted as agenda- and norm-setters in international climate negotiations (Corbett et al., 2019; Constantino et al., 2023). A global coalition of 132 co-sponsoring countries and a global campaign with more than 1,500 civil society organisations in 130 countries formed around Vanuatu’s call in 2019 for climate justice. This movement led to the 2023 adoption by consensus of a historic resolution to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the obligations of governments to protect human rights threatened by climate change under international law during the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (Vanuatu ICJ Initiative, 2023).

International law can also serve as a trigger for positive social tipping. One example is the introduction of formalised human rights laws, which spread to over 100 countries in three decades (Kim, 2013)

In the context of Earth system tipping, a transnational network is advocating for the inclusion of ecocide as the ‘fifth core crime’ in the International Criminal Court Statute. Ecocide is defined by an Independent Expert Panel (2021) as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”, as the ‘fifth core crime’ in the ICC (International Criminal Court) Statute. As Robinson (2022) argues, including ecocide as the fifth core international crime, or even an international ecocide convention, would “provide stronger penal sanctions, stigmatisation, jurisdictional reach, and commitments to prosecute in relation to the worst environmental crimes. But perhaps an even greater value of the crime is its ‘expressive function’: reframing massive environmental wrongdoing not as a mere regulatory infraction, but rather as one of the gravest crimes warranting international concern”. Such an international law would be a strong signal, shifting expectations and hence social and global norms. It is notable that the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), a global investor-led network, called for criminalising ecocide during COP26 (2021) to channel international finances away from ecologically destructive practices.

In summary, political systems can enable or impede positive social tipping in other key subsystems, and can also be tipped. However, political systems are complex, ranging across local to global scales and varying in type of regime, and contingent. Additional research is needed to understand how they tip under different conditions. In this chapter, rather than focusing on identifying exact tipping points, we have focused on highlighting political enabling factors that may help initiate or amplify change in other subsystems, and addressed impeding factors, introducing some key historical and present examples in energy systems transitions. We have also identified mechanisms by which different components of political systems may themselves tip, and the role of social movements in bringing these changes about. This review is by no means comprehensive, and we expect many insights to come from ongoing and novel research efforts into this crucial component of rapid societal change.