Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-14 (section)

== 14.1 Introduction ==

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This chapter assesses the role and effectiveness of international cooperation in mitigating climate change. Such cooperation includes multilateral global cooperative agreements among nation states such as the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and its related legal instruments, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, but also plurilateral agreements involving fewer states, as well as those focused on particular economic and policy sectors, such as components of the energy system. Moreover, this chapter assesses the role of transnational agreements and cooperative arrangements between non-state and sub-national actors, including municipal governments, private sector firms and industry consortia, and civil society organisations. This chapter does not assess international cooperation within the European Union, as this is covered in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-13|Chapter 13]] of this report.

Past IPCC assessment reports have discussed the theoretical literature, providing insights into the rationale for international cooperation, as well as guidance as to its structure and implementation. This chapter limits such theoretical discussion primarily to the new developments since the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Important developments in this respect include attention to climate clubs (groups of countries and potentially non-state actors that can work together to achieve particular objectives), and the effects of framing the global climate change mitigation challenge as one of accelerating a socio-technical transition or transformation, shifting development pathways accordingly, in addition to (or rather than) solving a global commons problem. This chapter draws from theory to identify a set of criteria by which to assess the effectiveness of existing forms of international cooperation.

The rest of this chapter describes existing cooperative international agreements, institutions, and initiatives with a view to clarifying how they operate, what effects they have, and ultimately, whether they work. At the heart of this international institutional architecture lies the Paris Agreement, which sets the overall approach for international cooperation under the UNFCCC at the global level. In many ways, the Paris Agreement reshapes the structure of such cooperation, from one oriented primarily towards target setting, monitoring, and enforcement, to one that is oriented towards supporting and enabling nationally determined actions (including targets), monitoring as well as catalysing non-state and sub-national actions at multiple levels of governance. In addition to the Paris Agreement, many forms of cooperation have taken shape in parallel: those designed to address other environmental problems that have a significant impact on climate mitigation; those operating at the sub-global or sectoral level; and those where the main participants are non-state actors. The chapter ends with an overall assessment of the effectiveness of current international cooperation and identifies areas that would benefit from improved and enhanced action.

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=== 14.1.1 Key Findings From the Fifth Assessment Report ===

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The AR5 found that two characteristics of climate change make international cooperation essential: that it is a global commons problem that needs to be addressed in a coordinated fashion at the global scale; and that given the global diversity with respect to opportunities for and cost of mitigation, there are economic efficiencies associated with cooperative solutions ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-13#13.2.1|Section 13.2.1]] .1). Consequently, AR5 found evidence to suggest that climate policies that are implemented across geographical regions would be more effective in terms of both their environmental consequences and their economic costs (Sections 13.6, 13.13 and 14.4). The AR5 also suggested that regional cooperation could offer opportunities beyond what countries may be able to achieve by themselves. These opportunities are due to geographic proximity, shared infrastructure and policy frameworks, trade, and cross-border investments, and examples included renewable energy pools across borders, networks of energy infrastructure and coordinated forestry policies (Sections 1.2, 6.6, 14.2 and 15.2). The AR5 also suggested that policy linkages exist across regional, national, and sub-national scales (Sections 13.3.1 and 13.5.1.3). For these reasons, AR5 suggested that although the UNFCCC remains the primary international forum for climate negotiations, many other institutions engaged at the global, regional, and local levels do and should play an active role (Sections 13.3.1, 13.4.1.4 and 13.5). AR5 also noted that the inclusion of climate change issues across a variety of forums often creates institutional linkages between mitigation and adaptation (Sections 13.3–13.5). In addition to centralised cooperation and governance, with a primary focus on the UNFCCC and its associated institutions, AR5 noted the emergence of new transnational climate-related institutions of decentralised authority such as public-private sector partnerships, private sector governance initiatives, transnational non-governmental organisation (NGO) programmes, and city-led initiatives (Sections 13.2, 13.3.1 and 13.12). It noted that these have resulted in a multiplicity of cooperative efforts in the form of multilateral agreements, harmonised national policies and decentralised but coordinated national and regional policies (Sections 13.3.2, 13.4.1 and 14.4). Finally, it suggested that international cooperation may also have a role in promoting active engagement of the private sector in technological innovation and cooperative efforts leading to technology transfer and the development of new technologies (Sections 13.3, 13.9 and 13.12).

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=== 14.1.2 Developments Since the Fifth Assessment Report ===

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==== 14.1.2.1 Negotiation of the Paris Agreement ====

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The key development since AR5 has been the negotiation and adoption of the Paris Agreement, which, building on the UNFCCC, introduces a new approach to global climate governance. This new approach, as discussed below ( [[#14.3.1.1|Section 14.3.1.1]] ), is driven by the need to engage developing countries in emissions reductions beyond those they had taken on voluntarily under the Cancun Agreements, extend mitigation commitments to those developed countries that had rejected or withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, and to respond to the rapidly changing geopolitical context ( [[#14.3.1.2|Section 14.3.1.2]] ).

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==== 14.1.2.2 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals ====

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It has long been clear that a failure to mitigate climate change would exacerbate existing poverty, accentuate vulnerability and worsen inequality (Denton at al. 2014), but there is an emerging attempt to harmonise mitigation actions with those oriented towards social and economic development. A key development since AR5 is the adoption in 2015 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Agenda offers an aspirational narrative, coherent framework and actionable agenda for addressing diverse issues of development through goals that balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development as well as issues of governance and institutions ( [[#ICSU%20ISSC--2015|ICSU ISSC 2015]] ). Scholars have noted that these dimensions of sustainable development are inter-dependent ( [[#Nilsson--2016|Nilsson et al. 2016]] ), and, as such it is difficult if not impossible to achieve economic and social gains while neglecting environmental concerns, including climate change ( [[#Le%20Blanc--2015|Le Blanc 2015]] ). The SDGs are closely linked to the Paris Agreement, adopted a few weeks later. There is a growing body of literature that examines the interlinkages between SDGs, including SDG 13 (taking urgent action to combat climate change) and others, concluding that without a proper response to climate change, success in many of the other SDGs would be difficult if not impossible ( [[#ICSU%20ISSC--2015|ICSU ISSC 2015]] ; [[#Le%20Blanc--2015|Le Blanc 2015]] ; [[#Nilsson--2016|Nilsson et al. 2016]] ; [[#Weitz--2018|Weitz et al. 2018]] ). Likewise, failure to achieve the SDGs will have a detrimental effect on the ability to limit climate change to manageable levels. Initiatives such as The World in 2050 ( [[#TWI2050--2018|TWI2050 2018]] ), a large research initiative by a global consortium of research and policy institutions, work on the premise that pursuing climate action and sustainable development in an integrated and coherent way, based on a sound understanding of development pathways and dynamics, is the strongest approach to enable countries to achieve their objectives in both agreements.

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==== 14.1.2.3 IPCC Special Reports ====

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Further key developments since AR5 include the release of three IPCC special reports. The first of these assessed the differential impacts of limiting climate change to 1.5°C global average warming compared to 2°C warming, indicated the emissions reductions and enabling conditions necessary to stay within this limit ( [[#IPCC--2018a|IPCC 2018a]] ). While the events that have unfolded since the report are not yet comprehensively documented in literature, arguably the report has led to a renewed perception of the urgency of climate mitigation ( [[#Wolf--2019|Wolf et al. 2019]] ). In particular, the report appears to have crystalised media coverage in some parts of the world around a need to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050 (whether of GHGs or CO 2 ), rather than delaying such reductions until the latter half of the century, as had been previously understood and indicated in the Paris Agreement. Its release is hence one factor explaining the rise in transnational climate mobilisation efforts ( [[#Boykoff--2019|Boykoff and Pearman 2019]] ). It has also played a role, in addition to the Paris Agreement ( [[#Geden--2016a|Geden 2016a]] ), in the numerous announcements, pledges and indications by governments, including by all G7 countries, of their adoption of net zero GHG targets for 2050. The other two special reports focused on ocean and the cryosphere ( [[#IPCC--2019a|IPCC 2019a]] ), and the potential of land-related responses to contribute to adaptation and mitigation ( [[#IPCC--2019b|IPCC 2019b]] ). There has been no literature directly tying the publication of these latter two reports to changes in international cooperation. However, the 25th UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Madrid in 2019 convened a dialogue on ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action in this context ( [[#UNFCCC--2019a|UNFCCC 2019a]] , para. 31).

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