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

== 14.5 Multi-level, Multi-actor Governance ==

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The Paris Agreement sets in place a new framework for international climate policy ( [[#Paroussos--2019|Paroussos et al. 2019]] ), which some cite as evidence of ‘hybrid multilateralism’ ( [[#Christoff--2016|Christoff 2016]] ; [[#Savaresi--2016|Savaresi 2016]] ; [[#Bäckstrand--2017|Bäckstrand et al. 2017]] ). While a trend of widening involvement of non-state actors was evident prior to conclusion of the Paris Agreement, particularly at UNFCCC COPs, the ‘new landscape of international climate cooperation’ features an ‘intensified interplay between state and non-state actors’, including civil society and social movements, business actors, and sub-national or substate actors, such as local governments and cities ( [[#Bäckstrand--2017|Bäckstrand et al. 2017]] , p. 562). This involvement of other actors beyond states in international climate cooperation is facilitated by the Paris Agreement’s ‘hybrid climate policy architecture’ ( [[#Bodansky--2016|Bodansky et al. 2016]] ) ( [[#14.3.1.1|Section 14.3.1.1]] ), which acknowledges the primacy of domestic politics in climate change and invites the mobilisation of international and domestic pressure to make the Agreement effective ( [[#Falkner--2016b|Falkner 2016b]] ). In this landscape, there is greater flexibility for more decentralised ‘polycentric’ forms of climate governance and recognition of the benefits of working in diverse forms and groups to realise global climate mitigation goals ( [[#Jordan--2015|Jordan et al. 2015]] ; [[#Oberthür--2016|Oberthür 2016]] ) ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-1#1.9|Section 1.9]] ).

Increasing attention has focused on the role of multi-level, multi-actor cooperation among actors, groupings and agreements beyond the UNFCCC climate regime as potential ‘building blocks’ towards enhanced international action on climate mitigation ( [[#Falkner--2016a|Falkner 2016a]] ; [[#Caparrós--2017|Caparrós and Péreau 2017]] ; [[#Potoski--2017|Potoski 2017]] ; [[#Stewart--2017|Stewart et al. 2017]] ). This can include agreements on emissions and technologies at the regional or sub-global level, what scholars often refer to as ‘climate clubs’ ( [[#Nordhaus--2015|Nordhaus 2015]] ; [[#Hovi--2016|Hovi et al. 2016]] ; [[#Green--2017|Green 2017]] ; [[#Sprinz--2018|Sprinz et al. 2018]] ). One forum through which such agreements are often discussed, in support of UNFCCC objectives, is high-level meetings of political leaders, such as the G7 and G20 states ( [[#Livingston--2016|Livingston 2016]] ). It also includes cooperation on narrower sets of issues than are found within the Paris Agreement, for instance, other international environmental agreements dealing with a particular subset of GHGs; linkages with, or leveraging of, efforts or agreements in other spheres such as adaptation, human rights or trade; agreements within particular economic sectors; or transnational initiatives involving global cooperative efforts by different types of non-state actors. Cooperative efforts in each of these forums are reviewed in the following sections of the chapter. [[#14.5.1|Section 14.5.1]] discusses international cooperation at multiple governance levels (global, sub-global and regional); [[#14.5.2|Section 14.5.2]] discusses cooperation with international sectoral agreements and institutions such as in the forestry, energy and transportation sectors; and Sections 14.5.3–14.5.5 discuss transnational cooperation across civil society and social movements, business partnerships and investor coalitions, and between sub-national entities and cities, respectively.

A key idea underpinning this analysis is that decomposition of the larger challenge of climate mitigation into ‘smaller units’ may facilitate more effective cooperation ( [[#Sabel--2017|Sabel and Victor 2017]] ) and complement cooperation in the UN climate regime ( [[#Stewart--2017|Stewart et al. 2017]] ). However, it is recognised that significant uncertainty remains over the feasibility and costs of these efforts ( [[#Sabel--2017|Sabel and Victor 2017]] ), as well as whether they ultimately strengthen progress on climate mitigation in the multilateral climate arena ( [[#Falkner--2016a|Falkner 2016a]] ).

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=== 14.5.1 International Cooperation at Multiple Governance Levels ===

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==== 14.5.1.1 Role of Other Environmental Agreements ====

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International cooperation on climate change mitigation takes place at multiple governance levels, including under a range of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) beyond those of the international climate regime.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (the Montreal Protocol) is the leading example of a non-climate MEA with significant implications for mitigating climate change ( [[#Barrett--2008|Barrett 2008]] ). The Montreal Protocol regulates a number of substances that are both ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and GHGs with a significant global warming potential (GWP), including chlorofluorocarbons, halons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). As a result, implementation of phase-out requirements for these substances under the Montreal Protocol has made a significant contribution to mitigating climate change ( [[#Molina--2009|Molina et al. 2009]] ) ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-9#9.9.7.1|Section 9.9.7.1]] ). [[#Velders--2007|Velders et al. (2007)]] found that over the period from 1990 to 2010, the reduction in GWP100-weighted ODS emissions expected with compliance to the provisions of the Montreal Protocol was 8 GtCO 2 -eq yr –1 , an amount substantially greater than the first commitment period Kyoto reduction target. [[#Young--2021|Young et al. (2021)]] suggest that the Montreal Protocol may also be helping to mitigate climate change through avoided decreases in the land carbon sink.

The 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol applies to the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs, which are widely used as refrigerants ( [[#Abas--2018|Abas et al. 2018]] ), have a high GWP100 of 14,600 for HFC-23, and are not ODS ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-9#9.9.7.1|Section 9.9.7.1]] ). The Kigali Amendment addresses the risk that the phase-out of HCFCs under the Montreal Protocol and their replacement with HFCs could exacerbate global warming ( [[#Akanle--2010|Akanle 2010]] ; [[#Hurwitz--2016|Hurwitz et al. 2016]] ), especially with the predicted growth in HFC usage for applications like air conditioners ( [[#Velders--2015|Velders et al. 2015]] ). In this way it creates a cooperative rather than a conflictual relationship between addressing ozone depletion and the climate protection goals of the UNFCCC regime ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). The Kigali Amendment requires developed country Parties to phase down HFCs by 85% from 2011 to 2013 levels by 2036. Developing country Parties are permitted longer phase-down periods (out to 2045 and 2047), but must freeze production and consumption between 2024 and 2028 ( [[#Ripley--2016|Ripley and Verkuijl 2016]] ; [[#UN--2016|UN 2016]] ). A ban on trade in HFCs with non-Parties will come into effect from 1 January 2033. For HFC-23, which is a by-product of HCFC production rather than an ODS, Parties are required to report production and consumption data, and to destroy all emissions of HFC-23 occurring as part of HCFCs or HFCs to the extent practicable from 2020 onwards using approved technologies ( [[#Ripley--2016|Ripley and Verkuijl 2016]] ).

Full compliance with the Kigali Amendment is predicted to reduce HFC emissions by 61% of the global baseline by 2050 ( [[#Höglund-Isaksson--2017|Höglund-Isaksson et al. 2017]] ), with avoided global warming in 2100 due to HFCs from a baseline of 0.3°C–0.5°C to less than 0.1°C ( [[#WMO--2018|WMO 2018]] ). Examining the interplay of the Kigali Amendment with the Paris Agreement, [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. (2019)]] show how the Article 6 mechanisms under the Paris Agreement could generate financial incentives for HFC mitigation and related energy efficiency improvements. Early action under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement could drive down baseline levels of HFCs for developing countries (calculated in light of future production and consumption in the early- and mid-2020s) thus generating long-term mitigation benefits under the Kigali Amendment ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). However, achievement of the objectives of the Kigali Amendment is dependent on its ratification by key developed countries, such as the United States, and the provision of funds by developed countries through the Protocol’s Multilateral Fund to meet developing countries’ agreed incremental costs of implementation ( [[#Roberts--2017|Roberts 2017]] ). The Kigali Amendment came into force on 1 January 2019 and has been ratified by 118 of the 198 Parties to the Montreal Protocol.

MEAs dealing with transboundary air pollution, such as the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) and its implementing protocols, which regulate non-GHGs like particulates, nitrogen oxides and ground-level ozone, can also have potential benefits for climate change mitigation ( [[#Erickson--2017|Erickson 2017]] ). Studies have indicated that rigorous air quality controls targeting short-lived climate forcers, like methane, ozone and black carbon, could slow global mean temperature rise by about 0.5°C by mid-century ( [[#Schmale--2014|Schmale et al. 2014]] ). Steps in this direction were taken with 2012 amendments to the CLRTAP Gothenburg Protocol (initially adopted in 1999) to include black carbon, which is an important driver of climate change in the Arctic region ( [[#Yamineva--2018|Yamineva and Kulovesi 2018]] ). The amended Protocol, which has 28 Parties including the US and EU, entered into force in October 2019. However, its limits on black carbon have been criticised as insufficiently ambitious in light of scientific assessments ( [[#Khan--2018|Khan and Kulovesi 2018]] ). There is still a non-negligible uncertainty in the assessment of radiative forcing of each short-lived climate forcer (SLCF), and the results of AR6 WGI have been updated since AR5. For example, the assessment of Emission-based Radiative Forcing from Black Carbon emissions was revised downward in AR6 (AR6 WGI [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-6#6.4.2|Section 6.4.2]] ). When discussing co-benefits with MEAs related to transboundary air pollution, attention should be paid to the uncertainty in radiative forcing of SLCFs and the update of relevant scientific knowledge.

Another MEA that may play a role in aiding climate change mitigation is the 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury, which came into force on 16 August 2017. Coal burning for electricity generation represents the second largest source (behind artisanal and small-scale gold mining) of anthropogenic mercury emissions to air ( [[#UNEP--2013|UNEP 2013]] ). Efforts to control and reduce atmospheric emissions of mercury from coal-fired power generation under the Minamata Convention may reduce GHG emissions from this source ( [[#Eriksen--2014|Eriksen and Perrez 2014]] ; [[#Selin--2014|Selin 2014]] ). For instance, [[#Giang--2015|Giang et al. (2015)]] have modelled the implications of the Minamata Convention for mercury emissions from coal-fired power generation in India and China, concluding that reducing mercury emissions from present-day levels in these countries is likely to require ‘avoiding coal consumption and transitioning toward less carbon-intensive energy sources’ ( [[#Giang--2015|Giang et al. 2015]] ). Parties to the Minamata Convention include five of the six top global CO 2 emitters – China, the United States, the EU, India and Japan (Russia has not ratified the Convention). The Minamata Convention also establishes an Implementation and Compliance Committee to review compliance with its provisions on a ‘facilitative’ basis ( [[#Eriksen--2014|Eriksen and Perrez 2014]] ).

MEAs that require state Parties to conserve habitat (such as the Convention on Biological Diversity) or to protect certain ecosystems like wetlands (such as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat) may also have co-benefits for climate change mitigation through the adoption of well-planned conservation policies ( [[#Phelps--2012|Phelps et al. 2012]] ; [[#Gilroy--2014|Gilroy et al. 2014]] ). At a theoretical level, REDD+ activities have been identified as a particular opportunity for achieving climate mitigation objectives while also conserving tropical forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Elements of REDD+ that promise greatest effectiveness for climate change mitigation (e.g., greater finance combined with reference levels which reduce leakage by promoting broad participation across countries with both high and low historical deforestation rates) also offer the greatest benefits for biodiversity conservation ( [[#Busch--2011|Busch et al. 2011]] ). However, actual biodiversity and ecosystem service co-benefits are dependent on the design and implementation of REDD+ programmes ( [[#Ehara--2014|Ehara et al. 2014]] ; [[#Panfil--2016|Panfil and Harvey 2016]] ), with limited empirical evidence to date of emissions reductions from these programmes ( [[#Newton--2016|Newton et al. 2016]] ; [[#Johnson--2019|Johnson et al. 2019]] ), and concerns about whether they meet equity and justice considerations ( [[#Schroeder--2014|Schroeder and McDermott 2014]] ) ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-7#7.6.1|Section 7.6.1]] ).

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==== 14.5.1.2 Linkages with Sustainable Development, Adaptation, Loss and Damage, and Human Rights ====

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As discussed in Chapter 1, the emerging framing for the issue of climate mitigation is that it is no longer to be considered in isolation but rather in the context of its linkages with other areas. Adaptation, loss and damage, human rights and sustainable development are all areas where there are clear or potential overlaps, synergies, and conflicts with the cooperation underway in relation to mitigation.

The IPCC defines adaptation as: ‘in human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effect; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects’ (Annex I: Glossary).

Adaptation involves actions to lessen the harm associated with climate change, or take advantage of potential gains ( [[#Smit--2006|Smit and Wandel 2006]] ). It can seek to reduce present and future exposure to specific climate risks ( [[#Adger--2003|Adger et al. 2003]] ), mainstream climate information into existing planning efforts ( [[#Gupta--2010|Gupta et al. 2010]] ; [[#van%20der%20Voorn--2012|van der Voorn et al. 2012]] ; [[#van%20der%20Voorn--2017|van der Voorn et al. 2017]] ), and reduce vulnerability (or increase resilience) of people or communities to the effects of climate change ( [[#Kasperson--2001|Kasperson and Kasperson 2001]] ). There is a body of literature highlighting potential synergies and conflicts between adaptation actions – in any of the three areas above – and mitigation actions – and potential strategies for resolving them ( [[#Locatelli--2011|Locatelli et al. 2011]] ; [[#Casado-Asensio--2014|Casado-Asensio and Steurer 2014]] ; [[#Duguma--2014|Duguma et al. 2014]] ; [[#Suckall--2015|Suckall et al. 2015]] ; [[#Watkiss--2015|Watkiss et al. 2015]] ; [[#van%20der%20Voorn--2020|van der Voorn et al. 2020]] ). In a strategic context, this issue has been analysed in [[#Bayramoglu--2018|Bayramoglu et al. (2018)]] , [[#Eisenack--2016|Eisenack and Kähler (2016)]] and [[#Ingham--2013|Ingham et al. (2013)]] , among others. [[#Bayramoglu--2018|Bayramoglu et al. (2018)]] analyse the strategic interaction between mitigation, as a public good, and adaptation, essentially a private good, showing that the fear that adaptation will reduce the incentives to mitigate carbon emissions may not be justified. On the contrary, adaptation can reduce free-rider incentives (lead to larger self-enforcing agreements), yielding higher global mitigation levels and welfare, if adaptation efforts cause mitigation levels between different countries to be complements instead of strategic substitutes ( [[#Ingham--2013|Ingham et al. 2013]] ).

Distinct from project or programmatic level activities, however, international cooperation for adaptation operates to provide finance and technical assistance ( [[#Bouwer--2006|Bouwer and Aerts 2006]] ). In most cases it involves transboundary actions, such as in the case of transboundary watershed management ( [[#Wilder--2010|Wilder et al. 2010]] ; [[#Milman--2013|Milman et al. 2013]] ; [[#van%20der%20Voorn--2017|van der Voorn et al. 2017]] ). In others it involves the mainstreaming of climate change projections into existing treaties, such as for the protection of migratory species (Trouwborst et al. 2012).

International cooperation in mitigation and adaptation share many of the same challenges, including the need for effective institutions. The UNFCCC, for example, addresses international financial support for adaptation and for mitigation in the same general category, and subjects them to the same sets of institutional constraints ( [[#Peterson--2019|Peterson and Skovgaard 2019]] ). [[#Sovacool--2016|Sovacool and Linnér (2016)]] argue that the history of the UNFCCC and its sub-agreements has been shaped by an implicit bargain that developing countries participate in global mitigation policy in return for receiving financial and technical assistance for adaptation and development from industrialised countries and international green funds. [[#Khan--2013|Khan and Roberts (2013)]] contend that this played out poorly under the Kyoto framework: the Protocol’s basic architecture, oriented around legally binding commitments, was not amenable to merging the issues of adaptation and mitigation. Kuyper et al. [[#Kuyper--2018a|Kuyper et al. (2018a)]] argue that the movement from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement represents a shift in this regard; the Paris Agreement was designed not primarily as a mitigation policy instrument, but rather one encompassing mitigation, adaptation, and development concerns. While this argument suggests that the Paris architecture, involving voluntary mitigation actions and a greater attention to issues of financial support and transparency, functions better to leverage adaptation support into meaningful mitigation actions, there are only few papers that examine this issue. Stua (2017a,b) explores the relevance of the so-called ‘share of proceeds’ included in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement as a key tool for leveraging adaptation though mitigation actions.

There are recognised limits to adaptation ( [[#Dow--2013|Dow et al. 2013]] ), and exceeding these limits results in loss and damage, a topic that is gathering salience in the policy discourse. [[#Roberts--2014|Roberts et al. (2014)]] focused on ‘loss and damage’, essentially those climate change impacts which cannot be avoided through adaptation. The Paris Agreement contains a free-standing article on loss and damage ( [[#UNFCCC--2015a|UNFCCC 2015a]] ), focused on cooperation and facilitation, under which Parties have established a clearing house on risk transfer, and a Task Force on Displacement ( [[#UNFCCC--2016a|UNFCCC 2016a]] ). The COP decision accompanying the Paris Agreement specifies that ‘Article 8 does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation’ ( [[#UNFCCC--2016a|UNFCCC 2016a]] ). There is range of views on the treatment of loss and damage in the Paris Agreement, how responsibility for loss and damage should be allocated ( [[#Lees--2017|Lees 2017]] ; [[#McNamara--2019|McNamara and Jackson 2019]] ), and how it could be financed ( [[#Roberts--2017|Roberts et al. 2017]] ; [[#Gewirtzman--2018|Gewirtzman et al. 2018]] ). Some scholars argue that there are continuing options to pursue compensation and liability in the climate change regime ( [[#Mace--2016|Mace and Verheyen 2016]] ; [[#Gsottbauer--2018|Gsottbauer et al. 2018]] ). There have also been efforts to establish accountability of companies – particularly ‘carbon majors’ – for climate damage in domestic courts ( [[#Ganguly--2018|Ganguly et al. 2018]] ; [[#Benjamin--2021|Benjamin 2021]] ). For states that have suffered loss and damage there is also the option to pursue ‘state responsibility’ claims under customary international law and international human rights law ( [[#Wewerinke-Singh--2018|Wewerinke-Singh 2018]] ; [[#Wewerinke-Singh--2020|Wewerinke-Singh and Salili 2020]] ).

One scholar argues that climate impacts are ‘incremental violence structurally over-determined by international relations of power and control’ that affect most those who have contributed the least to GHG emissions ( [[#Dehm--2020|Dehm 2020]] ). Calls for compensation or reparation for loss and damage are therefore a demand for climate justice ( [[#Dehm--2020|Dehm 2020]] ). Many small island states entered declarations on acceptance of the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement that they continue to have rights under international law regarding state responsibility for the adverse effects of climate change, and that no provision in these treaties can be interpreted as derogating from any claims or rights concerning compensation and liability due to the adverse effects of climate change.

The adoption in 2013 of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage as part of the UNFCCC occurred despite the historic opposition of the United States to this policy. [[#Vanhala--2016|Vanhala and Hestbaek (2016)]] examine the roles of ‘frame contestation’ (contestations over different framings of loss and damage, whether as ‘liability and compensation’ or ‘risk management and insurance’ or other) and ambiguity in accounting for the evolution and institutionalisation of the loss and damage norm within the UNFCCC. However, there is little international agreement on the scope of loss and damage programmes, and especially how they would be funded and by whom ( [[#Gewirtzman--2018|Gewirtzman et al. 2018]] ). Moreover, non-economic loss and damage (NELD) forms a distinct theme that refers to the climate-related losses of items both material and non-material that are not commonly traded in the market, but whose loss is still experienced as such by those affected. Examples of NELD include loss of cultural identity, sacred places, human health and lives ( [[#Serdeczny--2019|Serdeczny 2019]] ). The Santiago Network is part of the Warsaw International Mechanism, to catalyse the technical assistance of relevant organisations, bodies, networks and experts, for the implementation of relevant approaches to avert, minimise and address loss and damage at the local, national and regional levels, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change ( [[#UNFCCC--2020c|UNFCCC 2020c]] ).

There are direct links between climate mitigation efforts, adaptation and loss and damage – the higher the collective mitigation ambition and the likelihood of achieving it, the lower the scale of adaptation ultimately needed and the lower the scale of loss and damage anticipated. The liability of states, either individually or collectively, for loss and damage is contested, and no litigation has yet been successfully launched to pursue such claims. The science of attribution, however, is developing ( [[#Otto--2017|Otto et al. 2017]] ; [[#Skeie--2017|Skeie et al. 2017]] ; [[#Marjanac--2018|Marjanac and Patton 2018]] ; [[#Patton--2021|Patton 2021]] ) and while it has the potential to address the thorny issue of causation, and thus compensation ( [[#Stuart-Smith--2021|Stuart-Smith et al. 2021]] ), it could also be used to develop strategies for climate resilience ( [[#James--2014|James et al. 2014]] ).

There are also direct links between mitigation and sustainable development. The international agendas for mitigation and sustainable development have shaped each other, around concepts such as ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’, as well as the distinction – in the UNFCCC and later the Kyoto Protocol – between Annex I and non-Annex I countries ( [[#Victor--2011|Victor 2011]] ; [[#Patt--2015|Patt 2015]] ). The same implicit bargain that developing countries would support mitigation efforts in return for assistance with respect to adaptation also applies to support for development ( [[#Sovacool--2016|Sovacool and Linnér 2016]] ). That linkage between mitigation and sustainable development has become even more specific with the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, each of which explicitly pursues a set of goals that encompass both mitigation and development ( [[#Schmieg--2017|Schmieg et al. 2017]] ), reflecting the recognition that achieving sustainable development and climate mitigation goals are mutually dependent ( [[#Gomez-Echeverri--2018|Gomez-Echeverri 2018]] ). It is well accepted that the long-term effects of climate mitigation will benefit sustainable development. A more contested finding is whether the mitigation actions themselves promote or hinder short-term poverty alleviation. One study, analysing the economic effects of developing countries’ NDCs, finds that mitigation actions slow down poverty reduction efforts ( [[#Campagnolo--2019|Campagnolo and Davide 2019]] ). Other studies suggest possible synergies between low-carbon development and economic development ( [[#Hanger--2016|Hanger et al. 2016]] ; [[#Labordena--2017|Labordena et al. 2017]] ; [[#Dzebo--2019|Dzebo et al. 2019]] ). These studies typically converge on the fact that financial assistance flowing from developed to developing countries enhances any possible synergies or lessens the conflicts. However, mitigation measures can also have negative impacts on gender equality, and peace and justice ( [[#Dzebo--2019|Dzebo et al. 2019]] ). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also taken on board the climate challenge and is examining the role of fiscal and macroeconomic policies to address the climate challenge for supporting its members with appropriate policy responses.

The literature also identifies institutional synergies at the international level, related to the importance of addressing climate change and development in an integrated, coordinated and comprehensive manner across constituencies, sectors and administrative and geographical boundaries ( [[#Le%20Blanc--2015|Le Blanc 2015]] ). The literature also stresses the important role that robust institutions have in making this happen, including in international cooperation in key sectors for climate action as well for development ( [[#Waage--2015|Waage et al. 2015]] ). Since the publication of AR5, which emphasised the need for a type of development that combines both mitigation and adaptation as a way to strengthen resilience, much of the literature has focused on ways to address these linkages and the role institutions play in key sectors that are often the subject of international cooperation – for example, environmental and soil degradation, climate, energy, water resources, and forestry ( [[#Hogl--2016|Hogl et al. 2016]] ). An assessment of thematic policy coherence between the voluntary domestic contributions regarding the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda should be integrated in national policy cycles for sustainable and climate policymaking to identify overlaps, gaps, mutual benefits and trade-offs in national policies ( [[#Janetschek--2020|Janetschek et al. 2020]] ).

It is only since 2008 that the relationship between climate change and human rights has become a focus of international law and policymaking. It is not just climate impacts that threaten the enjoyment of human rights but also the mitigation responses to climate change that affect human rights ( [[#Shi--2017|Shi et al. 2017]] ). The issue of human rights–climate change linkages was first taken up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2008, but has since rapidly gained ground with UN human rights treaty bodies issuing comments (e.g., [[#Human%20Rights%20Committee--2018|Human Rights Committee 2018]] ), recommendations (e.g., [[#Committee%20on%20the%20Elimination%20of%20Discrimination%20against%20Women--2018|Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women 2018]] ) and even a joint statement ( [[#Office%20of%20the%20High%20Commissioner%20for%20Human%20Rights--2019|Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2019]] ) on the impacts of climate change on the enjoyment of human rights. Climate change effects and related disasters have the potential to affect human rights broadly, for instance, by giving rise to deaths, disease or malnutrition (right to life, right to health), threatening food security or livelihoods (right to food), impacting upon water supplies and compromising access to safe drinking water (right to water), destroying coastal settlements through storm surge (right to adequate housing), and in some cases forcing relocation as traditional territories become uninhabitable ( [[#UNGA--2019|UNGA 2019]] ). In addition, the right to a healthy environment, recognised in 2021 as an autonomous right at the international level by the Human Rights Council ( [[#UN%20Human%20Rights%20Council--2021|UN Human Rights Council 2021]] ), arguably extends to a right to a ‘safe climate’ shaped in part by the Paris Agreement ( [[#UNGA--2019|UNGA 2019]] ).

As the intersections between climate impacts and human rights have become increasingly clear, litigants have begun to use human rights arguments, with a growing receptivity among courts towards such arguments in climate change cases ( [[#Peel--2018|Peel and Osofsky 2018]] ; [[#Savaresi--2019|Savaresi and Auz 2019]] ; Macchi and van Zeben 2021). In the landmark Urgenda climate case in 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court interpreted the European Convention on Human Rights in light of customary international law and the UN climate change regime and ordered the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020 compared to 1990 ( [[#The%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20the%20Netherlands--2019|The Supreme Court of the Netherlands 2019]] ). In the Neubauer case in 2021, the German Federal Constitutional Court ordered the German legislature, in light of its obligations, including on rights protections, to set clear provisions for reduction targets from 2031 onward by the end of 2022 (German Constitutional Court 2021). There are cases in the Global South as well ( [[#Peel--2019|Peel and Lin 2019]] ; [[#Setzer--2020|Setzer and Benjamin 2020]] ), with the Supreme Court in Nepal in its 2018 decision in Shrestha ordering the government to amend its existing laws and introduce a new consolidated law to address climate mitigation and adaptation as this would protect the rights to life, food, and a clean environment, and give effect to the 2015 Paris Agreement ( [[#The%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20Nepal--2018|The Supreme Court of Nepal 2018]] ). There are dozens of further cases in national and regional courts, increasingly based on human rights claims, and this trend is only likely to grow ( [[#Shi--2017|Shi et al. 2017]] ; [[#Peel--2018|Peel and Osofsky 2018]] ; [[#Beauregard--2021|Beauregard et al. 2021]] ). These cases face procedural hurdles, such as standing, as well as substantive difficulties, for instance, with regard to the primarily territorial scope of state obligations to protect human rights ( [[#Boyle--2018|Boyle 2018]] ; [[#Mayer--2021|Mayer 2021]] ), however, there are increasing instances of successful outcomes across the world.

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==== 14.5.1.3 Trade Agreements ====

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As discussed in AR5, policies to open up trade can have a range of effects on GHG emissions, just as mitigation policies can influence trade flows among countries. Trade rules may impede mitigation action by limiting countries’ discretion in adopting trade-related climate policies, but they also have the potential to stimulate the international adoption and diffusion of mitigation technologies and policies ( [[#Droege--2017|Droege et al. 2017]] ).

The mitigation impacts of trade agreements are difficult to ascertain, and the limited evidence is mixed. Examining the effects of three free trade agreements (FTAs) – Mercosur, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement – on GHG emissions, [[#Nemati--2019|Nemati et al. (2019)]] find that these effects depend on the relative income levels of the countries involved, and that FTAs between developed and developing countries may increase emissions in the long run. However, studies also suggest that FTAs incorporating specific environmental or climate-related provisions can help reduce GHG emissions ( [[#Baghdadi--2013|Baghdadi et al. 2013]] ; [[#Sorgho--2020|Sorgho and Tharakan 2020]] ).

Investment agreements, which are often integrated in FTAs, seek to encourage the flow of foreign investment through investment protection. While international investment agreements hold potential to increase low-carbon investment in host countries ( [[#PAGE--2018|PAGE 2018]] ), these agreements have tended to protect investor rights, constraining the latitude of host countries in adopting environmental policies ( [[#Miles--2019|Miles 2019]] ). Moreover, international investment agreements may lead to ‘regulatory chill’, which may lead to countries refraining from or delaying the adoption of mitigation policies, such as phasing out fossil fuels ( [[#Tienhaara--2018|Tienhaara 2018]] ). More contemporary investment agreements seek to better balance the rights and obligations of investors and host countries, and in theory offer greater regulatory space to host countries ( [[#UNCTAD--2019|UNCTAD 2019]] ), although it is unclear to what extent this will hold true in practice.

In their NDCs, Parties mention various trade-related mitigation measures, including import bans, standards and labelling schemes, border carbon adjustments (BCAs; see also Chapter 13), renewable energy support measures, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and the use of international market mechanisms ( [[#Brandi--2017|Brandi 2017]] ). Some of these ‘response measures’ ( [[#Chan--2016b|Chan 2016b]] ) may raise questions concerning their consistency with trade agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Non-discrimination is one of the foundational rules of the WTO. This means, among others, that ‘like’ imported and domestic products are not treated differently (‘national treatment’) and that a WTO member should not discriminate between other members (‘most-favoured-nation treatment’). These principles are elaborated in a set of agreements on the trade in goods and services, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services(GATS), the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM).

Several measures that can be adopted as part of carbon pricing instruments to address carbon leakage concerns have been examined in the light of WTO rules. For instance, depending on the specific design, the free allocation of emissions allowances under an ETS could be considered a subsidy inconsistent with the ASCM ( [[#Rubini--2012|Rubini and Jegou 2012]] ; [[#Ismer--2021|Ismer et al. 2021]] ). The WTO compatibility of another measure to counter carbon leakage, BCAs, has also been widely discussed (Box 14.2). Alternatives to BCAs, such as consumption charges on carbon-intensive materials ( [[#Pollitt--2020|Pollitt et al. 2020]] ), can be consistent with WTO law, as they do not involve discrimination between domestic and foreign products based on their carbon intensity ( [[#Ismer--2007|Ismer and Neuhoff 2007]] ; [[#Tamiotti--2011|Tamiotti 2011]] ; [[#Pauwelyn--2013|Pauwelyn 2013]] ; [[#Holzer--2014|Holzer 2014]] ; [[#Ismer--2016|Ismer and Haussner 2016]] ; [[#Cosbey--2019|Cosbey et al. 2019]] ; [[#European%20Commission--2019|European Commission 2019]] ; [[#Mehling--2019|Mehling et al. 2019]] ; [[#Porterfield--2019|Porterfield 2019]] ; [[#Ismer--2020|Ismer et al. 2020]] ).

<div id="Box 14.2 | Border Carbon Adjustments and International Climate and Trade Cooperation" class="h2-container"></div>

<span id="box-14.2-border-carbon-adjustments-and-international-climate-and-trade-cooperation"></span>
=== Box 14.2 | Border Carbon Adjustments and International Climate and Trade Cooperation ===

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Analyses of the WTO compatibility of BCAs ( [[#Ismer--2007|Ismer and Neuhoff 2007]] ; [[#Tamiotti--2011|Tamiotti 2011]] ; [[#Hillman--2013|Hillman 2013]] ; [[#Pauwelyn--2013|Pauwelyn 2013]] ; [[#Holzer--2014|Holzer 2014]] ; [[#Trachtman--2017|Trachtman 2017]] ; [[#Cosbey--2019|Cosbey et al. 2019]] ; [[#Mehling--2019|Mehling et al. 2019]] ; [[#Porterfield--2019|Porterfield 2019]] ) gained new currency following the legislative proposal to introduce a ‘carbon border adjustment mechanism’ in the EU ( [[#European%20Commission--2021|European Commission 2021]] ). BCAs can in principle be designed and implemented in accordance with international trade law, but the details matter ( [[#Tamiotti--2009|Tamiotti et al. 2009]] ). To increase the likelihood that a BCA will be compatible with international trade law, studies suggest that it would need to: have a clear environmental rationale (i.e., reduce carbon leakage); apply to imports and exclude exports; consider the actual carbon intensity of foreign producers; account for the mitigation efforts by other countries; and provide for fairness and due process in its design and implementation ( [[#Pauwelyn--2013|Pauwelyn 2013]] ; [[#Trachtman--2017|Trachtman 2017]] ; [[#Cosbey--2019|Cosbey et al. 2019]] ; [[#Mehling--2019|Mehling et al. 2019]] ).

BCAs may also raise concerns regarding their consistency with international climate change agreements ( [[#Hertel--2011|Hertel 2011]] ; [[#Davidson%20Ladly--2012|Davidson Ladly 2012]] ; [[#Ravikumar--2020|Ravikumar 2020]] ). To mitigate these concerns, BCAs could include special provisions (e.g., exemptions) for LDCs, or channel revenues from the BCA to developing countries to support low-carbon and climate-resilient development ( [[#Grubb--2011|Grubb 2011]] ; [[#Springmann--2013|Springmann 2013]] ; [[#Mehling--2019|Mehling et al. 2019]] ). Moreover, international dialogue on principles and best practices guiding BCAs could help to ensure that such measures do not hinder international cooperation on climate change and trade ( [[#Bernasconi-Osterwalder--2021|Bernasconi-Osterwalder and Cosbey 2021]] ).

Other regulatory measures may also target the GHG emissions associated with the production of goods ( [[#Dobson--2018|Dobson 2018]] ). These measures include bans on carbon-intensive materials, emissions standards for the production process of imported goods, and carbon footprint labels ( [[#Kloeckner--2012|Kloeckner 2012]] ; [[#Holzer--2020|Holzer and Lim 2020]] ; [[#Gerres--2021|Gerres et al. 2021]] ). The compatibility of such measures with trade agreements remains subject to debate. While non-discriminatory measures targeting the emissions from a product itself (e.g., fuel efficiency standards for cars) are more likely to be allowed than measures targeting the production process of a good ( [[#Green--2005|Green 2005]] ), some studies suggest that differentiation between products based on their production process may be compatible with WTO rules ( [[#Benoit--2011|Benoit 2011]] ; [[#McAusland--2015|McAusland and Najjar 2015]] ). ( [[#Mayr--2020|Mayr et al. 2020]] ) find that sustainability standards targeting the emissions from indirect land use change associated with the production of biofuels may be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement. Importantly, trade rules express a strong preference for the international harmonisation of standards over unilateral measures ( [[#Delimatsis--2016|Delimatsis 2016]] ).

Renewable energy support measures may be at odds with the ASCM, the GATT, and the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures. In WTO disputes, measures adopted in Canada, India, and the United States to support clean energy generation were found to be inconsistent with WTO law due to the use of discriminatory local content requirements, such as the requirement to use domestically produced goods in the production of renewable energy ( [[#Cosbey--2014|Cosbey and Mavroidis 2014]] ; [[#Kulovesi--2014|Kulovesi 2014]] ; [[#Lewis--2014|Lewis 2014]] ; [[#Wu--2014|Wu and Salzman 2014]] ; [[#Charnovitz--2015|Charnovitz and Fischer 2015]] ; [[#Shadikhodjaev--2015|Shadikhodjaev 2015]] ; [[#Espa--2018|Espa and Marín Durán 2018]] ).

Some measures may both lower trade barriers and potentially bring about GHG emissions reductions. An example is the liberalisation of trade in environmental goods ( [[#Hu--2020|Hu et al. 2020]] ). In 2012, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation economies agreed to reduce tariffs for a list of 54 environmental goods (including, for example, solar cells; but excluding, for example, biofuels or batteries for electric vehicles). However, negotiations on an Environmental Goods Agreement under the WTO stalled in 2016 due in part to disagreement over which goods to include ( [[#de%20Melo--2020|de Melo and Solleder 2020]] ). Another example is fossil fuel subsidy reform, which may reduce GHG emissions ( [[#Jewell--2018|Jewell et al. 2018]] ; [[#Chepeliev--2020|Chepeliev and van der Mensbrugghe 2020]] ; [[#Erickson--2020|Erickson et al. 2020]] ) and lower trade distortions ( [[#Burniaux--2011|Burniaux et al. 2011]] ; [[#Moerenhout--2020|Moerenhout and Irschlinger 2020]] ). However, fossil fuel subsidies have largely remained unchallenged before the WTO due to legal and political hurdles ( [[#Asmelash--2015|Asmelash 2015]] ; [[#De%20Bièvre--2017|De Bièvre et al. 2017]] ; [[#Meyer--2017|Meyer 2017]] ; [[#Steenblik--2018|Steenblik et al. 2018]] ; [[#Verkuijl--2019|Verkuijl et al. 2019]] ).

With limited progress in the multilateral trading system, some studies suggest that regional FTAs hold potential for strengthening climate governance. In some cases, climate-related provisions in such FTAs can go beyond provisions in the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, addressing for instance cooperation on carbon markets or electric vehicles ( [[#Gehring--2013|Gehring et al. 2013]] ; [[#van%20Asselt--2017|van Asselt 2017]] ; [[#Morin--2018|Morin and Jinnah 2018]] ; [[#Gehring--2020|Gehring and Morison 2020]] ). However, [[#Morin--2018|Morin and Jinnah (2018)]] find that these provisions are at times vaguely formulated, not subject to third-party dispute settlement, and without sanctions or remedy in case of violations. Moreover, such provisions are not widely used in FTAs, and they are not adopted by the largest GHG emitters. For instance, the 2019 United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, NAFTA’s successor, does not include any specific provisions on climate change, although it could implement cooperative mitigation actions through its Commission for Environmental Cooperation ( [[#Laurens--2019|Laurens et al. 2019]] ).

A trend in international economic governance has been the adoption of ‘mega-regional’ trade agreements involving nations responsible for a substantial share of world trade, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in East Asia. Given the size of the markets covered by these agreements, they hold potential to diffuse climate mitigation standards ( [[#Meltzer--2013|Meltzer 2013]] ; [[#Holzer--2015|Holzer and Cottier 2015]] ). While CETA includes climate-related provisions and Parties have made a broad commitment to implement the Paris Agreement ( [[#Laurens--2019|Laurens et al. 2019]] ), and the CPTPP includes provisions promoting cooperation on clean energy and low-emissions technologies, the RCEP does not include specific provisions on climate change.

Studies have discussed various options to minimise conflicts, and strengthen the role of trade agreements in climate action, although the mitigation benefits and distributional effects of these options have yet to be assessed. Some options require multilateral action, including: (i) the amendment of WTO agreements to accommodate climate action; (ii) the adoption of a ‘climate waiver’ that temporarily relieves WTO members from their obligations; (iii) a ‘peace clause’ through which members commit to refraining from challenging each other’s measures; (iv) an ‘authoritative interpretation’ by WTO members of ambiguous WTO provisions; (v) improved transparency of the climate impacts of trade measures; (vi) the inclusion of climate expertise in WTO disputes; and (vii) intensified institutional coordination between the WTO and UNFCCC ( [[#Hufbauer--2009|Hufbauer et al. 2009]] ; [[#Epps--2010|Epps and Green 2010]] ; [[#Bacchus--2016|Bacchus 2016]] ; [[#Droege--2017|Droege et al. 2017]] ; [[#Das--2019|Das et al. 2019]] ). In addition, issue-specific suggestions have been put forward, such as reinstating an exception for environmentally-motivated subsidies under the ASCM ( [[#Horlick--2017|Horlick and Clarke 2017]] ).

Options can also be pursued at the plurilateral and regional levels. Several studies suggest that climate clubs ( [[#14.2.2|Section 14.2.2]] ) could employ trade measures, such as lower tariffs for climate-related goods and services, or BCAs, to attract club members ( [[#Nordhaus--2015|Nordhaus 2015]] ; [[#Brewer--2016|Brewer et al. 2016]] ; [[#Keohane--2017|Keohane et al. 2017]] ; [[#Stua--2017a|Stua 2017a]] ; [[#Banks--2020|Banks and Fitzgerald 2020]] ). Another option is to negotiate a new agreement addressing both climate change and trade. Negotiations between six countries (Costa Rica, Fiji, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland) were launched in 2019 on a new Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS), which, if successfully concluded, would liberalise trade in environmental goods and services, create new rules to remove fossil fuel subsidies, and develop guidelines for voluntary eco-labels ( [[#Steenblik--2019|Steenblik and Droege 2019]] ). At the regional level, countries could further opt for the inclusion of climate provisions in the (re)negotiation of FTAs ( [[#Morin--2018|Morin and Jinnah 2018]] ; [[#Yamaguchi--2020|Yamaguchi 2020]] ). Moreover, the conduct of climate impact assessments of FTAs could help identify options to achieve both climate and trade objectives ( [[#Porterfield--2017|Porterfield et al. 2017]] ). In their assessment of the feasibility of various options for reform, [[#Das--2019|Das et al. (2019)]] find that the near-term feasibility of options that require consensus at the multilateral level (notably amendments of WTO agreements) is low. By contrast, options involving a smaller number of Parties, as well as options that can be implemented by WTO members on a voluntary basis, face fewer constraints.

For international investment agreements, various other suggestions have been put forward to accommodate climate change concerns. These include incorporating climate change through ongoing reform processes, such as reform of investor-state dispute settlement under the UN Commission on International Trade Law; modernisation of the Energy Charter Treaty; the (re)negotiation of international investment agreements; and the adoption of a specific treaty to promote investment in climate action ( [[#Brauch--2019|Brauch et al. 2019]] ; [[#Tienhaara--2020|Tienhaara and Cotula 2020]] ; [[#Yamaguchi--2020|Yamaguchi 2020]] ; [[#Cima--2021|Cima 2021]] ).

<div id="14.5.1.4" class="h3-container"></div>

<span id="south-south-cooperation"></span>
==== 14.5.1.4 South-South cooperation ====

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South-South cooperation (SSC) and triangular cooperation (TrC) are bold, innovative, and rapidly developing means of strengthening cooperation for the achievement of the SDGs ( [[#FAO--2018|FAO 2018]] ). SSC is gaining momentum in achieving sustainable development and climate actions in developing countries ( [[#UN--2017b|UN 2017b]] ). Through SSC, countries are able to map their capacity needs and knowledge gaps and find sustainable, cost-effective, long-lasting and economically viable solutions ( [[#FAO--2019|FAO 2019]] ). In the UN Climate Change Engagement Strategy 2017 ( [[#UNOSSC--2017|UNOSSC 2017]] ), South-South Cooperation Action Plan is identified as a substantive pillar to support.

In 2019, the role of South-South and triangular cooperation was further highlighted with the BAPA+40 Outcome document ( [[#UN--2019|UN 2019]] ), noting outstanding contributions to alleviating global inequality, promoting sustainable development and climate actions, promoting gender equality and enriching multilateral mechanisms. Furthermore, the role of triangular cooperation was explicitly recognised in the document reflecting its increasingly relevant role in the implementation of the SDGs ( [[#UN--2019|UN 2019]] ).

There has been a recent resurgence of South-South cooperation ( [[#Gray--2016|Gray and Gills 2016]] ). The South-South Cooperation Action Plan was adopted by the UN as a substantive pillar to support the implementation of the UN Climate Change Engagement Strategy 2017 ( [[#UNOSSC--2017|UNOSSC 2017]] ). [[#Liu--2017a|Liu et al. (2017a)]] explored prospects for South–South cooperation for large‐scale ecological restoration, which is an important solution to mitigate climate change. Emphasis is given to experience and expertise sharing, co-financing, and co-development of new knowledge and know‐how for more effective policy and practice worldwide, especially in developing and newly industrialised countries.

[[#Janus--2014|Janus et al. (2014)]] explore evolving development cooperation and its future governance architecture based on The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation and The United Nations Development Cooperation Forum. Drawing on evidence from the hydropower, solar and wind energy industry in China, [[#Urban--2018|Urban (2018)]] introduces the concept of ‘geographies of technology transfer and cooperation’ and challenges the North–South technology transfer and cooperation paradigm for low-carbon innovation and climate change mitigation. While North–South technology transfer and cooperation (NSTT) for low-carbon energy technology has been implemented for decades, South–South technology transfer and cooperation (SSTT) and South–North technology transfer and cooperation (SNTT) have only recently emerged. [[#Kirchherr--2018|Kirchherr and]] [[#Urban--2018|Urban (2018)]] provide a meta-synthesis of the scholarly writings on NSTT, SSTT and SNTT from the past 30 years. The discussion focuses on core drivers and inhibitors of technology transfer and cooperation, outcomes as well as outcome determinants. A case study of transfer of low‐carbon energy innovation and its opportunities and barriers, based on the first large Chinese‐funded and Chinese‐built dam in Cambodia is presented by [[#Hensengerth--2017|Hensengerth (2017)]] .

[[#Hensengerth--2017|Hensengerth (2017)]] explores the role that technology transfer/cooperation from Europe played in shaping firm-level wind energy technologies in China and India and discusses the recent technology cooperation between the Chinese, Indian, and European wind firms. The research finds that firm-level technology transfer/cooperation shaped the leading wind energy technologies in China and to a lesser extent in India. Thus, the technology cooperation between China, India, and Europe has become multi-faceted and increasingly Southern-led.

[[#Rampa--2012|Rampa et al. (2012)]] focus on the manner in which African states understand and approach new opportunities for cooperation with emerging powers, especially China, India and Brazil, including the crucial issue of whether they seek joint development initiatives with both traditional partners and emerging powers. [[#UN--2018|UN (2018)]] presents and analyses case studies of SSTT in Asia and Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean regions. Illustrative case studies on TrC can be consulted in [[#Shimoda--2012|Shimoda and Nakazawa (2012)]] , and specific cases on biofuel SSC and TrC in [[#UNCTAD--2012|UNCTAD (2012)]] .

The central argument in the majority of these case studies is that South–South cooperation, which is value-neutral, is contributing to sustainable development and capacity building ( [[#Rampa--2012|Rampa et al. 2012]] ; [[#Shimoda--2012|Shimoda and Nakazawa 2012]] ; [[#UN--2018|UN 2018]] ). An important new development in SSC is that in relation to some technologies the cooperation is increasingly led by Southern countries (for instance, wind energy between Europe, India and China), challenging the classical North–South technology cooperation paradigm. More broadly, Parties should ensure the sustainability of cooperation, rather than focusing on short-term goals ( [[#Eyben--2013|Eyben 2013]] ). The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a classic example of a recent SSC initiative led by China. According to a joint study by Tsinghua University and Vivid Economics, the 126 countries in the BRI region, excluding China, currently account for about 28% of global GHG emissions, but this proportion may increase to around 66% by 2050 if the carbon intensity of these economies only decreases slowly (according to historical patterns shown by developing countries). In this context it is important to highlight that China has already outlined a vision for a green BRI, and recently increased its commitment through the Green Investment Principles initiative, announcing a new international coalition to improve sustainability and promote green infrastructure ( [[#Jun--2019|Jun and Zadek 2019]] ).

Information on triangular cooperation is more readily available than on South–South cooperation though some UN organisations such as UNDP and FAO have established platforms for the latter which also include climate projects. Further, although there are many South–South cooperation initiatives involving the development and transfer of climate technologies, the understanding of the motivations, approaches and designs is limited and not easily accessible. There is no dedicated platform for South–South and triangular cooperation on climate technologies. Hence, it is still too early to fully assess the achievements in the field of climate action ( [[#UNFCCC%20and%20UNOSSC--2018|UNFCCC and UNOSSC 2018]] ). In order to maximise its unique contribution to Agenda 2030, Southern providers recognise the benefits of measuring and monitoring South–South cooperation, and there is a clear demand for better information from partner countries. [[#Di%20Ciommo--2017|Di Ciommo (2017)]] argues that ‘better data could support monitoring and evaluation, improve effectiveness, explore synergies with other resources, and ensure accountability’ to a diverse set of stakeholders. [[#Besharati--2017|Besharati et al. (2017)]] present a framework of 20 indicators, organised in five dimensions, that researchers and policymakers can use to access the quality and effectiveness of SSC and its contribution to sustainable development.

The global landscape of development cooperation has changed dramatically in recent years, with countries of the South engaging in collaborative learning models to share innovative, adaptable and cost-efficient solutions to their development and socio-economic-environmental challenges, ranging from poverty and education to climate change. The proliferation of new actors and cross-regional modalities has enriched the understanding and practice of development cooperation and generated important changes in the global development architecture towards a more inclusive, effective, and horizontal development agenda. South–South cooperation will grow in the future, while it is complimentary to North–South cooperation. However, there are knowledge gaps in relation to the precise volume, impact, effectiveness and quality of development cooperation from emerging development partners. This gap needs to be plugged, and evidence on such cooperation strengthened.

<div id="14.5.2" class="h2-container"></div>

<span id="international-sectoral-agreements-and-institutions"></span>

=== 14.5.2 International Sectoral Agreements and Institutions ===

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Sectors refer to distinct areas of economic activity, often subject to their own governance regimes; examples include energy production, mobility, and manufacturing. A sectoral agreement could include virtually any type of commitment with implications for mitigation. It could establish sectoral emission targets, on either an absolute or an indexed basis. It could also require states (or particular groups of states, if commitments are differentiated) to adopt uniform or harmonised policies and measuresfor a sector, such as technology-based standards, taxes, or best-practice standards, as well as providing for cooperation on technology research or deployment.

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<span id="forestry-land-use-and-redd"></span>
==== 14.5.2.1 Forestry, Land Use and REDD+ ====

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Since 2008, several, often overlapping, voluntary and non-binding international efforts and agreements have been adopted to reduce net emissions from the forestry sector. These initiatives have varying levels of private sector involvement and different objectives, targets, and timelines. Some efforts focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, while other focus on the enhancement of sinks through restoration of cleared or degraded landscapes. These initiatives do not elaborate specific policies, procedures, or implementation mechanisms. They set targets, frameworks, and milestones, aiming to catalyse further action, investment, and transparency in conservation and consolidate individual country efforts.

After the UN-sponsored Tropical Forestry Action Plan ( [[#Winterbottom--1990|Winterbottom 1990]] ; [[#Seymour--2016|Seymour and Busch 2016]] ), among the longest standing programmes in the forestry sector are the World Bank-sponsored Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in 2007, which helps facilitate funding for REDD+ readiness and specific projects, in addition to preparing countries for results-based payments and future carbon markets while securing local communities’ benefits managed sub-nationally, and the UN REDD+ Programme initiated in 2008, which aims to reduce forest emissions and enhance carbon stocks in forests while contributing to national sustainable development in developing countries, after the 2007 COP13 in Bali formally adopted REDD+ in the UNFCCC decisions and incorporated it in the Bali Plan of Action. As discussed above, Article 5 of the Paris Agreement encourages Parties to take action to implement and support REDD+. These efforts tend to focus on reducing emissions through the creation of protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, and/or land tenure reform ( [[#Pirard--2019|Pirard et al. 2019]] ). The UNREDD+ programme supports national REDD+ efforts, inclusion of stakeholders in relevant dialogues, and capacity building toward REDD+ readiness in partner countries. To date the conservation and emissions impacts of REDD+ remain misunderstood ( [[#Pirard--2019|Pirard et al. 2019]] ), but while existing evidence suggests that reductions in deforestation from sub-national REDD+ initiatives have been limited ( [[#Bos--2017|Bos et al. 2017]] ) it shows an increasing prominence ( [[#Maguire--2021|Maguire et al. 2021]] ). Additionally, the Green Climate Fund has carried out results-based payments within REDD+. Eight countries have so far received significant funding ( [[#GCF--2021|GCF 2021]] ). The shift in the REDD+ focus from ecosystem service payment to domestic policy realignments and incentive structure has changed the way REDD+ was developed and implemented (Brockhaus et al. 2017). Large-scale market resources have not fully materialised as a global carbon market system that explicitly integrates REDD+ remains under development ( [[#Angelsen--2017|Angelsen 2017]] ). Public funding for REDD+ is also limited ( [[#Climate%20Focus--2017|Climate Focus 2017]] ). Leading up to the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the governments of Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom formed a partnership in 2014 called ‘GNU’ to support results-based financing for REDD+, with Norway emerging as one of, if not the single largest, major donor for REDD+ through its pledge in 2007 of approximately USD3 billion annually. Norway pledged USD1 billion for Brazil in 2008 and the same for Indonesia in 2010 ( [[#Schroeder--2020|Schroeder et al. 2020]] ). Meanwhile, REDD+ Early Movers was established with support from Germany, and the Central African Forest Initiative, a collaborative partnership between the European Union, Germany, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom was also set up. It supports six central African countries in fighting deforestation.

More recently, the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition was established, consisting of the governments of Norway, the UK, and the USA and initially nine companies, to accelerate REDD+ with a jurisdictional approach. LEAF uses the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART)’s The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES), coordinated by Emergent, a non-profit intermediary between tropical countries and the private sector. Three jurisdictions in Brazil and two countries have already submitted concept notes to ART to receive results-based payments. REDD+ initiatives with a jurisdictional approach have also been adopted in various markets, such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) (Maguire 2021). In addition to Brazil, Indonesia has attracted significant interest as a host country for REDD+. Indonesia ranks second, after Brazil, as the largest producer of deforestation-related GHG emissions ( [[#Zarin--2016|Zarin et al. 2016]] ), but it has committed to a large reduction of deforestation in its NDC ( [[#Government%20of%20Indonesia--2016|Government of Indonesia 2016]] ). Australia has collaborated on scientific research and emissions reduction monitoring ( [[#Tacconi--2017|Tacconi 2017]] ). It took a while, however, before emissions reductions were witnessed ( [[#Meehan--2019|Meehan et al. 2019]] ). The expansion of commodity plantations, however, conflict with reduction ambitions ( [[#Anderson--2016|Anderson et al. 2016]] ; [[#Irawan--2019|Irawan et al. 2019]] ) In addition to implementation at the site and jurisdictional levels, legal enforcement ( [[#Tacconi--2019|Tacconi et al. 2019]] ) as well as policy and regulatory reforms ( [[#Ekawati--2019|Ekawati et al. 2019]] ) appear to be needed.

Another relevant initiative is one under the 2015 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which targets land degradation neutrality, that is, ‘a ''state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems’'' ( [[#Orr--2017|Orr et al. 2017]] ). This overarching goal was recognised as also being critical to reaching the more specific avoided deforestation and degradation and restoration goals of the UNFCCC and UNCBD. The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) initiative from UNCCD includes target-setting programmes that assist countries by providing practical tools and guidance for the establishment of the voluntary targets and to formulate associated measures to achieve LDN and accelerate implementation of projects ( [[#Chasek--2019|Chasek et al. 2019]] ). Today, 124 countries have committed to their LDN national targets ( [[#UNCCD--2015|UNCCD 2015]] ). The LDN Fund is an investment vehicle launched in UNCCD COP 13 in 2017, which exists to provide long-term financing for private projects and programmes for countries to achieve their LDN targets. According to the UNCCD, most of the funds will be invested in developing countries.

Recent efforts towards the enhancement of sinks from the forestry sector have the overarching goal of reaching zero ''gross'' deforestation globally, that is, eliminating the clearing of all natural forests. The New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) was the first international pledge to call for a halving of natural forest loss by 2020 and the complete elimination of natural forest loss by 2030 ( [[#Climate%20Focus--2016|Climate Focus 2016]] ). It was endorsed at the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014. By September 2019 the list of NYDF supporters included over 200 actors: national governments, sub-national governments, multi-national companies, groups representing indigenous communities, and non-government organisations. These endorsers committed to doing their part to achieve the NYDF’s ten goals, which included ending deforestation for agricultural expansion by 2020, reducing deforestation from other sectors, restoring forests, and providing financing for forest action ( [[#Forest%20Declaration--2019|Forest Declaration 2019]] ). These goals are assessed and tracked through the NYDF Progress Assessment, which includes NYDF Assessment Partners that collect data, generate analysis, and release the finding based on the NYDF framework and goals.

The effectiveness of these agreements, which lack binding rules, can only be judged by the supplementary actions they have catalysed. The NYDF contributed to the development of several other zero-deforestation pledges, including the Amsterdam Declarations by seven European nations to achieve fully sustainable and deforestation-free agro-commodity supply chains in Europe by 2020 and over 150 individual company commitments to not source products associated with deforestation ( [[#Donofrio--2017|Donofrio et al. 2017]] ; [[#Lambin--2018|Lambin et al. 2018]] ). Recent studies indicate that these efforts currently lack the potential to achieve wide-scale reductions in clearing and associated emissions due to weak implementation ( [[#Garrett--2019|Garrett et al. 2019]] ), although in some cases in Indonesia and elsewhere the commodity supply chain sustainability drive appears to contribute to lowering deforestation ( [[#Wijaya--2019|Wijaya et al. 2019]] ; [[#Chain%20Reaction%20Research--2020|Chain Reaction Research 2020]] ; [[#Schulte--2020|Schulte et al. 2020]] ). The NYDF may have triggered small additional reductions in deforestation in some areas, particularly for soy, and to a lesser extent cattle, in the Brazilian Amazon ( [[#Lambin--2018|Lambin et al. 2018]] ), but these effects were temporary, as efforts are being actively reversed and deforestation has increased again significantly. Deforestation rates have escalated in Brazil, with the rate in June 2019 (the first dry-season month in the new administration) up 88% over the 2018 rate in the same month ( [[#INPE--2019|INPE 2019]] ). [[#Curtis--2018|Curtis et al. (2018)]] find global targets are clearly not being met. More recent increase in the deforestation rate remains to be assessed. NYDF confirms that the initiative did not reach its zero-deforestation goal ( [[#NYDF%20Assessment%20Partners--2020|NYDF Assessment Partners 2020]] ).

In 2010, the Parties to the CBD adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 which included 20 targets known as the Aichi Biodiversity targets ( [[#Marques--2014|Marques et al. 2014]] ). Of relevance to the forestry sector, Aichi Target 15 sets the goal of enhancing ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks though conservation and restoration, including ‘restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems’ ( [[#UNCBD--2010|UNCBD 2010]] ). The plan elaborates milestones, including the development of national plans for potential restoration levels and contributions to biodiversity protection, carbon sequestration, and climate adaptation to be integrated into other national strategies, including REDD+. In 2020, however, the CBD found that while progress was evident for the majority of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, it was not sufficient for the achievement of the targets by 2020 ( [[#CBD--2020|CBD 2020]] ).

Recent efforts toward negative emissions through restoration include the Bonn Challenge, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and Initiative 20x20. The Bonn Challenge, initiated in 2011 by the Government of Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is intended to catalyse the existing international AFOLU commitments. It aimed to bring 150 million hectares (Mha) of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 Mha by 2030. AFR has the goal of restoring 100 Mha specifically in Africa ( [[#AUDA-NEPAD--2019|AUDA-NEPAD 2019]] ), while 20x20 aims to restore 20 Mha in Latin America and the Caribbean ( [[#Anderson--2019|Anderson and Peimbert 2019]] ). Increasing commitments for restoration have created momentum for restoration interventions ( [[#Chazdon--2017|Chazdon et al. 2017]] ; [[#Mansourian--2017|Mansourian et al. 2017]] ; [[#Djenontin--2018|Djenontin et al. 2018]] ). To date 97 Mha has been pledged in NDCs. Yet only a small part of this goal has been achieved. The Bonn Challenge Barometer – a progress-tracking framework and tool to support pledgers – indicates that 27 Mha ( [[#InfoFLR--2018|InfoFLR 2018]] ) are currently being restored, equivalent to 1.379 GtCO 2 -eq sequestered ( [[#Dave--2019|Dave et al. 2019]] ). A key challenge in scaling up restoration has been to mobilise sufficient financing ( [[#Liagre--2015|Liagre et al. 2015]] ; [[#Djenontin--2018|Djenontin et al. 2018]] ). This underscores the importance of building international financing for restoration (equivalent to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility focused on avoided deforestation and degradation).

In sum, existing international agreements have had a small impact on reducing emissions from the AFOLU sector and some success in achieving the enhancement of sinks through restoration. However, these outcomes are nowhere near levels required to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal – which would require turning land use and forests globally from a net anthropogenic source during 1990–2010 to a net sink of carbon by 2030, and providing a quarter of emissions reductions planned by countries ( [[#Grassi--2017|Grassi et al. 2017]] ). The AFOLU sector has so far contributed only modestly to net mitigation (Chapter 7).

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<span id="energy-sector"></span>
==== 14.5.2.2 Energy Sector ====

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International cooperation on issues of energy supply and security has a long and complicated history. There exists a plethora of institutions, organisations, and agreements concerned with managing the sector. There have been efforts to map the relevant actors, with authors in one case identifying six primary organisations ( [[#Kérébel--2009|Kérébel and Keppler 2009]] ), in another 16 ( [[#Lesage--2010|Lesage et al. 2010]] ), and in a third 50 ( [[#Sovacool--2012|Sovacool and Florini 2012]] ). At the same time, very little of that history has had climate mitigation as its core focus. Global energy governance has encompassed five broad goals – security of energy supply and demand, economic development, international security, environmental sustainability, and domestic good governance – and as only one of these provides an entry point for climate mitigation, effort in this direction has often been lost ( [[#van%20de%20Graaf--2016|van de Graaf and Colgan 2016]] ). To take one example, during the 1980s and 1990s a combination of bilateral development support and lending practices from multilateral development banks pushed developing countries to adopt power market reforms consistent with the Washington Consensus: towards liberalised power markets and away from state-owned monopolies. The goals of these reforms did not include an environmental component, and among the results was new investment in fossil-fired thermal power generation ( [[#Foster--2020|Foster and Rana 2020]] ).

As [[#Goldthau--2010|Goldthau and Witte (2010)]] document, the majority of governance efforts, outside of oil and gas producing states, was oriented towards ensuring reliable and affordable access for oil and gas imports. For example, the original rationale for the creation of the International Energy Agency (IEA), during the oil crisis of 1973–74, was to manage a mechanism to ensure importing countries’ access to oil (van de Graaf and Lesage 2009). On the other side of the aisle, oil exporting countries created the international institution OPEC to enable them to influence oil output, thereby stabilising prices and revenues for exporting countries ( [[#Fattouh--2013|Fattouh and Mahadeva 2013]] ). For years, energy governance was seen as a zero-sum game between these poles ( [[#Goldthau--2010|Goldthau and Witte 2010]] ). The only international governance agency focusing on low-carbon energy sources was the International Atomic Energy Agency, with a dual mission of promoting nuclear energy and nuclear weapons non-proliferation ( [[#Scheinman--1987|Scheinman 1987]] ).

More recently, however, new institutions have emerged, and existing institutions have realigned their missions, in order to promote capacity building and global investment in low-carbon energy technologies. Collectively, these developments may support the emergence of a nascent field of global sustainable energy governance, in which a broad range of global, regional, national, sub-national and non-state actors, in aggregate, shape, direct and implement the low carbon transition through climate change mitigation activities, which produce concomitant societal benefits ( [[#Bruce--2018|Bruce 2018]] ). Beginning in the 1990s, for example, the IEA began to broaden its mission from one concerned primarily with security of oil supplies, which encompassed conservation of energy resources, to one also concerned with the sustainability of energy use, including work programmes on energy efficiency and clean energy technologies and scenarios (van de Graaf and Lesage 2009). Scholars have suggested that it was the widespread perception that the IEA was primarily interested in promoting the continued use of fossil fuels, and underplaying the potential role of renewable technologies, that led a number of IEA member states to successfully push for the creation of a parallel organisation, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was then established in 2009 ( [[#van%20de%20Graaf--2013|van de Graaf 2013]] ). An assessment of IRENA’s activities in 2015 suggested that the agency has a positive effect related to three core activities: offering advisory services to member states regarding renewable energy technologies and systems; serving as a focal point for data and analysis for renewable energy; and, mobilising other international institutions, such as multilateral development banks, promoting renewable energy ( [[#Urpelainen--2015|Urpelainen and Van de Graaf 2015]] ). The United Nations, including its various agencies such as the Committee on Sustainable Energy within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, has also played a role in the realignment of global energy governance towards mitigation efforts. As a precursor to SDG 7, the United Nations initiated in 2011 the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, which in addition to aiming for universal access to modern energy services, included the goals of doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and doubling by 2030 the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix ( [[#Bruce--2018|Bruce 2018]] ).

Sub-global agreements have also started to emerge, examples of issue-specific climate clubs. In 2015, 70 solar-rich countries signed a framework agreement dedicated towards promoting solar energy development ( [[#ISA--2015|ISA 2015]] ). In 2017 the Powering Past Coal Alliance was formed, uniting a set of states, businesses, and non-governmental organisations around the goal of eliminating coal-fired power generation by 2050 ( [[#Jewell--2019|Jewell et al. 2019]] ; [[#Blondeel--2020|Blondeel et al. 2020]] ). Scholars have argued that greater attention to supply-side agreements such as this – focusing on reducing and ultimately eliminating the supply of carbon-intensive energy sources – would strengthen the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement (Collier and Venables 2014; [[#Piggot--2018|Piggot et al. 2018]] ; [[#Asheim--2019|Asheim et al. 2019]] ; [[#Newell--2020|Newell and Simms 2020]] ). [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-6|Chapter 6]] of this report, on energy systems, notes the importance of regional cooperation on electric grid development, seen as necessary to enable higher shares of solar and wind power penetration ( [[#RGI--2011|RGI 2011]] ). Finally, a number of transnational organisations and activities have emerged, such as REN21, a global community of renewable energy experts ( [[#REN21--2019|REN21 2019]] ), and RE100, an NGO-led initiative to enlist multilateral companies to shift towards 100% renewable energy in their value chains ( [[#RE100--2019|RE100 2019]] ).

Whether a result of the above activities or not, multilateral development banks’ lending practices have shifted in the direction of renewable energy ( [[#Delina--2017|Delina 2017]] ), a point also raised in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-15|Chapter 15]] of this report. Activities include new sources of project finance, concessional loans, as well as loan guarantees, the latter through the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency ( [[#Multilateral%20Investment%20Guarantee%20Agency--2019|Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency 2019]] ). This appears to matter. For example, [[#Frisari--2015|Frisari and Stadelmann (2015)]] find concessional lending by multilateral development banks to solar energy projects in Morocco and India to have reduced overall project costs, due to more attractive financing conditions from additional lenders, as well as reducing the costs to local governments. [[#Labordena--2017|Labordena et al. (2017)]] projected these results into the future, and found that with the drop in financing costs, renewable energy projects serving all major demand centres in sub-Saharan Africa could reach cost parity with fossil fuels by 2025, whereas without the drop in financing costs associated with concessional lending, this would not be the case. Similarly, [[#Creutzig--2017|Creutzig et al. (2017)]] suggest that greater international attention to finance could be instrumental in the full development of solar energy.

Despite improvements in the international governance of energy, it still appears that a great deal of this is still concerned with promoting further development of fossil fuels. One aspect of this is the development of international legal norms. A large number of bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty, include provisions for using a system of investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) designed to protect the interests of investors in energy projects from national policies that could lead their assets to be stranded. Numerous scholars have pointed to ISDS being able to be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets ( [[#Tienhaara--2018|Tienhaara 2018]] ; [[#Bos--2019|Bos and Gupta 2019]] ). Another aspect is finance; [[#Gallagher--2018|Gallagher et al. (2018)]] examine the role of national development finance systems. While there has been a great deal of finance devoted to renewable energy, they find the majority of finance devoted to projects associated either with fossil fuel extraction or with fossil fuel-fired power generation.

Given the complexity of global energy governance, it is impossible to make a definitive statement about its overall contribution to mitigation efforts. Three statements, do however, appear to be robust. First, prior to the emergence of climate change on the global political agenda, international cooperation in the area of energy was primarily aimed at expanding and protecting the use of fossil energy, and these goals were entrenched in a number of multilateral organisations. Second, since the 1990s, international cooperation has gradually taken climate mitigation on board as one of its goals, seeing a realignment of many pre-existing organisations priorities, and the formation of a number of new international arrangements oriented towards the development of renewable energy resources. Third, the realignment is far from complete, and there are still examples of international cooperation having a chilling effect on climate mitigation, particularly through financing and investment practices, including legal norms designed to protect the interests of owners of fossil assets.

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<span id="transportation"></span>
==== 14.5.2.3 Transportation ====

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The transportation sector has been a particular focus of cooperative efforts on climate mitigation that extend beyond the sphere of the UNFCCC climate regime. A number of these cooperative efforts involve transnational public-private partnerships, such as the European-based Transport Decarbonisation Alliance, which brings together countries, regions, cities and companies working towards the goal of a ‘net-zero emission mobility system before 2050’ ( [[#TDA--2019|TDA 2019]] ). Other efforts are centred in specialised UN agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Measures introduced by the ICAO and IMO have addressed CO 2 emissions from international shipping and aviation. Emissions from these parts of the transportation sector are generally excluded from national emissions reduction policies and NDCs because the ‘international’ location of emissions release makes allocation to individual nations difficult ( [[#Bows-Larkin--2015|Bows-Larkin 2015]] ; [[#Lyle--2018|Lyle 2018]] ; [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). The measures adopted by ICAO take the form of standards and recommended practices that are adopted in national legislation. IMO publishes ‘regulations’ but does not have a power of enforcement, with non-compliance a responsibility of flag states that issue a ship’s ‘MARPOL’ certificate.

As discussed in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-2|Chapter 2]] and Figure SPM.4, international aviation currently accounts for approximately 1% of global GHG emissions, with international shipping contributing 1.2% of global GHG emissions. These international transport emissions are projected to be between approximately 60% and 220% of global emissions of CO 2 in 2050, as represented by the four main illustrative model pathways in SR1.5 ( [[#Rogelj--2018|Rogelj et al. 2018]] ; [[#UNEP--2020|UNEP 2020]] ) Notably, however, the climate impact of aviation emissions is estimated to be two to four times higher due to non-CO 2 effects ( [[#Terrenoire--2019|Terrenoire et al. 2019]] ; [[#Lee--2021a|Lee et al. 2021a]] ). Increases in trans-Arctic shipping and tourism activities with sea ice loss are also forecast to have strong regional effects due to ships’ gas and particulate emissions ( [[#Stephenson--2018|Stephenson et al. 2018]] ).

The Kyoto Protocol required Annex I Parties to pursue emissions reductions from aviation and marine bunker fuels by working through IMO and ICAO ( [[#UNFCCC--1997|UNFCCC 1997]] , Art. 2.2). Limited progress was made by these organisations on emissions controls in the ensuing decades ( [[#Liu--2011b|Liu 2011b]] ), but greater action was prompted by conclusion of the SDGs and Paris Agreement ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ), together with unilateral action, such as the EU’s inclusion of aviation emissions in its Emissions Trading System ( [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ).

The Paris Agreement neither explicitly addresses emissions from international aviation and shipping, nor repeats the Kyoto Protocol’s provision requiring Parties to work through ICAO/IMO to address these emissions ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). This leaves unclear the status of the Kyoto Protocol’s Article 2.2 directive after 2020 ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ; [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ), potentially opening up scope for more attention to aviation and shipping emissions under the Paris Agreement ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ). Some commentators have suggested that emissions from international aviation and shipping should be part of the Paris Agreement ( [[#Gençsü--2015|Gençsü and Hino 2015]] ; [[#Traut--2018|Traut et al. 2018]] ), and shipping and aviation industries themselves may prefer emissions to be treated under an international regime rather than a nationally-oriented one ( [[#Gilbert--2012|Gilbert and Bows 2012]] ). In the case of shipping emissions, there is nothing in the Paris Agreement to prevent a Party from including international shipping in some form in its NDC ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ) Under the Paris Rulebook, Parties ‘should report international aviation and marine bunker fuel emissions as two separate entries and should not include such emissions in national totals but report them distinctly, if disaggregated data are available’ ( [[#UNFCCC--2019d|UNFCCC 2019d]] ).

ICAO has an overarching climate goal to ‘limit or reduce the impact of aviation greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate’ with respect to international aviation. In order to achieve this, ICAO has two global aspirational goals for the international aviation sector, of 2% annual fuel efficiency improvement through 2050 and carbon neutral growth from 2020 onwards ( [[#ICAO--2016|ICAO 2016]] ). In order to achieve these global aspirational goals, ICAO is pursuing a ‘basket’ of mitigation measures for the aviation sector consisting of technical and operational measures, such as a CO 2 emissions standard for new aircraft adopted in 2016, measures on sustainable alternative fuels and a market-based measure, known as the Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which the triennial ICAO Assembly of 193 Member States resolved to establish in 2016 ( [[#ICAO--2016|ICAO 2016]] ). In line with the 2016 ICAO Assembly Resolution that established CORSIA, in mid-2018, the ICAO’s 36-member state governing Council adopted a series of Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), now contained in Annex 16, Volume IV of the Chicago Convention (1944), as a common basis for CORSIA’s implementation and enforcement by each state and its aeroplane operators. From 1 January 2019, the CORSIA SARPs require states and their operators to undertake an annual process of monitoring, verification, and reporting of emissions from all international flights, including to establish CORSIA’s emissions baseline ( [[#ICAO--2019|ICAO 2019]] ).

Based on this emissions data, CORSIA’s carbon offsetting obligations commenced in 2021, with three-year compliance cycles, including a pilot phase in 2021–2023. States have the option to participate in the pilot phase and the subsequent voluntary three-year cycle in 2024–2026. CORSIA becomes mandatory from 2027 onwards for states whose share in the total international revenue tonnes per kilometre is above a certain threshold ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). Under CORSIA, aviation CO 2 emissions are not capped, but rather emissions that exceed the CORSIA baseline are compensated through use of ‘offset units’ from emissions reduction projects in other industries ( [[#Erling--2018|Erling 2018]] ). However, it is unclear whether the goal of carbon neutral growth and further CO 2 emissions reduction in the sector will be sufficiently incentivised solely through the use of such offsets in combination with ICAO’s manufacturing standards, programmes, and state action plans, without additional measures being taken, for example, constraints on demand ( [[#Lyle--2018|Lyle 2018]] ). If countries such as China, Brazil, India and Russia do not participate in CORSIA’s voluntary offsetting requirements this could significantly undermine its capacity to deliver fully on the sectoral goal by limiting coverage of the scheme to less than 50% of international aviation CO 2 emissions in the period 2021–2026 ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ; [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020b|Climate Action Tracker 2020b]] ). In addition, a wide range of offsets are approved as ‘eligible emissions units’ in CORSIA, including several certified under voluntary carbon offset schemes, which may go beyond those eventually agreed under the Paris Agreement Article 6 mechanism ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). It is noted, however, that ICAO applies a set of ‘Emissions Unit Eligibility Criteria’, agreed in March 2019, which specify required design elements for eligible programmes. In June 2020, the ICAO Council decided to define 2019 emissions levels, rather than an average of 2019 and 2020 emissions, as the baseline year for at least the first three years of CORSIA, although there were significant reductions (45–60%) in aviation CO 2 emissions in 2020 compared with 2019 as a result of reductions in air travel associated with the COVID-19 pandemic ( [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020b|Climate Action Tracker 2020b]] ).

Other measures adopted by ICAO include an aircraft CO 2 emissions standard that applies to new aircraft type designs from 2020, and to aircraft type designs already in production as of 2023 ( [[#Smith--2018|Smith and Ahmad 2018]] ). Overall, CORSIA and regional measures, such as the EU ETS, are estimated to reduce aviation carbon emissions by only 0.8% per year from 2017–2030 (noting, however, that ‘if non-CO 2 emissions are included in the analysis, then emissions will increase’) ( [[#Larsson--2019|Larsson et al. 2019]] ). Accordingly, pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement are likely to require more stringent international measures for the aviation sector ( [[#Larsson--2019|Larsson et al. 2019]] ).

Similar to ICAO, the IMO has a stated vision of remaining committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and, as a matter of urgency, aims to phase them out as soon as possible in this century. IMO has considered a range of measures to monitor and reduce shipping emissions. In 2016, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) approved an amendment to the MARPOL Convention Annex VI for the introduction of a mandatory global data collection scheme for fuel oil consumption of ships ( [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ). Other IMO measures have focused on energy efficiency ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ). The IMO’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), which is mandatory for new ships, is intended, over a ten-year period, to improve energy efficiency by up to 30% in several categories of ships propelled by diesel engines ( [[#Smith--2018|Smith and Ahmad 2018]] ). In May 2019, the MEPC approved draft amendments to the MARPOL Convention Annex VI, which if adopted, will bring forward the entry into force of the third phase of the EEDI requirements to 2022 instead of 2025 ( [[#IMO--2019|IMO 2019]] ; [[#Joung--2020|Joung et al. 2020]] ).

However, it is unlikely that the EEDI and other IMO technical and operational measures will be sufficient to produce ‘the necessary emissions reduction because of the future growth in international seaborne trade and world population’ ( [[#Shi--2018|Shi and Gullett 2018]] ). Consequently, in 2018, the IMO adopted an initial strategy on reduction of GHG emissions from ships ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] ). This includes a goal for declining carbon intensity of the sector by reducing CO 2 emissions per transport work, as an average across international shipping, by at least 40% by 2030, and pursuing efforts towards 70% by 2050, compared to 2008 levels ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 3.1). The strategy also aims for peaking of total annual GHG emissions from international shipping as soon as possible and a reduction by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels, while pursuing efforts towards phasing them out ‘as soon as possible in this century’ as a point ‘on a pathway of CO 2 emissions reduction consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals’ ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 2, 3.1). The shipping industry is on track to overachieve the 2030 carbon intensity target but not its 2050 target ( [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020c|Climate Action Tracker 2020c]] ). The initial IMO strategy is to be kept under review by the MEPC with a view to adoption of a revised strategy in 2023.

The IMO’s initial strategy identifies a series of candidate short-term (2018–2023), medium-term (2023–2030) and long-term (beyond 2030) measures for achieving its emissions reduction goals, including possible market-based measures in the medium-to-long term ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , paras. 4.7–4.9). Further progress on market-based measures faces difficulty in light of conflicts between the CBDRRC principle of the climate regime and the traditional non-discrimination approach and principle of no more favourable treatment enshrined in MARPOL and other IMO conventions ( [[#Zhang--2016|Zhang 2016]] ). Both the CBDRRC and non-discrimination principles are designated as ‘principles guiding the initial strategy’ ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 3.2). The challenges encountered in introducing global market-based measures for shipping emissions under the IMO have prompted regional initiatives such as the proposed extension of the EU ETS to emissions from maritime activities ( [[#Christodoulou--2021|Christodoulou et al. 2021]] ), which was announced on 14 July 2021 by the EU Commission as part of its ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package ( [[#European%20Commission--2021|European Commission 2021]] ).

While the IMO strategy is viewed as a reasonable first step that is ambitious for the shipping industry, achieving the ‘vision’ of alignment with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement requires concrete implementation measures and strengthened targets in the next iteration in 2023 ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ; [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020c|Climate Action Tracker 2020c]] ). As a step towards this, in 2020, the IMO’s MEPC put forward draft amendments to the MARPOL Convention that would require ships to combine a technical and an operational approach to reduce their carbon intensity. These amendments were formally adopted by the Committee at its session in June 2021.

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<span id="civil-society-and-social-movements"></span>
=== 14.5.3 Civil Society and Social Movements ===

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Transnationally organised civil society actors have had long-standing involvement in international climate policy, with a particular focus on consulting or knowledge-sharing where they are present in transnational climate governance initiatives ( [[#Michaelowa--2017|Michaelowa and Michaelowa 2017]] ). The term ‘civil society’ generally denotes ‘the voluntary association of individuals in the public sphere beyond the realms of the state, the market and the family’ ( [[#de%20Bakker--2013|de Bakker et al. 2013]] , p. 575). Whereas civil society organisations are usually involved in lobbying or advocacy activities in a public arena, social movements focus on mobilisation and action for social change ( [[#Daniel--2019|Daniel and Neubert 2019]] ). Examples of civil society groups involved in international climate policy include non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace International, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Resources Institute, Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice among many others, as well as NGO networks such as the Climate Action Network, which has over 1300 NGO members in more than 130 countries, working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels ( [[#Climate%20Action%20Network%20International--2020|Climate Action Network International 2020]] ). The influence of civil society engagement in global climate governance is well acknowledged, with these organisations’ globally dispersed constituencies and non-state status offering perspectives that differ in significant ways from those of many negotiating states (Derman 2014).

Historically, the issue of climate change did not give rise to intense, organised transnational protest characteristic of social movements ( [[#McAdam--2017|McAdam 2017]] ). During the 1990s and early 2000s, the activities of the global climate movement were concentrated in developed countries and largely sought to exercise influence through participation in UNFCCC COPs and side events ( [[#Almeida--2019|Almeida 2019]] ). The mid-2000s onwards, however, saw the beginnings of use of more non-institutionalised tactics, such as simultaneous demonstrations across several countries, focusing on a grassroots call for climate justice that grew out of previous environmental justice movements ( [[#Almeida--2019|Almeida 2019]] ). Groups representing indigenous peoples, youth, women, and labour rights brought to the fore new tools of contention and new issues in the UNFCCC, such as questions of a just transition and gender equity ( [[#Allan--2020|Allan 2020]] ).

Climate justice has been variously defined, but centres on addressing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable populations and calls for community sovereignty and functioning ( [[#Schlosberg--2014|Schlosberg and Collins 2014]] ; [[#Tramel--2016|Tramel 2016]] ). Contemporary climate justice groups mobilise multiple strands of environmental justice movements from the Global North and South, as well as from distinct indigenous rights and peasant rights movements, and are organised as a decentralised network of semiautonomous, coordinated units ( [[#Claeys--2017|Claeys and Delgado Pugley 2017]] ; [[#Tormos-Aponte--2018|Tormos-Aponte and García-López 2018]] ). The climate justice movement held global days of protest in most of the world’s countries in 2014 and 2015, and mobilised another large campaign in 2018 ( [[#Almeida--2019|Almeida 2019]] ). The polycentric arrangement of the global climate movement allows simultaneous influence on multiple sites of climate governance, from the local to the global levels ( [[#Tormos-Aponte--2018|Tormos-Aponte and García-López 2018]] ).

Prominent examples of new climate social movements that operate transnationally are Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future, which collectively held hundreds of coordinated protests across the globe in 2019–2021, marking out ‘the transnational climate justice movement as one of the most extensive social movements on the planet’ ( [[#Almeida--2019|Almeida 2019]] ). Fridays for Future is a children’s and youth movement that began in August 2018, inspired by the actions of then 15-year old Greta Thunberg who pledged to strike in front of the Swedish parliament every Friday to protest against a lack of action on climate change in line with the Paris Agreement targets ( [[#Fridays%20for%20Future--2019|Fridays for Future 2019]] ). Fridays for Future events worldwide encompass more than 200 countries and millions of strikers. The movement is unusual for its focus on children and the rights of future generations, with children’s resistance having received little previous attention in the literature. Fridays for Future is regarded as a progressive resistance movement that has quickly achieved global prominence (for example, Thunberg was invited to address governments at the UN Climate Summit in New York in September 2019) and is credited with helping to support the discourse about the responsibility of humanity as a whole for climate change ( [[#Holmberg--2019|Holmberg and Alvinius 2019]] ). Whereas Fridays for Future has focused on periodic protest action, Extinction Rebellion has pursued a campaign based on sustained non-violent direct citizen action that is focused on three key demands: declaration of a ‘climate emergency’, acting now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and creation of a citizen’s assembly on climate and ecological justice ( [[#Booth--2019|Booth 2019]] ; [[#Extinction%20Rebellion--2019|Extinction Rebellion 2019]] ). The movement first arose in the United Kingdom– where it claimed credit for adoption of a climate emergency declaration by the UK government – but now has a presence in 45 countries with some 650 groups having formed globally ( [[#Gunningham--2019|Gunningham 2019]] ).

The Paris Agreement’s preamble explicitly recognises the importance of engaging ‘various actors’ in addressing climate change, and the decision adopting the Agreement created the Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action platform to aid in scaling up these efforts. Specific initiatives have also been taken to facilitate participation of particular groups, such as the UNFCCC’s Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, which commenced work in Katowice in 2019. Climate movements based in the Global South, as well as in indigenous territories, are playing an increasingly important role in transnational negotiations through networks such as the Indigenous Peoples Platform. These groups highlight the voices and perspectives of communities and peoples particularly affected by climate change. For instance, the Pacific Climate Warriors is a grassroots network of young people from various countries in the Pacific Islands region whose activities focus on resisting narratives of future inevitability of their Pacific homelands disappearing, and re-envisioning islanders as warriors defending rights to homeland and culture ( [[#McNamara--2017|McNamara and Farbotko 2017]] ). Youth global climate activism, particularly involving young indigenous climate activists, is another notable recent development. Although there remains little published literature on indigenous youth climate activism ( [[#MacKay--2020|MacKay et al. 2020]] ), analysis of online sources indicates the emergence of several such groups, including the Pacific Climate Warriors and Te Ara Whatu from Aotearoa New Zealand ( [[#Ritchie--2021|Ritchie 2021]] ), as well as Seed Mob in Australia.

Transnational civil society organisations advocating for climate justice in global governance have articulated policy positions around rights protections, responsibility-based approaches to climate finance, and the need for transparency and accountability (Derman 2014). Another recent area of activity, which overlaps with that of emerging investor alliances ( [[#14.5.4|Section 14.5.4]] ), is the sustainability of capital investment in fossil fuel assets. Efforts to shift away from fossil fuels led by civil society include the Beyond Coal Campaign (in the USA and Europe) and the organisation for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty. 350.org has supported mobilisation of youth and university students around a campaign of divestment that has grown into a global movement ( [[#Gunningham--2019|Gunningham 2019]] ). As [[#Mormann--2020|Mormann (2020)]] notes, as of November 2020 ‘more than 1,200 institutional investors managing over USD14 trillion of assets around the world have committed to divest some or all of their fossil fuel holdings’. Studies suggest that the direct impacts of the divestment movement have so far been small, given a failure to differentiate between different types of fossil fuel companies, a lack of engagement with retail investors, and a lack of guidance for investors on clean energy re-investment ( [[#Osofsky--2019|Osofsky et al. 2019]] ; [[#Mormann--2020|Mormann 2020]] ). The movement has had a more significant impact on public discourse by raising the profile of climate change as a financial risk for investors ( [[#Bergman--2018|Bergman 2018]] ). [[#Blondeel--2019|Blondeel et al. (2019)]] also find that broader appeal of the divestment norm was achieved when moral arguments were linked to financial ones, through the advocacy of economic actors, such as the Bank of England’s governor.

Climate justice campaigns by transnational civil society organisations increasingly embrace action through the courts. [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-13|Chapter 13]] discusses the growth and policy impact of such ‘climate litigation’ brought by civil society actors in domestic courts, which is attracting increasing attention in the literature ( [[#Setzer--2019|Setzer and Vanhala 2019]] ; [[#Peel--2020|Peel and Osofsky 2020]] ). Transnational and international court actions focused on climate change, by contrast, have been relatively few in number ( [[#Peel--2019|Peel and Lin 2019]] ). This reflects – at least in part – the procedural hurdles to bringing such claims, as in many international courts and tribunals (outside of the area of human rights or investor–state arbitration) litigation can only be brought by states ( [[#Bruce--2017|Bruce 2017]] ). However, there have been active discussions about seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ international obligations regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions ( [[#Sands--2016|Sands 2016]] ; [[#Wewerinke-Singh--2020|Wewerinke-Singh and Salili 2020]] ), or bringing a case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on marine pollution harms caused by climate change ( [[#Boyle--2019|Boyle 2019]] ). In September 2021 the Government of Vanuatu announced a campaign to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ. The aim of climate litigation more generally is to supplement other regulatory efforts by filling gaps and ensuring that interpretations of laws and policies are aligned with climate mitigation goals ( [[#Osofsky--2010|Osofsky 2010]] ).

The overall impact of transnationally-organised civil society action and social movements for international cooperation on climate change mitigation has not been comprehensively evaluated in the literature. This may reflect the polycentric organisation of the movement, which poses challenges for coordinating between groups operating in different contexts, acting with different strategies and around multiple issues, and lobbying multiple decision-making bodies at various levels of government in a sustainable way ( [[#Tormos-Aponte--2018|Tormos-Aponte and García-López 2018]] ). There is some literature emerging on environmental defenders and their need for protection against violence and repression, particularly in the case of indigenous environmental defenders who face significantly higher rates of violence ( [[#Scheidel--2020|Scheidel et al. 2020]] ). [[#Scheidel--2020|Scheidel et al. (2020)]] also find that combining strategies of preventive mobilisation, protest diversification and litigation can enhance rates of success for environmental defenders in halting environmentally destructive projects. In the area of climate litigation, commentators have noted the potential for activists and even researchers to suffer retaliation through the courts as a result of ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’ and lawsuits against researchers brought by fossil fuel interests ( [[#Setzer--2019|Setzer and Byrnes 2019]] ; [[#Setzer--2020|Setzer and Benjamin 2020]] ). Influence of social movements may be enhanced through taking advantage of ‘movement spillover’ (the involvement of activists in more than one movement) ( [[#Hadden--2014|Hadden 2014]] ) and coordination of activities with a range of ‘non-state governors’, including cities, sub-national governments, and investor groups ( [[#Gunningham--2019|Gunningham 2019]] ). Studies of general societal change suggest that once 3.5% of the population are mobilised on an issue, far-reaching change becomes possible ( [[#Gladwell--2002|Gladwell 2002]] ; [[#Chenoweth--2019|Chenoweth and Belgioioso 2019]] ) – a tipping point that may be approaching in the case of climate change ( [[#Gunningham--2019|Gunningham 2019]] ). As noted in Chapter 5, in the particular case of low-carbon technologies, ‘if 10–30% of the population were to demonstrate commitment to low-carbon technologies, behaviours, and lifestyles, new social norms would be established’.

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=== 14.5.4 Transnational Business and Public-Private Partnerships and Initiatives ===

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Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goals. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by non-state actors, such as businesses and investors, cities and regions, and NGOs, are crucial. However, non-state climate and sustainability actions may not be self-reinforcing but may heavily depend on supporting mechanisms. Governance risk-reduction strategies can be combined to maximize non-state potential in sustainable and climate-resilient transformations ( [[#Chan--2019|Chan et al. 2019]] ).

An important feature of the evolving international climate policy landscape of recent years is the entrepreneurship of UN agencies such as UNEP and UNDP, as well as international organisations such as the World Bank, in initiating public-private partnerships (PPPs). [[#Andonova--2017|Andonova (2017)]] calls this ‘governance entrepreneurship’. Such partnerships can be defined as ‘voluntary agreements between public actors (international organisations, states, or sub-state public authorities) and non-state actors (non-governmental organisations (NGOs), companies, foundations, etc.) on a set of governance objectives and norms, rules, practices, and/or implementation procedures and their attainment across multiple jurisdictions and levels of governance’ ( [[#Andonova--2017|Andonova 2017]] ). Partnerships may carry out different main functions: first, ''policy development'' , establishing new agreements on norms, rules, or standards among a broader set of governmental and non-governmental actors; second, ''enabling implementation and delivery of services'' , by combining resources from governmental and non-governmental actors; and, third, ''knowledge production and dissemination'' , to for example, the evolution of relevant public policies.

An example of a prominent PPP in the area of climate mitigation is the Renewable Energy Network ( [[#REN21--2019|REN21 2019]] ), which is a global multi-stakeholder network focused on promoting renewable energy policies in support of the transition to renewable energy through knowledge, established in 2004. It includes members from industry, NGOs, intergovernmental organisations, and science and academia. Another example is the Green Economy Coalition founded in 2009 to bring to bear the perspectives of workers, business, poor people, the environment community, and academics in the transition to a greener and more sustainable economy. Another example is that in 2015, Peru, in collaboration with France and the UNFCCC Secretariat, launched the Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action, an online platform to showcase commitments to climate action by companies, cities, regions and investors (Chan et al. 2016; [[#Bertoldi--2018|Bertoldi et al. 2018]] ). More recently, the UNFCCC Race to Zero initiative led by High-level Climate Champions Nigel Topping and Gonzalo Muñoz seeks to mobilise actors beyond national governments to join the Climate Ambition Alliance and pursue net zero CO 2 targets. Its membership includes 454 cities, 23 regions, 1391 businesses, 74 of the biggest investors, and 569 universities.

PPPs may also be developed to assist with implementation and support of states’ climate mitigation commitments. For instance, UNEP has initiated a number of PPPs for climate change finance. These are designed to increase financing for the purposes of disseminating low-carbon technologies to tackle climate change and promote clean energy in many parts of developing countries ( [[#UNEP--2018b|UNEP 2018b]] ; [[#Charlery--2019|Charlery and Traerup 2019]] ).

In the same vein, in 2010 FAO delivered the Framework for Assessing and Monitoring Forest Governance. The Framework draws on several approaches currently in use or under development in major forest governance-related processes and initiatives, including the World Bank’s Framework for Forest Governance Reform. The Framework builds on the understanding that governance is both the context and the product of the interaction of a range of actors and stakeholders with diverse interests ( [[#FAO--2010|FAO 2010]] ). For example, UNFCCC and the UN-REDD programme focus on REDD+ and UNEP focuses on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), institutional mechanisms that have been conceptualised as a ‘win-win-win’ for mitigating climate, protecting biodiversity and conserving indigenous culture by institutionalising payments on carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation values of ecosystems services from global to local communities. These mechanisms include public-private partnership, and NGO participation. REDD+ and TEEB allocation policies will be interventions in a highly complex system, and will inevitably involve trade-offs; therefore, it is important to question the ‘win-win-win’ discourse ( [[#Zia--2018|Zia and Kauffman 2018]] ; [[#Goulder--2019|Goulder et al. 2019]] ). The initial investment and the longer periods of recovery of investment are sometimes barriers to private investment. In this sense, it is important to have government incentives and encourage public-private investment ( [[#Ivanova--2013|Ivanova and Lopez 2013]] ).

The World Bank has also established several partnerships since 2010, mainly in the field of carbon pricing. Prominent examples are the Networked Carbon Markets initiative (established 2013’ spanning both governmental actors and experts’ now entering a phase II) and the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, established in 2015 and spanning a wide range of governmental and non-governmental actors, not least within business ( [[#World%20Bank--2018|World Bank 2018]] ; [[#World%20Bank--2019|World Bank 2019]] ; [[#Wettestad--2021|Wettestad et al. 2021]] ). These partnerships deal with knowledge production and dissemination and seek to enable implementation of carbon pricing policies. The leadership role of the international ‘heavyweight’ World Bank gives these partnerships additional comparative political weight, meaning also a potentially greater involvement of powerful finance ministries/ministers generally involved in Bank matters and meetings.

PPPs for cooperation on climate mitigation goals have emerged at multiple levels of governance beyond the realm of international organisations. For example, PPP funding for cities expanded rapidly in the 1990s and outpaced official external assistance almost tenfold. Most of the PPP infrastructure investment has been aimed at telecommunications, followed by energy. However, with the exception of the telecommunications sector, PPP investments have generally bypassed low-income countries ( [[#Ivanova--2017|Ivanova 2017]] ). It is therefore not surprising that PPPs have added relatively little to the financing of urban capital in developing countries over the past two decades ( [[#Bahl--2014|Bahl and Linn 2014]] ). [[#Liu--2010|Liu and Waibel (2010)]] argue that the inherent risk of urban investment is the main obstacle to increasing the flow of private capital. Nevertheless, there have been cases where PPP investments have exceeded official external aid flows even for water and sanitation, and highly visible projects have been funded with PPPs in selected metropolitan areas of developing countries, including urban rail projects in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila ( [[#Liu--2010|Liu and Waibel 2010]] ).

Local governments are also creating cross-sector social partnerships (CSSPs) at the sub-national level, entities created for addressing social, economic, and/or environmental issues with partner organisations from the public, private and civil society sectors ( [[#Crane--2014|Crane and Seitanidi 2014]] ). In particular, with support from international networks such as ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability, C40, Global Covenant of Mayors, and Global 100% Renewable Energy, local governments around the world are committing to aggressive carbon reduction targets for their cities ( [[#Ivanova--2015|Ivanova et al. 2015]] ; [[#Clarke--2017|Clarke and Ordonez-Ponce 2017]] ; [[#Kona--2018|Kona et al. 2018]] ). Research on CSSPs implementing community sustainability plans shows that climate change is one of the four most common issues, after waste, energy and water (which are also highly relevant to climate mitigation) ( [[#MacDonald--2017|MacDonald et al. 2017]] ).

Community climate action plans consider all GHGs emitted within the local geographic boundaries, including from industry, home heating, burning fuel in vehicles, and so on. It is these community plans that require large multi-stakeholder partnerships to be successful. Partners in these partnerships generally include the local government departments, other government departments, utilities, large businesses, Chambers of Commerce, some small and medium-sized enterprises, universities, schools, and local civil society groups ( [[#Clarke--2016|Clarke and MacDonald 2016]] ). Research shows that the partnership’s structural features enable the achievement of plan outcomes, such as reducing GHG emissions, while also generating value for the partners ( [[#Austin--2012|Austin and Seitanidi 2012]] ; [[#Clarke--2016|Clarke and MacDonald 2016]] ; [[#Clarke--2017|Clarke and Ordonez-Ponce 2017]] ). [[#Stua--2017b|Stua (2017b)]] explores the Mitigation Alliances (MAs) on the national level. The internal governance model of MAs consists of overarching authorities mandated to harmonise the overall organisational structure. These authorities guarantee an effective, equitable and transparent functioning of the MA’s pillars (the demand, supply, and exchange of mitigation outcomes), in line with the principles and criteria of the Paris Agreement. This hybrid governance model relies upon its unique links with international climate institutions ( [[#Stua--2017a|Stua 2017a]] ).

Transnational business partnerships are a growing feature of the landscape of multi-level, multi-actor governance of climate change. Many business leaders embraced the ethos of ‘business cannot succeed in societies that fail’. Examples of this line of reasoning are: poverty limits consumer spending, political instability disrupts business activity, and climate change threatens the production and distribution of goods and services. Such situations endanger multinational enterprise investments, global asset management funds, and the core business of international insurance companies and pension funds ( [[#van%20Tulder--2021|van Tulder et al. 2021]] ).

A leading example is the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a global, CEO-led organisation of over 200 leading businesses working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world. Member companies come from all business sectors and all major economies, representing a combined revenue of more than USD8.5 trillion and with 19 million employees. The WBCSD aims to enhance ‘the business case for sustainability through tools, services, models and experiences’. It includes a Global Network of almost 70 national business councils across the globe. The overall vision is to create a world where more than 9 billion people are all living well and within the boundaries of our planet, by 2050. Vision 2050, released in 2010, explored what a sustainable world would look like in 2050, how such a world could be realised, and the role that business can play in making that vision a reality. A few years later, Action2020 took that Vision and translated it into a roadmap of necessary business actions and solutions ( [[#WBCSD--2019|WBCSD 2019]] ). WBCSD focuses on those areas where business operates and can make an impact. They identify six transformation systems that are critical in this regard: Circular Economy, Climate and Energy, Cities and Mobility, Food and Nature, People and Redefining Value. All have an impact on climate. An important initiative launched in September 2008 –Natural Climate Solutions – has the objective of leveraging business investment to capture carbon out of the atmosphere. This initiative has built strong cross-sectoral partnerships and is intended to tap into this immense emissions reduction solution potential through natural methods with the help of private investment.

The Global Methane Initiative (GMI) is a multilateral partnership launched in 2004 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency along with 36 other countries to generate a voluntary, non-binding agenda for global collaboration to decrease anthropogenic methane releases. The GMI builds on the Methane to Markets (M2M) Partnership, an international partnership launched in 2004. In addition to the GMI’s own financial assistance, the initiative receives financial backing from the Global Methane Fund (GMF) for methane reduction projects. The GMF is a fund created by governments and private donors ( [[#Leonard--2014|Leonard 2014]] ).

Another potentially influential type of transnational business partnership is investor coalitions or alliances formed for the purpose of pushing investee companies to adopt stronger measures for stranded asset management and climate change mitigation. MacLeod &amp; Park (2011, p. 55) argue that these transnational groups ‘attempt to re-orient and “regulate” the behaviour of business by holding corporations accountable via mechanisms of information sharing, monitoring of environmental impacts, and disclosure of activities related to the corporate climate footprint’. This favours a theory of active ownership (investor engagement with corporate boards) over capital divestment as the optimal pathway to shape the behaviour of corporate actors on climate risk ( [[#Kruitwagen--2017|Kruitwagen et al. 2017]] ; [[#Krueger--2020|Krueger et al. 2020]] ).

Transnational cooperative action by investors on climate mitigation has been facilitated by international standard-setting on issues of climate risk and disclosure. For example, in 2017 the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) adopted international recommendations for climate risk disclosure ( [[#TCFD--2017|TCFD 2017]] ). These recommendations, which apply to all financial-sector organisations, including banks, insurance companies, asset managers, and asset owners, have received strong support from investor coalitions globally, including Climate Action 100+ (with 300 investors with more than USD33 trillion in assets under management), the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change (a coalition of regional investor groups across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America) and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC). One of the key recommendations of the TCFD calls for stress-testing of investment portfolios taking into consideration different climate-related scenarios, including a 2°C or lower scenario. Broad adoption of the TCFD recommendations could provide a basis for decisions by investors to shift assets away from climate-risk exposed assets such as fossil fuel extraction projects ( [[#Osofsky--2019|Osofsky et al. 2019]] ). There is strong evidence showing the urgent need for scaling-up climate finance to mitigate greenhouse gases in line with pursuit of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and to support adaptation to safeguard the international community from the consequences of a changing climate. While public actors have a responsibility to deploy climate finance, it is clear that the contribution from the private sector needs to be significant ( [[#Gardiner--2016|Gardiner et al. 2016]] ).

As most of these partnerships are of recent vintage an assessment of their effectiveness is premature. Instead, partnerships can be assessed on the basis of the three main functions introduced earlier. Starting with policy development, that is, establishing new agreements on norms, rules, or standards among a broader set of governmental and non-governmental actors, this is not the most prominent aspect of partnerships so far, although both the cities’ networks and risk disclosure recommendations include some elements of this. The second element, enabling implementation and delivery of services, by combining resources from governmental and non-governmental actors, seems to be a more prominent part of the partnerships ( [[#Ivanova--2020|Ivanova et al. 2020]] ). Both UNEP financing, the WBCSD, the REDD+ and TEEB mechanisms, and PPP funding for cities are examples here. Finally, the third element, knowledge production and dissemination, for example, contributing to the evolution of relevant public policies, is the most prominent part of these partnerships, with the majority including such activities.

There is a relatively large volume of literature that assesses PPPs in general. Much of this applies to partnerships which, either by design or not, advance climate goals. This literature provides a good starting point for assessing these partnerships as they become operational. These can help assess whether such partnerships are worth the effort in terms of their performance and effectiveness ( [[#Liu--2017b|Liu et al. 2017b]] ), their economic and social value added ( [[#Quélin--2017|Quélin et al. 2017]] ), their efficiency ( [[#Estache--2014|Estache and Saussier 2014]] ) and the possible risks associated with them (Grimsey and Mervyn 2002).

What is less common, but gradually growing, is an important and more relevant literature on criteria to assess sustainability and impact on climate and development goals. [[#Michaelowa--2017|Michaelowa and Michaelowa (2017)]] assess 109 transnational partnerships and alliances based on four design criteria: existence of mitigation targets; incentives for mitigation; definition of a baseline; and existence of a monitoring, reporting, and verification procedure . About half of the initiatives do not meet any of these criteria, and not even 15% satisfy three or more. A recent study using a systematic review of business and public administration literature on PPPs concludes that research in the past rarely incorporated sustainability concepts. The authors propose a research agenda and a series of success factors that, if appropriately managed, can contribute to sustainable development, and in so doing contribute to a more solid scientific evaluation of PPPs ( [[#Pinz--2018|Pinz et al. 2018]] ). There is evidence that with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, many of which are directly linked to climate goals, PPPs will become even more prominent as they will be called upon to provide resources, knowledge, expertise, and implementation support in a very ambitious agenda. PPPs in the developing world need to take into account different cultural and social decision-making processes, language differences, and unfamiliar bureaucracy ( [[#Gardiner--2016|Gardiner et al. 2016]] ). Having more evidence on what norms and standards in relation to sustainability are used and their governance is essential ( [[#Axel--2019|Axel 2019]] ). The issue of double counting should be revised. GHGs are accounted both at the national and sub-national level or company level ( [[#Schneider--2014|Schneider et al. 2014]] ). Some recent studies aim to provide systems to assess the impact of PPPs beyond the much-used notion of value for money. One of these recent studies proposes a conceptual model that addresses six dimensions relevant to economic, social and environmental progress. These include resilience and environment, access of services to the population, scalability and replicability, economic impact, inclusiveness, and finally, degree of engagement of stakeholders ( [[#Berrone--2019|Berrone et al. 2019]] ). These systems will most likely continue to evolve.

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=== 14.5.5 International Cooperation at the Sub-national and City Levels ===

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Local and regional governments have an important role to play in global climate action, something recognised by the Paris Agreement, and also assessed in Sections 13.3.2 and 13.3.4 of this report. There are several ways they can be useful. First, sub-national governments can contribute insights and experience that provide valuable lessons to national governments, as well as offering needed implementation capacity ( [[#GIZ--2017|GIZ 2017]] ; [[#Leffel--2018|Leffel 2018]] ). A great deal of policymaking has occurred at the level of city governments in particular. Cities have been responsible for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions and generate over 80% of global income ( [[#World%20Bank--2010|World Bank 2010]] ), and many of them have started to take their own initiative in enacting and developing mitigation policies (CDP 2015). Most of these activities aim at the reduction of GHG emissions in the sectors of energy, transportation, urban land use and waste ( [[#Bulkeley--2010|Bulkeley 2010]] ; [[#Xuemei--2007|Xuemei 2007]] ), and are motivated by concerns not only over climate, but also a consideration of local co-benefits ( [[#Rashidi--2017|Rashidi et al. 2017]] , 2019). Second, sub-national governments can fill the void in policy leadership in cases where national governments are ineffectual, even to the point of claiming leadership and authority with respect to foreign affairs ( [[#Leffel--2018|Leffel 2018]] ). International cooperation plays a role in such action. Several international networks, such as C40, ICLEI, Mayors for Climate Protection, and the Covenant of Mayors have played an important role in defining and developing climate-policy initiatives at the city level ( [[#Fünfgeld--2015|Fünfgeld 2015]] ). While the networks differ from each other, they generally are voluntary and non-hierarchical, intended to support the horizontal diffusion of innovative climate policies through information-sharing platforms linked to specific goals that member cities make ( [[#Kern--2009|Kern and Bulkeley 2009]] ). The literature has addressed the questions of why cities join the networks ( [[#Betsill--2004|Betsill and Bulkeley 2004]] ; [[#Pitt--2010|Pitt 2010]] ), what recognition benefits cities can expect ( [[#Buis--2009|Buis 2009]] ; [[#Kern--2009|Kern and Bulkeley 2009]] ), and how memberships can provide visibility to leverage international funding ( [[#Betsill--2004|Betsill and Bulkeley 2004]] ; [[#Heinrichs--2013|Heinrichs et al. 2013]] ). Membership in the networks has been found to be a significant predictor of cities’ adoption of mitigation policies, even when controlling for national-level policies that may be in place ( [[#Rashidi--2018|Rashidi and Patt 2018]] ). [[#Kona--2018|Kona et al. (2018)]] find that cities belonging to the Covenant of Mayors are engaging in emissions reductions at a rate consistent with achieving a 2°C global temperature target. [[#Kona--2021|Kona et al. (2021)]] document this trend continuing.

With respect to their role in formal international cooperation, however, it is unclear what authority, as a non-state actor, they actually have. Cities, for example, are members of transnational initiatives aimed at non-state actors, such as Global Climate Action, originally the Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action, under the UNFCCC. While there is reason to believe that such membership can add value to mitigation efforts, one study suggests that the environmental effects have yet to be reliably quantified ( [[#Hsu--2019a|Hsu et al. 2019a]] ). By contrast, [[#Kuramochi--2020|Kuramochi et al. (2020)]] provide evidence that non-state actors are leading to significant emissions reductions beyond what countries would otherwise be achieving. In terms of institutional strength, [[#Michaelowa--2017|Michaelowa and Michaelowa (2017)]] suggest that few such networks fulfil governance criteria, and hence challenge their effectiveness. Several researchers suggest that their role is important in informal ways, given issues about the legitimacy of non-state actors ( [[#Chan--2016|Chan et al. 2016]] ; [[#Nasiritousi--2016|Nasiritousi et al. 2016]] ). [[#Bäckstrand--2017|Bäckstrand et al. (2017)]] advance the concept of ‘hybrid multilateralism’ as a heuristic to capture this intensified interplay between state and non-state actors in the new landscape of international climate cooperation. The effectiveness of such non-state government actors should be measured not only by their contribution to mitigation, but also by their success to enhance the accountability, transparency and deliberative quality of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement ( [[#Chan--2015|Chan et al. 2015]] ; [[#Busby--2016|Busby 2016]] ; [[#Hale--2016|Hale et al. 2016]] ). In the post-Paris era, effectiveness also revolves around how to align non-state and intergovernmental action in a comprehensive framework that can help achieve low carbon futures ( [[#Chan--2016|Chan et al. 2016]] ). [[#Stua--2017b|Stua (2017b)]] suggests that networks involving non-state actors can play an important role in enhancing transparency. Such effectiveness has to be complemented also by ''normative questions'' , applying a set of democratic values: participation, deliberation, accountability, and transparency ( [[#Bäckstrand--2017|Bäckstrand and Kuyper 2017]] ). Such concepts of polycentric governance offer new opportunities for climate action, but it has been argued that it is too early to judge their importance and effects ( [[#Jordan--2015|Jordan et al. 2015]] ).

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