Alternative Frameworks for International Climate Cooperation: Country Positions in the Run Up to Durban

The political differences on fundamental questions of a future climate regime remain high and the outcome of the latest climate conference in Durban is still uncertain. Important nations and groups of countries have come out with widely divergent proposals on their favoured institutional trajectory for the future climate regime. This policy paper evaluates the positions of several countries or country blocks that are critical for the design and success of the future climate regime, including the EU, the BASIC countries and the USA. It builds on a parallel ICPIA paper that provides a first conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of different regime architectures and applies the criteria defined therein to the proposals submitted by central actors in the current negotiations. The policy paper outlines the strength and the weaknesses of the different proposals. It concludes that the strengths of the current climate regime, such as a high participation and inclusiveness and political feasibility, can serve as a robust basis for a more comprehensive and ambitious international climate regime in the long term.