The challenges of effective international climate cooperation in an unequal world

Despite more than three decades of negotiations, the international political community has not succeeded in developing an effective response to the threat of a human-induced climate change. The chapter discusses three key features of climate mitigation that may contribute to explain why this is such a difficult problem for the international community to deal with. First, climate mitigation resembles a global public good and is associated with a malignant incentive structure that encourages free-riding behaviour and discourages major parties from taking on deep GHG emissions reduction commitments. This incentive structure has been, and still is, very much operative in climate negotiations and has seriously impeded the development of effective international climate mitigation. Second, while climate negotiations were set in a North-South divide from the outset, climate mitigation is characterised by a complex conflict structure that cuts across developed and developing countries. The mismatch between the interest- and coalition structure of the climate negotiations has led to a fragmentation and proliferation of coalitions that may have reduced negotiation effectiveness. Third, effective climate mitigation requires that fossil resources representing enormous values are left in the ground. The issue raises the challenging question of who gets to use its fossil resources in the transition period to a decarbonised economy. At their core, these three key features of climate mitigation all concern the very difficult challenge of developing burden-sharing and compensation schemes all parties acknowledge as fair.