A few days after the much discussed climate summit held in New York, CONNECT member Oscar Widerberg wrote a brief analysis on a Swedish climate negotaition blog discussing the outcomes of the week-long event. For Swedish readers, find the blog here.  If you don’t read Swedish, in short, the New York summit clearly high-lighted the increased attention given to non-state actors and sub-national authorities in promoting global climate governance. It opens up for a series of interesting questions on whether to further integrate these actors into the UNFCCC and what practical issues that need to be solved, in particular on how to reap synergies between different climate initiatives and avoid conflicts.

If you want more info, please don’t hesitate to contact: oscar.widerberg [at] vu.nl

Harro van Asselt, Michael Mehling and Clarisse Kehler Siebert just published a new paper on The Changing Architecture of International Climate Change Law. The paper provides the reader with a great analysis on the history and future of climate law as a whole and on its relationship with other legal fields. The authors argue that there are six observable trends in climate law: (i) the multiplication of international forums addressing climate change; (ii) the softening of commitments; (iii) the changing nature of differentiation; (iv) the utilization of innovative policy instruments; (v) the increasing focus on litigation; and (vi) the growing importance of nonstate actors and transnational governance.

The paper is free to download via the Social Science Reseach Network site here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2402770

UN-led negotiations on climate change are to deliver an agreement in Paris in 2015. In parallel to the UNFCCC, some countries have decided to create or join climate initiatives, so called clubs. The G8, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), and the Major Economies Forum (MEF), are prime examples of these climate clubs.

While some observers put great faith in these clubs, others see a risk that the proliferation of climate clubs should undermine the UNFCCC. This report is an attempt to address this question. The results of this study show that there are few signs of a conflictive relationship between the clubs and the UNFCCC, and that they could play an important role in paving the road to Paris.

While the current set of clubs are not challenging the current climate governance architecture, it should be noted that some clubs are more conducive to the UNFCCC than others.

You can download the report here: Climate clubs and the UNFCCC .

Today a few of the fragmentation community’s collaborating scholars wrote an op-ed on global climate negotiations. It is featured in one of Sweden’s largest dailies, Svenska Dagbladet. The text is in Swedish but discusses the importance of managing expectations and appreciate everything that’s going on beyond the UNFCCC. All the other great things happening while the formal negotiations are at a stand-still should be acknowledged and seen as a positive sign that something is happening on a global level.

You find the article here: http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/klimatforhandlingar-bor-inte-dodforklaras_8758058.svd

Among the largest academic journals on international environmental politics continuously maintain a list of it’s most quoted papers. On the top of the list you’ll find Biermann, Pattberg, Zelli and van Asselt’s paper which has developed a framework for analyzing the degree of fragmentation in global governance architectures. The high ranking really shows the timely focus and large community looking into fragmentation issues.

Read the abstract here

We are pleased to announce our first project deliverable, a literature review on the state-of-play in fragmentation. It discusses the main legal and political debates surrounding fragmentation and what the main conceptual questions that remains to be explored. The literature can be downloaded here and all comments, questions and constructive critique are welcome.