Abstract
In this article, I present a neoclassical realist theory of climate change politics that challenges the idea that cooperation on climate change is compelled alone by shared norms and interests emanating from the international level and questions if instead material factors also play a significant constraining role. Relative-gains concerns incited by the international resource transfers implicit in climate change policy may compel some states to be prudent in their international climate change efforts and conserve resources domestically for future contingencies, including their own adaptation and resiliency. Neoclassical realism recognises such systemic constraints while also identifying international and domestic factors — a ‘two-level game’ — that explain variation in state sensitivity to relative gains. As a preliminary test of this theory, I compare the latest data on the magnitude, distribution and financial ‘additionality’ of climate funds and carbon markets. Climate funds are found to be more vulnerable to systemic forces identified by neoclassical realism because they are largely drawn from existing official development assistance budgets despite international commitments that funds are ‘new and additional’. Carbon markets engage a relatively broader number of states and, contrary to moral hazard concerns, have been used to a greater degree by states reducing emissions domestically. While there are concerns about whether carbon credits represent genuine emission reductions, the effectiveness of climate funds is equally, if not more, dubious. I conclude that, while imperfect, carbon markets have too often been unfairly compared with an ideal climate finance mechanism that assumes few political constraints on international resource transfers for climate change.
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Notes
There is also an expansive Marxist/Critical Theory literature on climate change politics (Newell and Paterson 1998; Clark and York 2005; Paulsson 2009; Prudham 2009). I do not engage with these theories in this article because of a lack of space. The reader should know that there are significant misgivings in the political science literature about the primary explanatory variable of Marxism/Critical Theory: that systemic world capitalist political forces are politically more salient than the nation-state or other political associations such as ethnicity. For criticism of Marxist approaches see Skocpol (1977), Horowitz (1985), Wendt (1987) and Jervis (1998). For criticism of Critical Theory see Adler (1997: 321) and Sørensen (2008).
As Victor has convincingly argued, the targets and timetables approach of the Kyoto Protocol required emissions trading to manage the costs of climate change: ‘Emission targets begets trading’ (Victor 2001: 11).
I agree with Victor (2011) that the architects of the climate change regime sought inspiration unwisely from other successful environmental treaties, such as the ozone regime, though climate change is more akin to international trade or development. Designing an effective comprehensive regime for climate change is particularly difficult because of ‘a multiplicity of cooperation problems, a broad and shifting distribution of interests, extreme uncertainty about which measures governments are willing and able to implement, and ambiguity about how to craft viable linkages’ (Keohane and Victor 2011: 15).
The Athenian rebuttal to the arguments of the Melians is well known: ‘right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’ (Thucydides 1982: Book V: 17).
Posner and Sunstein (2008: 1,568) make a similar observation: ‘Suppose also that the United States is less vulnerable than many other nations to serious losses from climate change, and that the expected damage, in terms of health and agriculture, for example, is comparatively low — and that in those terms other nations, such as India and those in Sub-Saharan Africa, are likely to lose much more. If so, the United States might be a net loser from a specified worldwide carbon tax even if the world gains a great deal’.
It is worth noting that the international climate change regime was not investigated by Underdal (2001b).
Lomborg (2007: 11) bases much of his argument on a 2.6°C increase in global average temperature by 2,100, while the current emissions trajectory is towards a 4.0°C rise (IPCC 2007: 13; Raupach et al. 2007: 10,289).
A not insignificant part of the United Kingdom's reductions have been because of the discovery of offshore natural gas (Balat 2010), but much of the rest of its reductions reflect the priority that climate change has achieved within the United Kingdom (Owens 2010). Similarly, some have held that Germany's reductions are because of German reunification (Aldy et al. 2003: 380); however, given the extent of reductions, is difficult to explain this entirely as ‘hot air’ from the former East Germany (Schrader 2002; Bailey 2007).
Klaus bases his argument on Lomborg who, as supra note 7 demonstrates, underestimates the severity of climate change impacts.
The IPCC (2007: 21) defines vulnerability in terms of geography and resilience, though I prefer to keep resilience distinct as a function of largely of wealth and the advantages in material and knowledge resources it provides.
The CDM primary market (to which project developers sell) better represents net resources transfers to develo** countries than the CDM secondary market (where resellers sell to final buyers).
The ‘Buyer’ tab of the monthly Risoe Centre's ‘CDM pipeline’ also refers to primary market buyers. See ‘December 2012 Update of CDM/JI Pipeline Overview Spreadsheet: CDM Projects’, United Nations Environment Programme, Risoe Centre, http://www.cdmpipeline.org/publications/CDMpipeline.xlsx (accessed 20 December, 2012).
UNFCCC (2012).
See ‘Analysis’ tab of the ‘December 2012 Update of CDM/JI Pipeline Overview Spreadsheet: CDM Projects’, United Nations Environment Programme, Risoe Centre, http://www.cdmpipeline.org/publications/CDMpipeline.xlsx (accessed 20 December, 2012).
Holdings of CDM credits for years 2007–2011 derived from Table 5(a) of Standard Electronic Format (SEF) country reports submitted as ‘Supplementary information under the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC’, http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/items/5888.php (accessed 20 December, 2012).
ClimateFundsUpdate.Org, ‘The Donor Countries’, http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/global-trends/donor-countries (accessed 20 December, 2012)
CDM Primary Market: Capoor and Ambrosi (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009); Kossoy and Ambrosi (2010); Linacre et al. (2011); Kossoy and Guigon (2012).
‘Focus’ tab of approved climate funds as indicated at the ClimateFundsUpdate.Org website as of December 2012; see each fund's individual ‘Focus’ at http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/listing (accessed 10 December, 2012).
These leverage ratios should be treated with scepticism. There is little transparency or standardisation of the financial accounting for individual CDM or climate fund projects (Brown et al. 2011).
In contrast to its monitoring of regular ODA flows, OECD monitors ODA targeted towards climate change in relation to commitments, not disbursements. The $22.9 billion of climate-related aid relates to bilateral commitments by DAC members; information on multilateral aid for climate change is not yet complete (personal communication with C. Piemonte, OECD).
Traditional ODA: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘DAC1 Official and Private Flows', http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=TABLE1 (accessed 20 December, 2012). Climate Change ODA: OECD, Environment: ‘Climate change aid up to USD 22.9 billion in 2010, says OECD's Gurría’, http://www.oecd.org/document/4/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_49170628_1_1_1_1,00.html (accessed 10 March, 2012).
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘DAC1 Official and Private Flows’, http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=TABLE1 (accessed 20 December, 2012).
For example, a number of respected US retired military officers offered the following warning: ‘[Sub-Saharan Africa] is becoming an increasingly important source of US oil and gas imports. Already suffering tension and stress…Africa would be yet further challenged by climate change. The proposal by DoD to establish a new Africa Command reflects Africa's emerging strategic importance to the US, and with humanitarian catastrophes already occurring, a worsening of conditions could prompt further US military engagement’ (Center for Naval Analyses 2007: 47).
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge comments received on earlier drafts of this manuscript from the Editors at the Journal of International Relations and Development and also from S. Bernstein, S. Jaffe, R. Kelly, A. Krolikowski, E. Lachapelle, S. Mason-Case, M. Paterson, C. Ryniak, K. Santoki, M. Spannagle, and three anonymous reviewers. The author thanks participants at 2010 meetings of the International Studies Association (ISA) and Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) for their feedback. This work was supported by a CGS Doctoral Scholarship from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, University of Toronto Department of Political Science Student Award and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Doctoral Research Award.
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Purdon, M. Neoclassical realism and international climate change politics: moral imperative and political constraint in international climate finance. J Int Relat Dev 20, 263–300 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2013.5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2013.5