The role of transnational non-state initiatives in polycentric climate governance

随着2015年具有里程碑意义的《巴黎协定》的达成，国际社会同意让社会走上脱碳道路，目标是将全球平均气温较工业化前水平的升幅控制在远低于2摄氏度的水平，并进一步努力将气温升幅进一步控制在1.5摄氏度(《气候公约》，2015)。为了达到这些国际商定的边界，必须按照最新的联合国排放差距报告(UNEP，2018)所敦促的那样，尽快缩小排放差距。这需要推动脱碳的快速、深入和全社会的努力，例如技术创新、大胆投资、对气候系统的深入科学理解，以及关键的非国家和国家以下行动者以及政府采取雄心勃勃的行动。这一认识植根于《巴黎协定》的文本。它不仅抓住了国家(政府)参与者的核心作用，也抓住了非国家参与者在脱碳方面的核心作用。至关重要的是，《联合国气候变化框架公约》(《气候公约》)寻求加快发展过去十年缓慢出现的更为复杂、多层次和多中心的气候治理格局。非国家行为者的自愿倡议，包括企业、城市和民间社会组织等承诺脱碳的跨国行为者，围绕着由《气候公约》推动的多边进程。参与是多样的，既包括线上参与，也包括线下参与。这些举措包括报告减排目标、向专家会议提供技术意见或提交书面材料，为多方利益攸关方伙伴关系提供信息。虽然关于这些新进程的现有文献提供了一个关于非国家跨国行为者正式参与多边气候外交的洞察力，但关于通过自愿跨国非国家倡议进行气候治理的确切工作的知识仍然非常稀少。该研究项目试图对跨国治理进程和多边治理进程之间的关系作出新的解释。特别是以诺贝尔奖获得者林·奥斯特罗姆的多中心理论为解释框架，本论文的目的是在《联合国气候变化框架公约》的背景下理解自愿非国家跨国倡议的出现及其之间的潜在联系。项目目标将采用三步走的方法，使用定性和定量方法的新组合。它将首先利用网络分析，提供1992年至2020年围绕《气候公约》的非国家自愿倡议的全景图；其次，它将进行案例研究和量化分析，以确定《气候公约》与了解非国家行为者参与的“真实”性质的倡议之间的联系类型；第三，它将包括半结构化访谈，以调查这些行为者自愿参与《气候公约》进程的动机。这项实证工作将推动多中心理论的发展，并为全球气候政策中利益攸关方的战略协调提供现实的、与政策相关的见解。通过对全球气候治理中的大数据集进行网络分析，并在全球一级对多中心理论的基本假设进行实证检验，将实现方法和理论上的进步。在实际层面上，将吸取经验教训，供非国家行为者和/或《气候公约》进行战略协调。最终，将对这些举措以及整个多中心气候制度的持久性和有效性做出更好的预测，以实现迅速和完全消除社会碳排放所需的亟需变化。

With the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015, the international community agreed to put society on a decarbonisation path, with the goal to keep the rise in global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels and to advance efforts to curb the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius (UNFCCC, 2015). To meet these internationally agreed boundaries, the emissions gap must be closed as rapidly as possible, as urged in the latest UN Emissions Gap Report (UNEP, 2018). This requires rapid, deep and society-wide efforts engendering decarbonisation, such as technological innovation, bold investments, a deep scientific understanding of the climate system and, crucially, ambitious action by non-state and subnational actors as well as governments. This realisation is anchored in the text of the Paris Agreement. It captures the central role not only of state (government) actors, but also non-state actors in decarbonisation. Crucially, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) seeks to accelerate the development of a more complex, multi-levelled and polycentric landscape of climate governance that has slowly emerged over the last decade. Voluntary initiatives by non-state actors, involving transnational actors such as businesses, cities, and civil society organisations pledging to decarbonise, have clustered around the multilateral process facilitated by the UNFCCC. The engagement is diverse and spans online as well as offline participation. The initiatives include reporting of emissions reduction targets, technical contributions to expert meetings or written submissions to inform multi-stakeholder partnerships. While the existing literature on these novel processes offers an insight into the formal involvement of non-state transnational actors in multilateral climate diplomacy, knowledge on the precise working of climate governance through voluntary transnational non-state initiatives is still very sparse. The research project seeks to shed new light on the relationship between transnational and multilateral governance processes. In particular, using Nobel Laureate, Lin Ostrom's polycentric theory as an explanatory framework, the aim of the thesis is to understand the emergence of voluntary non-state transnational initiatives and underlying linkages between them in the context of the UNFCCC. The project aim will adopt a three-step approach, using a novel combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. It will, first, provide a comprehensive map of the landscape of non-state voluntary initiatives clustered around the UNFCCC from 1992 to 2020 by using network analysis; second, it will undertake case studies and quantitative analysis to determine the type of linkages between the UNFCCC and the initiatives to understand the 'real' nature of the engagement of non-state actors; and third, it will involve semi-structured interviews to investigate the motivations of these actors to engage voluntarily in the UNFCCC process. The empirical work will advance polycentric theory as well as provide practical, policy relevant insights for the strategic coordination of stakeholders in global climate policy. Methodological and theoretical advancements will be achieved, by applying network analysis to a large dataset in global climate governance and by empirically testing the underlying assumptions of polycentric theory on a global level. On a practical level, lessons will be derived for strategic coordination by non-state actors and/or the UNFCCC. Ultimately, better predictions will be made on the durability and effectiveness of the initiatives and of the overall polycentric climate regime for engendering the much required changes needed to rapidly and fully decarbonise society.