International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics最新文献

{"title":"Pension funds and fossil fuel phase-out: historical developments and limitations of pension climate strategies","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10784-024-09626-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-024-09626-0","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Despite the decades of international climate negotiations and several landmark agreements, global efforts to date to restrict fossil fuel production in line with climate targets have been unsuccessful. As national and international policies continue to fall short of phasing out fossil fuels, increasing attention has been paid to non-state actors, like pension funds, as a potential source of more ambitious climate action. As major asset owners, large shareholders in fossil fuel companies, and historically activist investors, pension funds are theoretically well-placed to contribute to phasing out fossil fuels. Despite growing recognition of this potential role for pension funds and other major investors in climate change mitigation, there has been little attention to pension funds’ historical record on climate change, or to how their climate strategies have developed and changed over time. This paper examines how the climate strategies of the largest US and European pension funds have evolved in relation to key developments in international climate agreements and the extent to which these strategies contribute to restricting fossil fuel supply. Through an analysis of the annual, governance, and sustainability reports of 6 pension funds from 1997 to 2022, we examine the strategies pension funds have adopted to address both climate change and fossil fuels. Pension funds have demonstrated responsiveness to the signals of international climate agreements, adopting a range of strategies with respect to climate change (amongst others, integrating ESG principles, increasing their sustainable investments, and setting net zero goals). Their explicit attention to fossil fuels and contribution to supply-side interventions take the form of systematic shareholder engagement, (selective) divestment, and lobbying policymakers. While pension fund climate action is growing , the ambition of their strategies is not aligned with a rapid fossil fuel phaseout; their efforts are often focussed on improving disclosure and transparency and demonstrate complacency with minimal improvements from fossil fuel companies. If pension funds are to significantly contribute to phasing out fossil fuels, redefining pension fund responsibilities and the traditional shareholder role will likely be required.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140146524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding supply-side climate policies: towards an interdisciplinary framework","authors":"Peter Newell, Angela Carter","doi":"10.1007/s10784-024-09631-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-024-09631-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Once marginal in climate governance, supply-side policies which seek to restrict the production of climate warming fossil fuels are now gaining greater prominence. From national level bans and phase out policies to divestment campaigns and the creation of ‘climate clubs’ such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an increasing number of such policies are being adopted by governments, cities and financial actors around the world. But why would states voluntarily relinquish potentially profitable reserves of fossil fuels? How can we account for the rise of supply-side policies, the form they take and the sites in which they are being adopted? What conditions and contexts are most conducive to the adoption and sustainability of ‘first mover’ bans and phase out policies? This paper seeks to build an interdisciplinary account fusing insights from diverse theoretical traditions from international political economy, political science, sociology and the literature on socio-technical transitions in order to capture the interaction of political, economic and socio-cultural drivers in national and international settings which can provide the basis of a more integrated and multi-dimensional understanding of supply-side policies. Such an account, we suggest, helps to understand the origins and evolution of supply-side policies and, more critically, the conditions which might enable the expansion of supply-side climate policies to new sites.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140009746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Applying earth system justice to phase out fossil fuels: learning from the injustice of adopting 1.5 °C over 1 °C","authors":"Joyeeta Gupta, Yang Chen, David I. Armstrong Mckay, Paola Fezzigna, Giuliana Gentile, Aljoscha Karg, Luc van Vliet, Steven J. Lade, Lisa Jacobson","doi":"10.1007/s10784-024-09628-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-024-09628-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Paris Agreement has seen the adoption of a 1.5° to 2 °C climate target, based on the belief that climate change becomes ‘dangerous’ above this level. Since then, the scientific community and the countries most affected by global warming have reiterated that the maximum limit to be reached should be 1.5 °C. This paper goes one step further by questioning the reasoning behind the adoption of these targets, arguing that the fossil fuel-dependent political context in which they were adopted has undermined justice concerns. We highlight the political influence of the fossil fuels industry within target-setting negotiations, analyzing the evolution of climate targets and fossil fuel lobbying. We then harness published scientific evidence and the Earth System Justice framework to analyze the impacts of the 1.5 °C target, and the injustices that have so far been implicitly deemed acceptable. We argue that 1 °C would have been a far more just target and was undermined by vested interests and status quo maintenance. Finally, we propose just supply-side policies to ensure an adequate placement of responsibility on the fossil fuel industry. This way we (a) identify political influences and scientific blind spots that have and could continue to hinder climate action, (b) reveal how these influences delayed more ambitious climate objectives, contributing to the adoption of an unjust climate target, and (c) promote a focus on supply-side measures and polluting industries in order to break free from the impasse in the energy transition and foster more just outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139978794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From national ban to global climate policy renewal: Denmark’s path to leading on oil extraction phase out","authors":"Sarah Greene, Angela V. Carter","doi":"10.1007/s10784-024-09625-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-024-09625-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Denmark is the first major oil-producing state—the largest oil producer in the European Union to date—to withdraw from future oil production. In 2020, the Danish Parliament passed the North Sea Agreement (NSA), which established 2050 as the end date for all offshore oil and gas production and, at the same time, cancelled the eighth licensing round and all future tender rounds for hydrocarbon exploration and extraction. While essential in Denmark’s ambitious domestic climate commitments, this national ban is also a keystone in a vital turn in global supply side climate policy as Denmark endeavours to encourage other states to curtail fossil fuel production via its lead role in the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA). This paper explores the origins and development of Denmark’s NSA. Focusing on specific conditions that enabled the development of the national ban, this case study examines how Denmark’s national climate policy reinforces burgeoning global anti-fossil fuel norms (AFFN) and serves as a model for other states seeking to implement supply side climate policies. It concludes with an analysis of opportunities for extending Danish leadership in aligning oil production with the imperative for a net-zero world.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139953500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What next for supply-side policy in the south: emerging lessons from Ecuador’s Yasuní initiative","authors":"Pedro Alarcón","doi":"10.1007/s10784-024-09624-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-024-09624-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the light (or in the darkness) of the current climate and energy crises, a future in which the extraction of carbon-based fuels is phased down sounds less utopian, though still an upward struggle in an international context shaped by mainstream technoeconomic narratives. Concepts like \"unburnable carbon,\" or the idea that fossil fuel reserves would need to remain under the ground in order to comply with the Paris Agreement, become prominent, and research on supply-side climate policy aimed at limiting further expansion of fossil fuel extraction gains momentum. Yet, there has been scarce attention so far to the role of supply-side approaches in building an equitable and just energy transition. With a view to filling this gap, in this contribution I build on the insights of Ecuador, a quintessential example of a natural resource-dependent country in the Global South and revisit the widely discussed Yasuní initiative, a pioneering international cooperation scheme to leave oil reserves in the ground, which is again topical due to the referendum of 2023. On the one hand, I argue that the energy transition underway imposes additional challenges when thinking about decarbonizing the energy sector and the national economy in a country, which traditionally followed a natural resource-driven development path. On the other hand, I discuss the social and political arrangements that surround the results of the referendum on stopping oil extraction in the Yasuní national park in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. With the insights of Ecuador, I finally intend to shed light on social, political, and international conditions needed for innovative supply-side projects to succeed in natural resource-rich countries in the Global South.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139910115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The environmental and economic effects of international cooperation on restricting fossil fuel supply","authors":"Harro van Asselt, Panagiotis Fragkos, Lauri Peterson, Kostas Fragkiadakis","doi":"10.1007/s10784-023-09623-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09623-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Achieving the Paris Agreement’s global temperature goal of keeping warming well below 2 °C and ideally 1.5 °C requires limiting fossil fuel production. In the United Nations climate change negotiations, this need is only beginning to be acknowledged. Nevertheless, as some countries have already adopted supply-side climate policies, initial cooperative activities have started, and calls grow for a fossil fuel treaty, questions arise about the prospects and possible effects of international cooperation on limiting fossil fuel supply. Combining qualitative insights on possible participants in a supply-side coalition with a quantitative analysis based on integrated assessment general equilibrium modelling, this article addresses these questions. Through <i>k</i>-means clustering based on fossil reserves per capita, fossil fuel rents and existing supply-side policies, we first identify which (groups of) countries are most likely to lead the formation of an international supply-side coalition, and which (groups of) countries are likely to follow. Drawing on these insights, we develop several scenarios for the evolution of international supply-side coalitions and compare these to a business-as-usual scenario. By doing so, we demonstrate the global and regional environmental, trade and macroeconomic effects of international cooperation on limiting fossil fuel supply and combining fossil supply restrictions with carbon pricing to meet the Paris goals. Our findings underscore the importance of pursuing supply-side and ambitious demand-side climate policies in parallel, and identify the scope and coverage, size of the coalition, and incentives for participation as key design elements for an international supply-side coalition.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139677468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Investment law v. supply-side climate policies: insights from Rockhopper v. Italy and Lone Pine v. Canada","authors":"Alessandra Arcuri, Kyla Tienhaara, Lorenzo Pellegrini","doi":"10.1007/s10784-023-09622-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09622-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>New fossil fuel developments are inconsistent with keeping global warming below 1.5 °C, and while most climate policies focus on reducing demand for fossil fuels, an emerging transversal consensus promotes efforts to simultaneously reduce supply. In this article, we discuss the obstacles to effective supply-side climate policies posed by international investment treaties that protect corporations against state interventions through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). We focus on two recently concluded ISDS cases (<i>Rockhopper v Italy</i> and <i>Lone Pine v Canada</i>) that concern prohibitions on fossil fuel development in ecologically sensitive areas. Italy was ordered to pay a British firm approximately € 250 million in compensation for a ban on offshore oil developments along the coastline, whereas Canada successfully defended Québec’s ban on gas development in the St. Lawrence River. Arbitrators in both cases reasoned that investors should be compensated when oil and gas exploration permits are revoked (even if such a remedy is not available under domestic law) and expressed antipathy towards civic engagement in the policy process. As companies can seek lost future profits through ISDS, these cases show that the system can engender material costs for states enacting supply-side policies. The threat of ISDS can generate a chilling effect, limiting the potential for supply-side initiatives, particularly in the Global South. Initiators of global efforts to limit further fossil fuel developments must consider the obstacles posed by international investment treaties, support efforts to abolish ISDS, and as an interim measure, promote the interpretation of treaty protections in line with climate objectives.</p>","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139500736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An analysis of the convention on the protection of the Black Sea against pollution (the Bucharest Convention) from the perspective of Turkish contract law","authors":"Nilay Tulukcu Yıldızbaş, Üstüner Birben, Osman Devrim Elvan, Melek Bilgin Yüce","doi":"10.1007/s10784-023-09621-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09621-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136032789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the links between climate transparency and mitigation policy through a reflexive capacity lens: case studies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Mexico","authors":"Nila Kamil, Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen","doi":"10.1007/s10784-023-09618-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09618-6","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As the multilateral climate transparency mechanism increasingly blurs the differentiation between developed and developing countries, it catalyses international pressure on the latter to adopt more ambitious mitigation policies and stringent reporting. This article delves into the relationship between the International Consultation and Analysis (ICA), a climate transparency mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the mitigation policies of emerging economies, namely Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. Using the conceptual framework of reflexive capacity, we explore how the ICA enhances the ability of these countries' governments to recognize, reflect upon, and respond to demands for mitigation information. Our research draws on interviews with key government officials, UNFCCC personnel, and experts involved in the ICA process, participant observation, and extensive analysis of primary documents including the Biennial Update Reports, Technical Analysis Synthesis Reports, and countryspecific submissions. The findings demonstrate that the ICA fosters the enhancement of government actors’ reflexive capacities by furthering their understanding of transparency’s significance, advancing their technical reporting expertise, and subjecting individual country performance to scrutiny. Such capacities not only lead to improvements in domestic practices related to the generation and disclosure of mitigation-related information but also empower these countries to assert their entitlement to differentiated responsibilities in the face of increasing demands for mitigation and reporting. The enhanced reflexive capacity and heightened scrutiny are anticipated to play pivotal role in facilitating the development of more ambitious mitigation policies and more effective climate transparency mechanisms at both domestic and global levels.","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135995916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does ICAO’s climate change mitigation policy based on international agreements reflect global environmental justice?","authors":"Dinar Dewi Kania, Dian Artanti Arubusman, Mustika Sari, Ridho Bramulya Ikhsan, Safathira Zaldin","doi":"10.1007/s10784-023-09619-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09619-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47272,"journal":{"name":"International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136032469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}