Synergy-as-principle in global climate regulation

Isolated policy interventions are unlikely to effectively address a highly complex and cross-cutting issue such as climate change. Such issues require more integrated or holistic approaches. The concept of searching for synergy across multiple objectives could then achieve better outcomes than a default position of trade-off and collision. This contribution construes a novel principle of synergy to structure integrated decision-making in global climate regulation through law. This article grounds its argument theoretically in the analysis of global regulation. It first develops the rationale of a regulatory principle justifying synergetic choices in rule-design and rule-application. It then sets out a typology of regulatory synergies – reinforcing, functional, and dormant or connecting – which can be arranged on a sliding scale and delivered with appropriate policy tools. It also suggests pathways for synergy-as-principle to advance beyond an effective strategy to acquiring legal bindingness within global regulation through law. Finally, this article tests the workability of this principle in four scenarios where climate protection and adjacent objectives intersect. Beyond this analysis of global climate regulation, this article points to the deeper normative foundations capable of supporting a non-exclusionary global community.