Steering and Influence in Transnational Climate Governance: Nonstate Engagement in Solar Geoengineering Research

Theorists of transnational climate governance (TCG) seek to account for the increasing involvement of nonstate and substate actors in global climate policy. While transnational actors have been present in the emerging field of solar geoengineering—a novel technology intended to reflect a fraction of sunlight back to space to reduce climate impacts—many of their most significant activities, including knowledge dissemination, scientific capacity building, and conventional lobbying, are not captured by the TCG framework. Insofar as TCG is identified with transnational governance and transnational governance is important to reducing climate risks, an incomplete TCG framework is problematic for effective policy making. We attribute this shortcoming on the part of TCG to its exclusive focus on steering and corollary exclusion of influence as a critical component of governance. Exercising influence, for example, through inside and outside lobbying, is an important part of transnational governance—it complements direct governing with indirect efforts to inform, persuade, pressure, or otherwise influence both governor and governed. Based on an empirical analysis of solar geoengineering research governance and a theoretical consideration of alternative literatures, including research on interest groups and nonstate advocacy, we call for a broader theory of transnational governance that integrates steering and influence in a way that accounts for the full array of nonstate and substate engagements beyond the state.

Assessing Transnational Climate Governance

Chapter Six assesses to what extent transnational actors enable the three demands of climate justice set out in Chapter Three. The assessment makes use of both existing climate change governance research and ten examples of transnational climate change governance initiatives, providing an insight into how transnational climate change governance has developed and where it stands today. Chapter Six focuses on one demand of climate justice at a time, assessing both what has been promised by transnational actors and what has been achieved so far. The chapter puts forward that although there is room for cautious optimism, overall transnational actors fail to fully enable any of the three demands of justice. The final part of Chapter Six summarises the findings made in Part II and considers what role both multilateral and transnational actors might play in the post-Paris Agreement regime. This is expanded on in the Conclusion of the book.

The Growing Recognition of Transnational Climate Governance Initiatives in the UN Climate Regime: Implications for Legal Scholarship

The UN climate regime has served as the focal point for interstate cooperation on climate change in the political and legal domains for the last twenty-six years. However, since the lead-up to the Paris Agreement, the regime’s interstate elements have been complemented by an evolving transnational sphere of governance in which sub-national and non-state actors engage in voluntary cross-border initiatives. These initiatives serve two key functions: first, they facilitate and implement climate action at the sub-national level and in the private sector, and second, they promote transnational normative frameworks which require members to take active steps to address climate change. This article describes how the UN climate regime has developed to recognize transnational climate governance initiatives, and it reflects on the implications of this development for legal scholarship on international climate change law.