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Unilateral or Reciprocal Climate Policy? Experimental Evidence from China
[journal article]
Abstract "The traditional political economy account of global climate change governance directs our attention to fundamental collective action problems associated with global public goods provision, resulting from positive or negative externalities as well as freeriding. The governance architecture of the 19... view more
"The traditional political economy account of global climate change governance directs our attention to fundamental collective action problems associated with global public goods provision, resulting from positive or negative externalities as well as freeriding. The governance architecture of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol uses the traditional approaches of international diplomacy for addressing such challenges: legally binding commitments based on principles of reciprocity and (fair) cost/burden sharing via formalized carbon-budgeting. Yet, the 2015 Paris Agreement has essentially abandoned this approach, as it now operates on the basis of internationally coordinated and monitored unilateralism. On the presumption that public opinion matters for government policy, we examine how citizens view this shift in climate policy from reciprocity to unilateralism, after many years of exposure to strong reciprocity rhetoric by governments and stakeholders. To that end, we fielded a survey experiment in China, the world's largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. The results show that there is, perhaps surprisingly, strong and robust public support for unilateral, non-reciprocal climate policy. To the extent China is interested in pushing ahead with ambitious and thus costly GHG reduction policies, our results suggest that China can leverage segments of public support in order to overcome domestic obstacles to GHG mitigation policies." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
global governance; public opinion; climate protection; international agreement; unilateralism; climate policy; climate change; reciprocity; China; Far East
Classification
Special areas of Departmental Policy
International Relations, International Politics, Foreign Affairs, Development Policy
Document language
English
Publication Year
2016
Page/Pages
p. 152-171
Journal
Politics and Governance, 4 (2016) 3
Issue topic
Climate Governance and the Paris Agreement
ISSN
2183-2463
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution