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The Futures of Sino-Russian Cooperation: Implications for Climate (Ir)Responsibility in the Arctic
Abstract
The Sino–Russian relationship is among the key variables of power dynamics in global climate governance and the changing tides of Russia’s war in Ukraine. In this chapter, we focus on how this relationship will shape the implementation of global climate responsibility in the coming years. Taking a future-oriented approach to politics, we examine plausible alternative developments for Sino–Russian cooperation in the Arctic and beyond, to shed light on how the changing shape of the Sino–Russian partnership might impact the implementation of climate responsibility or its opposite: climate irresponsibility. In light of the urgent need to tackle climate change and the severity of the consequences, there is only a thin line between climate responsibility and irresponsibility: a neutral area between the two no longer exists.
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This article theorizes the politics of responsibility—activist struggles over who will be held accountable for structural injustices like the “catastrophic” changes underway in our climate. To do so, it develops a politicized conception of responsibility, one that treats responsibility as a social construct and a terrain of contestation. Building on the work of feminist philosophers of responsibility and on the praxis of “kayaktivism,” this politicized account treats responsibility as a social practice of interrogating and contesting shared ethico-political judgments. On this understanding, taking responsibility or stepping up is a way of making responsibility—literally of (re)constructing those social practices and judgments through conscious efforts to persuade others, challenge prevailing norms and interpretations, change people’s beliefs about how the world works, revise popular expectations of social actors and institutions, and disrupt business as usual. The article highlights the centrality of norms and power to social practices of responsibility and suggests alternative perspectives on familiar philosophical worries about blame, complexity and agency, and justification.
As the world’s largest fossil fuels exporter, Russia is one of the key countries for addressing global climate change. However, it has never demonstrated any significant ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper applies ideational research methodology to identify the structural differences in economic, political, and social normative contexts between industrialized fossil fuel importing economies and Russia that lead to the fundamental gap in motivations driving decarbonization efforts. Russia is unlikely to replicate the approach to the green transition and climate policy instruments of energy-importing countries. In order to launch decarbonization in Russia, interested stakeholders need to frame climate policies in Russia differently. Specifically, the framing must address the priority of diversification as a means to adapting the national economy to a new green landscape, the combination of diverse channels for decarbonization, the promotion of energy-efficiency, closer attention to climate-related forest projects, and linkage of climate change with other environmental problems. Moreover, considering Russia’s emissions as a part of the global economic system and shifting from a simplistic national focus on GHG emissions reduction would help coordinate policies through dialogue between exporters and importers of fossil fuel energy-intensive goods, which is essential for the global movement towards a net-zero future.
The election of Donald Trump brought disarray to the climate change regime. The changes in what was up to then a promoter of the liberal international order (LIO) exacerbated existing tensions while creating new ones. This paper investigates how that challenge impacted the behaviours of Brazil, China and the European Union (EU) by comparatively analysing their dissimilar positions with respect to three indicators before and after Trump’s coming into power. These indicators are individual pledges and climate-related policies; approaches to climate finance; and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC). The analysis first shows how the US started eroding the broader LIO and the climate change regime to then delve into the behaviours of the three respective key players concerning climate talks. I sustain that the EU, despite its inner divisions, is already counteracting Washington, whereas China is combining a pro-status quo position based on a rhetorical condemnation of the United States. Brazil, in turn, had a transition towards a climate-sceptic government, shifting from being a cooperative actor to abdicating hosting the COP25.
China’s emergence as a global economic power and energy consumer has shaped global energy production and trade flows. In the fossil fuel world, though, China was a price taker. In the energy transition, China is likely to play a vastly different role. Government-supported efforts to spur innovation have coincided with growing environmental awareness at home. As such, Chinese companies have become global leaders in the technologies underpinning the energy transition. Beijing has also been able to capitalise on these gains to become a global leader on climate. Yet, China’s track record is extremely mixed. It remains the largest consumer of coal globally and is also the fastest growing renewables market globally. Similarly, in its overseas investments, China is fuel-agnostic and technology-agnostic, willing to finance and sell both coal-fired power plants and clean energy equipment and solutions. The scope and speed with which China chooses to pursue its own energy transition will remain a key variable in the global energy shift. Indeed, China is unique in its efforts to decarbonise before it has fully industrialised. As such, China could electrify its energy use before it decarbonises power. As the gulf between the US and China deepens, these contradictions will become increasingly visible. China may look to slow its shift away from coal while also accelerating its efforts to become a global leader in clean technologies. Indeed, China already controls some of the infrastructure and commodity supply chains critical to the energy transition.
It is widely recognized that the commitments set out in the Paris Agreement fall short of achieving the 2 degrees Celsius global warming target, agreed as the central goal of the agreement and its parties. Given this, KAPSARC has set out to explore the political feasibility of enhancing nationally determined contributions by utilizing the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB).
China’s CO2 emissions have plateaued under its commitment to reaching peak carbon emissions before 2030 in order to mitigate global climate change. This commitment is aligned with China’s turn toward more sustainable development, named “the new normal” phase. This study aims to explore the role of possible socioeconomic drivers of China’s CO2 emission changes by using structural decomposition analysis (SDA) for 2002–2017. The results show deceleration of China’s annual emissions growth from 10% (2002–2012) to 0.3% (2012–2017), which is mainly caused by gains in energy efficiency, deceleration of economic growth, and changes in consumption patterns. Gains in energy efficiency are the most important determinants, offsetting the increase by 49% during 2012–2017. The recent moderation of emission growth is also attributed to China’s decelerating annual growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from 12% (2002–2012) to 6% (2012–2017) and to the economic transformation to consumption-led patterns in the new normal phase.
To be effective and secure participation, a global climate change agreement needs to be perceived as fair by the countries involved in it. The Paris Agreement approached differentiation of countries’ responsibilities to address climate change by departing from the rigid distinction between industrialised and developing countries through the inclusion of ‘subtle differentiation’ of specific subsets of countries (e.g., Least Developed Countries) for certain substantive issues (e.g., climate finance) and/or for specific procedures (e.g., timelines and reporting). In this article, we analyse whether the self-differentiation countries followed when formulating their own climate plans, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s subtle differentiation. We find that there is consistency for mitigation and adaptation, but not for support (climate finance, technology transfer and capacity building). As NDCs are the main instrument for achieving the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals, this inconsistency needs to be addressed to allow subsequent rounds of NDCs to be more ambitious.
Research reported during the past decade has shown that global warming is roughly proportional to the total amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. This makes it possible to estimate the remaining carbon budget: the total amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that can still be emitted into the atmosphere while holding the global average temperature increase to the limit set by the Paris Agreement. However, a wide range of estimates for the remaining carbon budget has been reported, reducing the effectiveness of the remaining carbon budget as a means of setting emission reduction targets that are consistent with the Paris Agreement. Here we present a framework that enables us to track estimates of the remaining carbon budget and to understand how these estimates can improve over time as scientific knowledge advances. We propose that application of this framework may help to reconcile differences between estimates of the remaining carbon budget and may provide a basis for reducing uncertainty in the range of future estimates.
Based on the premise that great powers have unique responsibilities, this book explores how China’s rise to great power status transforms notions of great power responsibility in general and international climate politics in particular. The author looks empirically at the Chinese party-state’s conceptions of state responsibility, discusses the influence of those notions on China’s role in international climate politics, and considers both how China will act out its climate responsibility in the future and the broader implications of these actions. Alongside the argument that the international norm of climate responsibility is an emerging attribute of great power responsibility, Kopra develops a normative framework of great power responsibility to shed new light on the transformations China’s rise will yield and the kind of great power China will prove to be.
As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China has been a key party in global climate negotiation. External perceptions of China’s role in climate negotiation are significant for China’s domestic policy-making process and international climate efforts. Based on the case studies of two most historic climate talks, the Copenhagen and Paris climate conferences, this article attempts to examine the evolution of external perceptions on China’s role in international climate negotiation by three criteria: acceptability, credibility and constructiveness. The study shows that external perceptions of China’s role in international climate talks have changed considerably since 2009. At the Copenhagen conference, China was regarded as a “dead weight” or even a “wrecker,” though it managed to attain most of its negotiating goals. At the Paris conference, however, China was widely recognized as a global climate leader whose endeavor was indispensable for the conclusion of the Paris Agreement. © 2018 World Century Publishing Corporation and Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
This article reviews and assesses the outcome of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Paris in December 2015. It argues that the Paris Agreement breaks new ground in international climate policy, by acknowledging the primacy of domestic politics in climate change and allowing countries to set their own level of ambition for climate change mitigation. It creates a framework for making voluntary pledges that can be compared and reviewed internationally, in the hope that global ambition can be increased through a process of ‘naming and shaming’. By sidestepping distributional conflicts, the Paris Agreement manages to remove one of the biggest barriers to international climate cooperation. It recognizes that none of the major powers can be forced into drastic emissions cuts. However, instead of leaving mitigation efforts to an entirely bottom-up logic, it embeds country pledges in an international system of climate accountability and a ‘ratchet mechanism’, thus offering the chance of more durable international cooperation. At the same time, it is far from clear whether the treaty can actually deliver on the urgent need to de-carbonize the global economy. The past record of climate policies suggests that governments have a tendency to express lofty aspirations but avoid tough decisions. For the Paris Agreement to make a difference, the new logic of ‘pledge and review’ will need to mobilize international and domestic pressure and generate political momentum behind more substantial climate policies worldwide. It matters, therefore, whether the Paris Agreement's new approach can be made to work.
This is the second book in the series Shared Responsibility in International Law, which examines the problem of distribution of responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. In its work on the responsibility of states and international organisations, the International Law Commission recognised that attribution of acts to one actor does not exclude possible attribution of the same act to another state or organisation. However, it provided limited guidance for the often complex question of how responsibility is to be distributed among wrongdoing actors. This study fills that gap by shedding light on principles of distribution from extra-legal perspectives. Drawing on disciplines such as political theory, moral philosophy, and economics, this volume enquires into the bases and justifications for apportionment of responsibilities that can support a critique of current international law, offers insight into the justification of alternative interpretations, and provides inspiration for reform and further development of international law.
This paper studies how China has established and exercised leadership by creating and operationalising the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDRs) in United Nations climate negotiations—from the embryo of this principle in the Stockholm Declaration to its operationalisation in the Paris Agreement. Building on the updated scholarship on climate leadership, this paper proposes a four criteria test to ascertain the existence of a leadership relationship. It comprises (1) a wilful leader; (2) consensual followers; (3) a commonly shared goal shaped mainly by the leader and accepted by the followers; and (4) a process of leadership-building triggered through use of any one of the following four modes of leadership: ideational, directional, instrumental, or structural. In light of the leadership criteria, this paper focuses on how China has operationalised these various leadership modes towards realising the evolving collective goals of its developing followers. In doing so, the paper provides empirical evidence of the significance of each of the four leadership modes in underpinning China’s leadership in the climate regime. This paper finds that while ideational leadership was prominent in creating the CBDRs principle, instrumental leadership, with the support of occasional usages of directional and structural leadership, has also been vital to China in tackling the internal divisions of developing countries and in overcoming the limitations of such countries’ normative power in the post-Kyoto era.
China’s influence on climate governance has been steadily increasing since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015. Much of this influence, this article argues, has come from China forging a path for climate adaptation and mitigation for the global South. This is having far-reaching consequences, the article further argues, for the politics of global climate governance. China’s discursive and diplomatic power in climate politics is growing as China builds alliances across the global South. China is leveraging this enhanced soft power to elevate the importance of adaptation in multilateral climate negotiations, advance a technocentric approach to climate mitigation, export its development model, and promote industrial-scale afforestation as a nature-based climate solution. China’s strategy is enhancing climate financing, technology transfers, renewable power, and adaptation infrastructure across the global South. To some extent, this is helping with a transition to a low-carbon world economy. Yet China’s leadership is also reinforcing incremental, technocratic, and growth-oriented solutions in global climate governance. These findings advance the understanding of China’s role in global environmental politics, especially its growing influence on climate governance in the global South.
Until April 7, 2022, free copies of this article can be downloaded from https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ebfB_Lq52dkFM
How should responsibility be theorized in the context of the global climate crisis? This question is often framed through the language of distributive justice. Because of the inequitable distribution of historical emissions, climate vulnerability, and adaptation capacity, such considerations are necessary, but do not exhaust the question of responsibility. This article argues that climate change is a structural injustice demanding a theory of political responsibility. Agents bear responsibility not in virtue of their individual causal contribution or capacity, but because they participate in and benefit from the carbon-intensive structures, practices, and institutions that constitute the global political and economic system. Agents take responsibility by engaging in collective political action to transform these structures that generate both climate hazards and unjust relationships of power. By incorporating distributive principles within a capacious conception of political responsibility, this framework advances the theory and practice of climate justice in two ways. First, adopting a relational rather than individualistic criterion of responsibility better makes sense of how and why individuals bear responsibility for a global and intergenerational injustice like climate change. Second, framing climate justice in terms of political responsibility for unjust structural processes better orients and motivates the political action necessary for structural transformation.
Because the Russian economy relies heavily on exports of fossil fuels, the primary source of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it may be adversely impacted by Paris Agreement-based climate policies that target reductions in GHG emissions. Applying the MIT Economic Projection and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model to assess the impacts on the Russian economy of the efforts of the main importers of Russian fossil fuels to follow the global goals of the Paris Agreement, we project that climate-related actions outside of Russia will lower the country's GDP growth rate by about one-half of a percentage point. The Paris Agreement is also expected to raise Russia's risks of facing market barriers for its exports of energy-intensive goods, and of falling behind in the development of low-carbon energy technologies that most of the world is increasingly adopting.
Key policy insights
• Regardless of its domestic emissions reduction efforts, Russia will not be able to sustain its current trajectory of fossil fuel export-based development due to climate policies worldwide.
• To address the challenge of climate-related energy transition, Russia needs a new comprehensive development strategy that accounts for the post-Paris Agreement global energy landscape.
• The key elements of such a strategy include diversification of the economy, moving to low-carbon energy sources, and investing in human capital development.
• Our diversification scenarios show that redistribution of income from the energy sector to the development of human capital would benefit the economy.
• The largest impact of investment re-orientation from the fossil fuel sector would be on manufacturing, services, agriculture and food production.
The study of leadership in International Relations has followed two different paths: work on hegemony and work on different leadership types in international negotiations. Yet there is little overlap between them and no agreement on the distinctive features of leadership and what connects leaders and followers in a collective pursuit. This article critically engages with both literatures and offers a reconceptualization of leadership as a form of legitimated asymmetrical influence that is marked off from domination and performs an important social function in facilitating collective agency towards common goals in a given community. This account is then operationalised in relation to multilateral negotiations to examine and clarify the roles of the United States and China in the negotiation of the mitigation provisions of the Paris Agreement. It is shown that the US under the Obama administration performed a sustained but largely transactional leadership role in bringing the parties to an agreement while China’s role was predominantly that of a defensive co-operator but with significant moments of shared leadership with the US towards the endgame. The analysis shows that, despite growing international expectations, China, unlike the United States, did not see its role as leading the world.
In this article we examine Russia’s recent public discourse on climate change, with a special focus on the arguments denying anthropogenic climate change. We scrutinise the ways in which denial arguments presented in the media are tied to the changing Russian political and economic context, especially the increasingly authoritarian turn in governance during President Vladimir Putin’s third term in office (Putin 2.0). We conclude that the Russian discourse on climate change emphasises Russia’s Great Power status, identifying its sovereignty and fossil energy as the basis of this status. This discourse refers to key categories, including Russia’s national identity and the spatial–material characteristics of the Russian state.
This essay critically assesses China’s pledge—its “intended nationally determined contributions”—toward achieving objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. It addresses some potential misconceptions about China’s pledge, including their inadequacy relative to the scale of pollution causing climate change and the dangers posed by its impacts. China’s pledge is little more than business as usual. Significant ethical obligations arise from China’s role as the largest national source of greenhouse gas pollution and home to hundreds of millions of affluent consumers. The Paris Agreement disregards such obligations. The inadequacy and irresponsibility of China’s Paris pledge exposes some fundamental flaws in the international climate change negotiations and agreements, demonstrating that science and environmental studies cannot be disconnected from ethics and justice.
States have treaty-based and customary international law-based responsibilities to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions emanating from their territory do not cause transboundary harm. However, those international legal responsibilities conflict with the observed behavior of states, which suggests a general rule of irresponsible treatment of the global commons. This paper, written for a conference (and eventual book) on shared responsibility in international law, examines that conflict and two potential mechanisms for resolving it: (1) international litigation and (2) various types of polycentric approaches to climate governance. Several international legal scholars have been advocating litigation as a means of compensating victims and creating incentives to mitigate emissions and negotiate more forceful international agreements. But they are like lawyers in search of clients. To date, no climate cases have been brought before the International Court of Justice (or any other international tribunal). The reason is that obstacles to successful international litigation are even more formidable than those that have caused all domestic (US) climate-related tort claims to fail. Even if international climate litigation could be successful, it could well have perverse impacts on international climate (and other) negotiations. Instead of inculcating shared responsibility, states might become more reluctant to enter into international agreements in the first place.Contrary to the facile notion that "global problems require global solutions," this paper suggests that shared responsibility for greenhouse gas mitigation is likely to be spurred by linkable actions taken at national and sub-national levels. This argument is supported by an emerging literature on polycentric climate governance using various (compatible, rather than mutually-exclusive) approaches, including "regime complexes," "building blocks," and "tipping sets."
When policies of or activities within one country and generation cause deleterious consequences for those of other nations and later generations, they can constitute serious injustices. Hence, anthropogenic climate change poses not only a global environmental threat, but also one to international and intergenerational justice. The avoidance of such injustice has been recognized as a primary objective of global climate policy, and this book aims to comprehend the nature of this objective-to explore how climate change raises issues of international and intergenerational justice and to consider how the design of a global climate regime might these aims into account. Enlisting conceptual tools from ethics as well as legal and political theory, it treats justice as concerned with equity and responsibility and considers how each is undermined by climate change but might be incorporated into climate policy. Various theoretical problems in applying norms of equity and responsibility across borders, over time, and to nations for their greenhouse emissions are considered, and responses are given to these challenges. Finally, an outline for a global climate policy that adequately incorporates norms of justice is articulated and defended, along with a case for procedural fairness in policy development processes. Demonstrating how political theory can usefully contribute toward better understanding the proper human response to climate change as well as how the climate case offers insights into resolving contemporary controversies within political theory, the book offers a case study in which the application of normative theory to policy allows readers to better understand both.
This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and fair once national responsibility is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ‘political’ theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities.
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