From Global to Polycentric Climate Governance

EUI Working Papers No. 2011/30

27 Pages Posted: 7 Jun 2011

See all articles by Daniel H. Cole

Daniel H. Cole

Indiana University Maurer School of Law; Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Date Written: June 6, 2011

Abstract

Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an alternative theoretical framework for reconstructing global climate policy in accordance with the polycentric approach to governance pioneered in the early 1960s by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren. Instead of a thoroughly top-down global regime, in which lower levels of government simply carry out the mandates of international negotiators, a polycentric approach provides for greater experimentation, learning, and cross-influence among different levels and units of government, which are both independent and interdependent. After exploring several of the design flaws of the existing set of global institutions and organizations for greenhouse gas mitigation, the paper explores how those global institutions and organizations might be improved by learning from various innovative policies instituted by local, state, and regional governments. The paper argues that any successful governance system for stabilizing the global climate must function as part of a larger, polycentric set of nested institutions and organizations at various governmental levels.

Keywords: climate change, governance, Kyoto Protocol, polycentric, global, federalism

JEL Classification: C7, D7, D81, H11, H41, H77, K32, Q2, Q4, R52

Suggested Citation

Cole, Daniel H., From Global to Polycentric Climate Governance (June 6, 2011). EUI Working Papers No. 2011/30, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1858852 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1858852

Daniel H. Cole (Contact Author)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law ( email )

211 S. Indiana Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs ( email )

1315 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

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