Beyond Multilateralism: What’s Next for Climate Change?

GG 2020 - 4th June 2010

By Scott Moore

In retrospect, the past two years have tested existing systems of global governance.  First, the financial crisis, as many previous entries have noted, very nearly brought governments and financial institutions to their knees; it remains unclear whether they are fully recovered.  Second, and before the financial crisis was resolved, came the world’s most earnest effort yet to address climate change.  Copenhagen, indeed, was the great hope for a global solution.  During the United Nations Climate Change Convention, the Danish capital re-named itself “Hopenhagen.”  Yet this effort too looks to be a bridge too far for global governance as currently conceived. 

Half a year after the conclusion of a vapid Copenhagen Accord, passage of climate change legislation in the United States, widely perceived as a prerequisite for a multilateral agreement, looks unlikely any time soon.  Similarly, a leaked memorandum from a Chinese think tank with close ties to the government suggested that Beijing fears a “rich nation conspiracy” to limit its growth through greenhouse gas emissions caps.  With gridlock prevailing in Washington and suspicion reigning in Beijing, the prospects of a global solution to the greatest spectre of our age are fading.

Given the failure of politicians to find solutions on a global level, a coordinated approach at the grassroots level must move forward.  Environmentalists, nongovernmental organizations, and academics should shift their focus to sub-national governments, corporate coalitions, and consumer action groups.  These sectors represent pivotal actors necessary for vibrant action on the climate change front. 

One of the few bright spots during the Copenhagen negotiations was the announcement of the “R-20,” a coalition of 20 of the world's largest cities and regions that includes New York, São Paulo, and London.  The R-20 committed to pursuing aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reductions, even in the absence of national policies requiring them to do so.  Many of the world's largest multinational corporations, including Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart, are also formulating ambitious plans to reduce their carbon footprints.  And consumer demand for low-carbon products is growing; Tesco, one of Britain's largest retailers, plans to introduce a carbon footprint-labelling system on all of its products.

Working at the grassroots level is inevitably messier, more difficult to coordinate, and less precise than would be a grand multilateral approach.  But it far better reflects the realities and challenges of climate change.  Even though climate change is a global process, its effects will be locally and regionally differentiated.  Incentives are very different.  Some areas, particularly in the high latitudes, stand to reap massive rewards, while others, like the small island developing states, face the prospect of complete destruction.  Similarly, the peoples (and electorates) of the world weigh the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation in very different ways.  According to their own values and preferences, societies and populations will address the challenges of climate change in varied ways, and this must be recognized at the international level.  While the alternative approach of devolved action is not ideal, it is the only realistic paradigm through which to fight climate change in the immediate future.  And it offers some advantages over the grand multilateral vision.

It ought to hearten us that none of the great transformations in world history-- industry, democratization, communications-- were dictated by multilateral agreement.  Rather, patterns of innovation were diffused and adopted across the world in manifold ways.  So too must we meet the challenge of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.  The multilateral dream may have died, but that means only that the call to individual action has received a new breath of life.