Book Review: Transnational Climate Change Governance

Transnational Climate Change Governance by Harriet Bulkeley, Liliana B. Andonova, Michele M. Betsill, Daniel Compagnon, Thomas Hale, Matthew J. Hoffmann, Peter Newell, Matthew Paterson, Charles Roger, and Stacy D. VanDeveer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 222 pp., £40 hardcover 9781107068698

The growing disillusionment with formal climate negotiations has been paralleled by an expansion of the web of non-state climate change initiatives. These new arrangements are no longer limited to national governments but cut across state boundaries and link the public and private spheres. They involve diverse and seemingly unrelated actors seeking to govern the scientific issues and political solutions to climate change. In their eponymous book, Harriet Bulkeley et al. term such arrangements transnational climate change governance (TCCG).

How has TCCG emerged and evolved over time? What are the main issue areas with which it is concerned? Why and in what ways are the geographies of TCCG uneven? How does TCCG establish legitimacy and authority? Lastly, what are some broader implications of these initiatives as a whole? Bulkeley et al. devote the bulk of their book to addressing these five core puzzles. TCCG is presented as a product of a broader transformation in transnational governance, marked by a shift toward a more complex governance structure. This structure, as the authors argue, is not an alternative to the intergovernmental negotiations that have been plagued by crippling setbacks (p. 185). Instead, the linkages between TCCG and intergovernmental efforts should be viewed as a potential starting point for new developments in climate change governance (p. 186). Bulkeley et al.’s book provides a plethora of findings that together form a wide foundation for an understanding of such developments.

The entire book rests on a construction, analysis and interpretation of a database of sixty diverse case studies. This approach gives rise to some methodological and theoretical issues, many of which the authors openly acknowledge. For example, the initiatives are only those “with an English-language web presence” (p. 24). The sample may thus under-represent those arrangements where English is not the primary language of communication. Bulkeley et al., however, claim that the rich variety of TCCG types that are considered grants the database representativeness of the phenomenon as a whole (p.178).

In theoretical terms, the authors’ approach consists of a systematic application of three perspectives: agency-based, social and systemic dynamics, and critical political theory. The idea of using such theoretical lenses in the fashion of analytical eclecticism is sound. The rich contextual insights that these perspectives bring illuminate different parts of the overall TCCG puzzle. However, explanations based on eclecticism are difficult to generalize into a coherent, explanatorily powerful picture. The authors admit their objective was not to generate specific hypotheses, test different explanations against one another or synthesize the theoretical perspectives in any consistent way (p. 60). However, without accomplishing such tasks, the inclusion of the three lenses seems merely to allow the readers to choose those interpretations they find most appealing. In the end, it is unclear what the “value added” of the lenses as a whole is.

Nonetheless, Bulkeley et al. offer a comprehensive and revealing account of TCCG patterns. An analysis of their database yields both unsurprising and notable findings. For example, as one would expect, the type of issues that the TCCG centers on include energy, carbon markets, biodiversity and sequestration, and infrastructure, and they are geographically unevenly distributed (p.36). Among the less expected findings are the large extent of participation in TCCG arrangements by the actors from the global South, and the fact that only a few initiatives base their legitimacy on democratic claims and urgency, and instead rely on expertise, learning and efficiency (pp. 32, 150–152). Since they generally lack formal authority, many TCCG initiatives rely on a mix of formal ties (e.g., membership fees) and informal approaches (voluntarism or symbolism) to legitimize their activities (pp. 144–145). A noteworthy finding is that voluntary approaches are most commonly used by states or non-governmental organizations and have a wider reach than stronger, formal approaches commonly employed by business organizations (p. 146). Bulkeley et al. suggest that stronger approaches actually reflect a weakness, as the initiatives using them need to secure consent (p.148).

When provided, the authors’ explanations of the uncovered TCCG patterns are plausible and coherent. Unfortunately, the book is scarce on in-depth explanations; it contains more descriptions of the data than analytical assessments. Although Bulkeley et al. make it clear that hypothesis formulation and testing was not their objective, a little more hypothesizing would have increased the book’s depth. On the other hand, the authors’ findings raise a number of intriguing questions, which can be taken up by others. For example, when analyzing geographic patterns of TCCG, they find that North America and Europe participate in common initiatives more than with any other region. Furthermore, North America participates in TCCG initiatives with other regions much more selectively than Europe, which is more global in its TCCG endeavours (p. 124). Why is Europe much more active than North America? Do these patterns arise due to geopolitical factors or common historical, cultural or economic ties?

Aside from offering a solid springboard for future research, the book’s major contribution can be found in Chapter 8, which offers an enlightening discussion of the impacts of TCCG (i.e., the “so what” question). Is TCCG effective? And if so, how do we know? The most obvious measure – TCCG’s contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – is, according to Bulkeley et al., “the worst metric to apply”, because many initiatives are not directly working toward that goal (p. 159). Nevertheless, the authors suggest that there is some evidence of TCCG impact: it allows for more efficient pursuit of actors’ interests and has a potential to generate more effective responses to climate change than those currently employed by the existing intergovernmental system (p. 170).

In conclusion, even without in-depth explanations, this book is an important first step to a better understanding of transnational governance in the domain of climate change. The authors present TCCG as “networked, decentralised, self-organised and often simultaneously public and private, global and local” (p. 156). It is “an emerging global climate governance complex” that organizes prevailing patterns of socio-economic interactions and generates novel forms of behaviour that may be crucial in finding effective solutions to climate change (pp. 176 and 183).

Although ambiguous, the evidence of TCCG impact is both mildly encouraging and highly intriguing. Does the public perceive TCCG initiatives as ineffective? If so, do such perceptions discourage potential future members from joining and directly participating in TCCG, thus hampering the growth and overall effectiveness of these arrangements? The book leaves behind a trail of questions, which is an excellent way of stimulating the interest in transnational climate change governance and encouraging further study of this phenomenon.

Miriam Matejova is a PhD student of Political Science (Global Environmental Politics), a Vanier Scholar, a Killam Laureate and a Liu Scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.