After COP26: Appraising the transnational climate regime

Abstract

As we write this introduction to the special issue on the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP) 26 and transnational climate governance, another year has passed since the conference in Glasgow and COP27 negotiations have recently taken place in Sharm El Sheikh. It is impossible to reflect on the critical evaluations as well as limited areas of progress accounted for in the contributions without considering the state of COP as a governance method. The hosting of annual conferences for members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is, like many modes of political and legal action in climate change, a story of many failures and few successes. The cyclical meeting structure was likely instrumental to the forging of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first international agreement to establish a global normative imperative for limiting global warming to maximum two degrees Celsius, which has gone on to serve as the foundation for successful litigation compelling states and private actors to reduce emissions more rapidly. Yet, at the same time, the conferences more routinely result in shortcomings and agreements that postpone, rather than resolve, the fundamental political questions facing transnational climate governance. At the same, the conferences provide public and private actors, including both climate leaders and laggards, with generous publicity. The result, echoing Greta Thunberg’s evaluation of COP26, is a ‘celebration of business as usual and blah,