Diversity and Persistence in International Climate Change Negotiation Attendance

• In Event: Institutions and Climate Change

Abstract

What explains repeat attendance within international climate change negotiation forums? The annual Conference of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) represents the primary venue for such negotiations and currently involves delegations from virtually every country in the world. Alongside these nation-state delegations, an ever-expanding number of nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organization actors attend each year as observers. Yet too much turnover among the individuals representing these various delegations may impede climate cooperation given the harm that such turnover poses for negotiation knowledge, experience, and networks. We extract and build time-varying records of individual-level COP attendance for nearly 30 years, leveraging information on individuals' attendance records, job titles, affiliated organizations, and gender. Using a variety of survival models, we then analyze the individual, organizational, social network-based, and COP-level characteristics that shape repeat attendance across the UNFCCC's COPs. In doing so, we identify several reliable determinants of repeat attendance in this forum.

Authors

• Daria Blinova, University of Delaware

• Benjamin E. Bagozzi, University of Delaware