Climate Change and Global Governance

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Climate change is the existential crisis of our time, but international relations scholars have been slow to address it - despite its inherently global nature. With a focus on junior scholars, this panel tackles several related issues around climate change and international collaboration. Notably, all the papers focus on questions around the efficacy of existing institutions working to respond to climate change, a topic that mirrors the conference theme of “understanding backsliding, defining and meeting threats, renovating institutions and practices, and imagining new ones.” Two papers (Capisani et al. and Arias et al.) tackle the especially tricky issue of climate migration, particularly in the context of existing international arrangements such as the 2015 Paris Accord. Fazal et al. similarly engage with the Paris Accord, unpacking the unequal processes underlying the development and revision of nationally determined contributions. Finally, Clark and Zucker build on previous work by charting how the career paths of officials in international financial institutions affect their attitudes toward climate change and related policies.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• Ronald B. Mitchell University of Oregon

Discussant

• Ronald B. Mitchell University of Oregon

Individual Presentations

• Sources of Climate Action in Revolving-Door Bureaucracies - Richard Clark, University of Notre Dame; Noah Zucker, London School of Economics

• Migration and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change: A Right to Livability - Simona Mila Capisani, Durham University; Hélène Benveniste, Stanford University

• Navigating Climate Currents: Unraveling the Regime Complex for Climate Migration - Sabrina Beth Arias, Lehigh University; Meghan Garrity, George Mason University

• The Causes and Consequences of Outsourcing NDCs - Tanisha Fazal, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; Yoonsoo Kim, University of Minnesota; Maria Sanchez, University of Minnesota

• The Role of International Organizations in De-risking Climate Investments - Erin R. Graham, University of Notre Dame; Jiayi (Sonia) Zhang, University of Notre Dame