Conditional and Unconditional Climate Policy

• In Event: Unpacking the International Political Economy of Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change has long been considered an area where conditional cooperation is essential, but states have made uneven progress with international climate agreements. This has led some observers to question whether international cooperation matters, and to propose the dominance of domestic politics instead. Yet, little cross-national empirical evidence supports either claim. I develop a new test of whether climate policymaking is conditional that emphasizes how states are situated in pre-existing economic relationships. Trade and investment relationships create competitive dynamics that can constrain or support coordinated climate action. I create new measures of climate policy drawn from recent international agreements and their domestic implementation, and link these with economic data. If climate policy is conditional, then it should be conditional on the behaviour of states’ most important trading and investment partners. If climate policy is set unconditionally, then transnational economics flows should not be related to policy. I use statistical models to evaluate whether governments set climate policy conditionally or unconditionally. The results help adjudicate competing perspectives on the determinants of climate policymaking and can be used to inform the design of international climate agreements.

Author

• Sam Rowan, Concordia University