Global Discourse on Mitigation: Governance in a Fractured Field

• In Event: 183 - Regular Session. International Organizations and World Polity

Abstract

United Nations mediated agreements have produced new global norms (UNFCCC) and rules (Kyoto Protocol) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigate). Despite these attempts, though, global emissions have continued to climb rapidly. From this standpoint, the paper analyzes the major dimensions of difference in the global field of mitigation discourse. This fall (2013), the project on Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (Compon, initiated 2007) completed the content analysis and integration of articles on climate change found in the major newspapers of 17 relevant societies (30,000 articles, 2007-8) into 150 meta-categories and 42 synthesis categories. The 17 societies are used to indicate a global mitigation discourse field, analyzed for its major dimensions and clusters. Analysis (currently proceeding for this working paper) indicates major framing differentials: international/global mitigation negotiations versus domestic contention in politics and civil society; acceptance or rejection of dominant climate change science; locus of moral responsibility for mitigation; moral necessity of global mitigation and others. Multi-dimensional analysis indicates the global field is fractured by two main “fault lines:” The first dimension of opposition shows areas of concord and division in science and policy. The second most significant fault line in the global climate change discourse field is anchored by energy policy debates and discussions of ecological impacts. These main fractures and cross-cutting trends arise from complex local situations variously amenable to the new global norms but neither reducible to well-defined “national interests.” A key question is, Will intensifying climate pressure jostle this evolving complex system towards more cooperative global mitigation?

Authors

• Jeffrey Broadbent, University of Minnesota

• John Sonnett, University of Mississippi