Title: The state of coalitions in international climate change negotiations and implications for global climate policy

Authors: Bryndís Arndal Woods; Daði Már Kristófersson

Addresses: University of Iceland, Sæmundargata 2, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland; NORD-STAR: The Nordic Center of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research, Iceland ' University of Iceland, Sæmundargata 2, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland

Abstract: This paper presents a method of identifying negotiation coalitions and determining their stability. We provide insights into the structure, issue emphasis, and internal coherence of coalitions at the 17th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and emphasise the implications for climate policy. Countries are grouped into 'natural' coalitions using latent class analysis (LCA) according to the negotiation issues stressed in their opening statements. We compare the LCA results to existing coalitions and find that the LCA coalitions differ from existing coalitions and are more robust by various measures. Existing coalitions are largely heterogeneous according to both issue emphasis and region, which confirms the fragmentation of coalitions and highlights the problematic nature of overlapping preference assumptions common in analyses of climate negotiations. Nevertheless, the UNFCCC is essential to facilitate open and transparent communication as countries move beyond the Paris Agreement.

Keywords: climate negotiations; coalition formation; climate change negotiations; cluster analysis; discourse analysis; mixed methods; integrated assessment; climate policy; negotiation coalitions; latent class analysis; LCA; UNFCCC.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEPDM.2016.080475

International Journal of Environmental Policy and Decision Making, 2016 Vol.2 No.1, pp.41 - 68

Received: 04 Jul 2015
Accepted: 24 Feb 2016
Published online: 25 Nov 2016 *

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