A polycentric approach to global climate governance

Abstract

As international climate negotiations under the UNFCCC have adopted the goal to limit the increase in global mean temperature to well below 2° C, a highly differentiated—but largely uncoordinated—global climate governance system has emerged. Although coordinated global collective action for mitigating climate change sufficiently to meet the 2°-C goal is still lacking, a multitude of multilateral, minilateral, transnational, national, subnational, and nonstate actors have emerged. This article offers a critical specification of the attempt by Elinor Ostrom and those influenced by her in the literature to conceptualize this climate governance reality as a polycentric approach. We claim that the concept of polycentricity offers high descriptive value for understanding the horizontal and vertical differentiations of current climate governance, and present systematic analysis of a polycentric approach to deliberately enhance the design of the emerging global climate governance architecture. To systematize the Ostromean literature on poly-centric climate governance, we identify and specify four key features for climate mitigation governance and their related mechanisms: an emphasis on self-organization, a recognition of site-specific conditions, the facilitation of experimentation and learning, and the building of trust. After discussing objections to a polycentric approach, we conclude by tentatively evaluating its potential to enhance the effectiveness of climate mitigation, and identify central tasks for the efficient design of a polycentric global climate governance regime.