GAIA

Governance and Agents in Institutional Architecture on Climate and Energy

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The proposed project is aiming at drawing a clear map of the effectiveness of various ongoing initiatives on climate change and energy issues, within and outside the UN framework, by focusing on governance functions and actors performing the functions, including nation states, business and industry, NGOs, scientific networks and international organizations. It further develops scenarios on mid- to long- term institutional architectures on climate and energy in view of reaching an emerging global consensus on halving global GHG emissions by 2050, and to evaluate the scenarios in terms of the amount of GHG emission reductions and their paths. In other words, this project will work on emission differentiations by using differentiation models developed through political scientific institutional scenario-making. Through this exercise, which required inter-disciplinary collaboration with emission-reduction model, environmental effectiveness of the institutions will be evaluated in comparable way. This is one of the challenges of the GAIA project, which lies in bridging the gap between studies on institutional architecture in terms of political scientific analysis and social economic and engineering models on GHG emissions reductions towards low carbon society. The project has a strong policy-orientation in Europe and Japan, both of which are the key actors in the negotiation processes on post 2012 institutional architecture on climate change as well as implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Therefore, the results of the project, by presenting ways to enhance and link ongoing initiatives and to evaluate environmental effectiveness of them, are expected to give impacts on the actual design of post 2012 mid- to long-term institutional architecture on climate change and energy, let alone its contribution to scientific development in such disciplines as political science and international relations, and environmental policy studies.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Climate change and energy-related issues have become a crucial part of our wellbeing and economy. But assessing true progress to address these challenges and proposing better ways has long been on the minds of academia and the public.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The EU-funded project 'Governance and agents in institutional architecture on climate and energy' (GAIA) set out to draw a clear map on the effectiveness of various ongoing initiatives on climate change and energy issues, both within and outside the UN framework.

The project has examined actors and governance related to business, industry, NGOs, authorities, scientific networks and international organisations. Subjects investigated included green-house emissions and environmental effectiveness of institutions in general.

The results are expected to have an impact on the actual design of post-2012 mid- to long-term institutional structures on climate change and energy. They will contribute to scientific development in such disciplines as political science and international relations, and environmental policy studies.

In its investigations, GAIA elaborated a set of scenarios involving a combination of actors required for long-term governance architecture on climate and energy issues. For example, it found that solid agenda setting in this field comes from combinations of scientific institutions, NGOs, media and international organisations. The stronger the influence of 'pusher states', the higher the chances of effective negotiated settlements. In parallel, the stronger the lobbying of 'insider' NGOs the higher the chances of effective negotiated settlements. Initiatives in this direction can be greatly supported by strong international organisations and academic communities.

Partnerships with NGOs and capacity building by international organisations are also likely to help compliance in developing countries. Collecting data about compliance from independent scientific networks is equally helpful for fostering compliance and governance. GAIA's findings suggested that multilateral commitments by states and business will be stronger if they were included in climate and energy negotiations. Certificate schemes are also recommended, yet with verification by a third party.

Unsurprisingly, the project also concluded that shaming and blaming by NGOs, amplified by media and scientific reporting can build or reinforce state implementation. All these conclusions and others established through GAIA can make a solid foundation for the next round of climate negotiations and in tackling energy issues.