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Black and white photo of Thomas Hickmann. Photo.

Thomas Hickmann

Associate professor | Senior lecturer | Recognised Teaching Practitioner

Black and white photo of Thomas Hickmann. Photo.

Voluntary Global Business Initiatives and the International Climate Negotiations : A Case Study of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Author

  • Thomas Hickmann

Summary, in English

The past few years have witnessed the emergence of a plethora of transnational climate governance experiments. They have been developed by a broad range of actors, such as cities, non-profit organizations, and private corporations. Several scholars have lately devoted particular attention to voluntary global business initiatives in the policy domain of climate change. Their studies have provided considerable insights into the role and function of such new modes of climate governance. However, the precise nature of the relationship between the various climate governance experiments and the international climate negotiations has not been analyzed in enough detail. Against this backdrop, the present article explores the interplay of a business sector climate governance experiment, i.e. the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) with the international climate regime. On the one hand, the article underscores that the GHG Protocol has filled a regulatory gap in global climate policy-making by providing the means for the corporate sector to comprehensively account and report their GHGs. On the other hand, it reveals that the application of the GHG Protocol guidelines depends to a large extent on the existence of an overarching policy framework set up by nation-states at the intergovernmental level. Only if private companies receive a clear political signal that stringent mandatory GHG emission controls and a global market-based instrument are at least likely to be adopted will they put substantial efforts into the accurate measurement and management of their GHGs. Thus, this article points to the limits of climate governance experimentation and suggests that business sector climate governance experiments need to be embedded in a coherent international regulatory setting which generates a clear stimulus for corporate action.

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Pages

94-104

Publication/Series

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume

169

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
  • Political Science

Keywords

  • Climate governance experiments
  • GHG Protocol
  • International climate negotiations
  • UNFCCC
  • Voluntary global business initiatives

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0959-6526