International Climate Negotiations: Top-down, Bottom-up or a Combination of Both?

Negotiations over a global climate change agreement have been conducted under the auspices of the United Nations for well over 20 years.Initially the process was swift with adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 after only a year and a half of negotiations.The Convention came into force quickly (1994) and three years later the Convention was fleshed out with the addition of innovative and flexible mechanisms through the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.Since then, the negotiating process has been painstakingly slow.It took four years to agree on the precise meaning of the Protocol through the adoption of the Marrakesh Accord, a much diluted version of the Protocol. 1Another four years went before it came into force and there was not much to negotiate over in this period.One could have expected that when the Protocol came into force in 2005 it would give new energy to the negotiation process, but no.Some optimism was created by the 2007 adoption of the Bali Action Plan, and put into effect at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen.Towards this end, the process of negotiations intensified significantly, but the Copenhagen Accord was a big disappointment for all who had hoped for stronger international commitments.Over the last five years the process has limped along as new action plans and platforms have been produced but limited progress.Frustration over the fact that more than twenty years of multilateral diplomacy have failed to produce an effective climate regime has caused many observers to call for a new negotiating approach.For most of this period, the so-called top-down approach has been used, a centralized approach where the parties jointly agree how to deal with the issue within the framework of the UN.More recently there have been calls to shift to a bottom-up approach where the countries decide their own climate measures, or to more exclusive club approach.Note, however, that these clubs are usually hybrids between top-down and bottom-up approaches. 2 The reason for these suggestions is a perception that the negotiations have failed not only because of lack of will or ability among the negotiating parties, but because the overall approach has failed.This raises the question of the significance of institutional design for the outcome of negotiations.Some claim that institutional design can make a significant difference 3 while according to others, it does not when political 1 Hovi et al., "The Persistence of the Kyoto Protocol". 2Victor, Global Warming Gridlock.