‘Great Powers’ in climate politics

Abstract

The concept of ‘Great Powers’ extends well beyond its nineteenth century origins to current business in, for example, the EU, the UN Security Council, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Such core groups can be crucial to finding agreement in complex and fractured negotiations. Climate change was not initially seen as an issue for the Great Power-type architecture. The problem was of universal concern, requiring universal involvement. Moreover, climate's natural great powers (the EU, the US, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, and Canada) split into three antagonistic camps: the EU pressing for sharp emissions reductions; the US, with the other developed powers, much more cautious; and China, India, and Brazil determined that action should be confined to the developed world. These divisions contributed hugely to the ineffectiveness of both the 1992 Rio convention and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In addition, as non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; particularly Chinese) emissions fast outgrew OECD emissions, their exclusion from any constraint became visibly untenable. So, from 2005 on, the Great Powers began to meet more closely in what became the Major Economies Forum. That cooperation contributed significantly to the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. The climate problem is of course far from being solved, but maintaining Great Power cooperation will be crucial to further progress.

Keywords:

• climate change politics
• climate negotiations
• Copenhagen Summit
• COP 15
• international negotiations
• political processes
• UNFCCC