4.2.1 State clubs

Narratives and laboratories for active

Definition

A promising starting point for modular multilateralism is the formation of transformative clubs whose members are nation states. Germany and the EU should promote the creation of such state clubs which commit them-selves to ambitious mitigation targets and policy for an energy-system transformation. Clubs can set them-selves ambitious and innovative targets in the fields

of mitigation, adaptation or coping with loss and dam-age, which go beyond the ambition level that can be achieved in the UNFCCC context and can help breathe new life into the UN negotiations (Box 3.3-2). Alterna-tively, or in addition, clubs can set themselves ambitious goals for expanding the use of renewable energies or for improved energy efficiency.

Example

The ‘Renewables Club’ (Club der Energiewendestaaten), which was launched by Germany’s then Federal Envi-ronment Minister Altmaier in 2013, could become a transformative club and give the UN negotiations a boost. China, Denmark, France, the UK, India, Morocco, South Africa, Tonga and the United Arab Emirates are members of the club. The Federal Government has thus succeeded in gaining support for the club from several countries that will be decisive for the success of mitiga-tion. The other member states of the Renewables Club have high expectations of enhanced cooperation within the framework of the club. If only for reasons of cred-ibility vis-à-vis important international partners, Ger-many should take a lead in the expansion and develop-ment of the club.

Global G 20

National

Sectoral

Project

Dialogue Implementation

G 8

LEDS GP Energy +

REDD +

CEM

CCAC GGGI

GMI REEEP

CSLF APP

IEA-IA MEF

M&MRV

REN21 GBEP

Political dialogues

Technical dialogues Dialogue Forums

Project implementation Country strategy

implementation

Implementation Groups

Figure 4.2-1

The landscape of clubs involved in mitigation: the seventeen groupings shown contribute to mitigation as dialogue forums or implementation groups, but lack transformative character. APP: Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate;

CCAC: Climate and Clean Air Coalition; CEM: Clean Energy Ministerial; CSLF: Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum; Energy+:

International Energy and Climate Initiative; G8: Group of 8; G20: Group of 20; GBEP: Global Bioenergy Partnership; GGGI:

Global Green Growth Institute; GMI: Global Methane Initiative; IEA-IA: IEA Multilateral Technology Initiatives (Implementing Agreements); MEF: Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate; LEDS GP: LEDS Global Partnership; M&MRV: International Partnership on Mitigation and Measurement, Reporting and Verification; REDD+: Reduced Emissions from Deforestation; REEP:

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership; REN21: Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century.

Source: Weischer et al., 2012, modified

Modular multilateralism 4.2

Transformative potential

State clubs can be ambitious if they pursue a challeng-ing vision. The club idea is scalable: if other countries meet the respective criteria for accession, they can join and the club’s transformation potential grows with the number of new members. However, in order to be able to have a transformative effect and boost the multilateral UN process, the Renewables Club must be more than a talking shop without commitments. The Federal Govern-ment should propose a concept to its partners. Looking at the elements mentioned above, the following ideas should be considered for the transformative Renewables Club.

1. A common vision: The common vision of the club members could be to create by 2050 an energy sys-tem that is based as completely as possible on renew-able energies and ensures competitive, affordrenew-able and predictable energy costs. This vision should be the point of departure for specific targets. The club members could agree to double renewable energy’s share of their joint energy mix by 2025. That would be compatible with the target pursued by the UN’s

‘Sustainable Energy for All’ initiative – to double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030 (SE4All, 2014). As pioneers, the club members would reach this target five years earlier.

To manage this, each member would set itself clearly defined, individual targets. In addition, the club could support transformative strategies for renew-able energy in other parts of the world. Since the club unites pioneers, it is in a unique position to use its expertise to support such strategies, for exam-ple in small island developing states, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa or Latin America.

2. Membership criteria: The criteria for member-ship could be a share of at least 40 % for able energy by 2030, or at least 10 GW of renew-able energy capacity, plus a target of adding at least

China, for example), or a certain amount of annual investment in the expansion of renewable energies (potentially interesting for the Emirates), or as a percentage of gross domestic product (Weischer and Morgan, 2013). The membership structure of the Renewables Club should be reconsidered. For exam-ple, Latin America is currently not represented in the club, which was founded in 2013, although there are promising candidates there, for example Mexico. The club could also offer companies a chance to be rec-ognized as official partners. The condition might be a commitment by the company to procure a certain proportion of the energy it consumes from renew-able sources.

3. Advantages for club members: Club benefits can have either a softer character – like joint initiatives for mutual learning – or consist of ‘harder incentives’ – such as trade advantages through protection against so-called climate tariffs. Harder incentives for trans-formation clubs in the context of trade policy, especially the taxation of commercial transactions with non-members, involve the risk of side-effects like trade disputes. However, since softer incentives might ultimately be too weak to build up success-ful transformation clubs quickly, harder incentives should at least be considered. The portfolio of club advantages should in any case be designed in such a way that all members can reap substantial bene-fits from the club.

Mutual learning

The club members could benefit by mutual learning. For example, they could exchange their experience with rele-vant policies and corresponding best practices; they could set up a peer-review process where members report at regular intervals on the current status of relevant tech-nologies, policies and investments and then receive feed-back for future steps; they could launch advanced-train-Box 4.2-1

Examples of associations with club character

At present there are no clubs with transformative character in the climate policy field. The creation of such a club would thus be a social innovation. Outside of climate policy there are communities, clubs and club-like initiatives that can inspire the creation of clubs:

Regional organizations like ASEAN, Mercosur and the EU can serve as such models. The European Coal and Steel Com-munity (ECSC) was an European trade association and a pre-cursor of the EU. The ECSC gave all member states access to coal and steel without having to pay duty. The EU is a commu-nity with club character that has grown to 28 members in the meantime and is offering more and more club goods, including, for example, participation in the European internal market, the right to use European regional and structural funding, and the existence of a common foreign and security policy.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, is

based in Jakarta. Its aims are to improve economic, political and social cooperation, but also cooperation on security, cul-tural and environmental issues. In 2009 the heads of state and government of the ASEAN members decided to form a com-mon economic area based on the European model.

Another example can be found in the field of global health policy. The Advance Market Commitment (AMC) offers incen-tives for the commercial development and rapid introduction of new vaccines: donors issue a legally binding guarantee that, if a vaccine against a certain disease is developed in the future, they will pay the developing countries‘ costs of purchasing the vaccine. The idea is thus that the vaccine will ultimately bene-fit not only investors in research and development, but also others. In this context, the club good is the payment of the research and development costs. Although the logic is slight-ly different than in the case of the proposed transformation clubs, AMCs could nevertheless provide ideas that could be taken up in mitigation, for example if they were set up to pro-mote innovative low-carbon technologies.

member states at their best universities and institutes;

they could set up dialogue forums where they discuss what forms and amounts of support for renewable ener-gies are most effective and acceptable (Weischer and Morgan, 2013).

Joint research and development

The club members could generate additional advantages for themselves by conducting joint research projects and implementing demonstration projects – and subse-quently jointly apply for and use the corresponding pat-ents (patent pools).

Cooperation on standards

The club members could create further benefits by har-monizing or mutually recognizing their existing stand-ards or by cooperating within the club on the develop-ment of new standards for future technologies – e. g. in the context of e-mobility or power-to-gas technologies – in order to create new markets in this way.

Better access to finance

The club should set up financing mechanisms for poorer member states, for example to support feed-in tariffs for renewable energy in developing countries (WFC, 2009;

Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors, 2010; WBGU, 2011; Weischer and Morgan, 2013). Such a measure would also be in the interests of Germany, other OECD countries and emerging economies, especially China, since the expansion of the markets for low-carbon tech-nologies and renewable energy is also in their interests.

Linking emissions-trading systems

Clubs could also generate advantages for their members by linking their emissions-trading schemes (WBGU, 2010b, 2011). The EU should play an important role in this context, but must first overcome the current short-comings of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) (Box 3.3-4). Apart from the EU, countries like Japan, Canada (Western Climate Initiative), New Zealand and the USA (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initia-tive) also offer promising points of contact. The exten-sion of emisexten-sions trading would enhance the market liquidity of all the companies involved and open up new mitigation potential (WBGU, 2010b).

Reducing trade barriers for climate-friendly goods and services

Furthermore, the club members could create club advan-tages by mutually lowering their trade barriers for goods and services that are highly relevant for the develop-ment of renewable energies. In this way, they would reduce the prices of these goods and services. Such a Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement (SETA) could be formed as a plurilateral agreement either within or out-side the framework of the WTO (ICTSD, 2011).

Taxation of commercial transactions with non-members

If climate clubs do not provide attractive club goods for members, there is no incentive for a country to join, since membership would not involve any additional benefits, but perhaps short-term costs.

One approach to circumvent this dilemma is sug-gested by William Nordhaus (2013). He proposes creating advantages for the club members by taxing commercial transactions with non-members, without excluding them in principle from joining the club in the future. This leads to the establishment of a free-trade zone that is exclusively available to the club members.

However, such a tax would violate Article I: 1 (princi-ple of most-favoured-nation treatment) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is questiona-ble whether this violation of world trade law can be jus-tified for reasons of climate protection. A justification for discrimination against identical products could pos-sibly be based on Article XX (g) of GATT (general excep-tions; measures for the conservation of exhaustible nat-ural resources) or on Article XXIV: 5 of GATT (territo-rial application; free-trade area or customs union). Up to now, there has been no judgement by an arbitration court to clarify whether climate policy can be regarded as a measure to protect exhaustible resources (WBGU, 2011). Ultimately, the question as to the WTO-compat-ibility of such a tax on commercial transactions with non-members must be decided on a case-by-case basis and is at least doubtful. In principle, therefore, the idea of a Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement, which could resolve such conflicts, should be supported.

4.2.2

City club: The example of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

In addition to the pioneering role being played by indi-vidual cities in climate protection, cities are also among the best networked actors in international climate pol-icy. Networks of cities are seen as a link between local pioneer cities and the global governance level (Gordon, 2013). As a special case, the C40 Cities Climate Lead-ership Group has gained considerably in importance and since 2011 has attempted to overcome the weak-nesses of city networks (Section 4.3.6) by carrying out a number of reforms (C40 & Arup, 2014). For example, the self-commitments on the part of the member cities have been extended and formalized, thus raising the bar-riers to entry. In addition, the C40 group has entered into partnerships, for example with the World Bank. Self-commitments and partnerships are regarded as ways of increasing C40’s authority and legitimacy. Furthermore, internal agreements on meeting standards and reaching targets have been tightened up by making compliance a condition for such club goods as access to external fund-ing or expert knowledge (Gordon, 2013: 294).

As a result, the C40 group can be regarded as quite an

Individual and collective responsibility 4.3

exclusive club of like-minded actors, although Gordon (2013: 301) questions this on the basis that club goods are available to all interested cities. The C40 group is currently made up of 63 major cities worldwide, includ-ing Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta, Tokyo, Los Angeles and London. Germany is represented by Hei-delberg and Berlin. The members have committed them-selves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and under-take to publish a report on their CO₂ emissions once a year to ensure performance measurement and compa-rability. C40 stresses that this enables the cities to call each other to account (C40 & Arup, 2014). Results are currently only measured in terms of the increase in the number of mitigation and adaptation measures. C40 cit-ies are regarded as having a high ambition level (Barber, 2013). C40 underlines the member cities’ potential for reducing CO₂ emissions – also in the context of reach-ing national reduction targets. As a result, the members together can reduce future greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1.3 billion tonnes by 2030 (C40, 2012).

Moreover, the C40 group makes good use of the media to position cities as a driving force in global climate-change mitigation. The focus here is on the exclimate-change of experience and direct support for implementation.

Thanks to its stronger club character, C40 generates advantages such as faster enforcement and more ambi-tious targets. The cities can build up a lot of pressure via shared partial interests. At the same time, the disadvan-tages of city clubs are a lack of transparency, a lack of representation and the exclusion of rural areas and small to medium-sized cities. Mayors play a prominent role within C40. The former mayor of New York and ex-C40 Chair Michael Bloomberg has been appointed UN Spe-cial Envoy. This influential advisory role has now given him an opportunity to raise awareness for the theme of

‘Cities and Climate Change’.

Although city clubs represent an innovation in gov-ernance as an intermediary between the local level and international politics, their possibilities are limited in terms of the scalability of measures. Up to now, a number of pilot projects and individual measures exist which have not yet had a particularly broad impact.

Moreover, there is a lack of monitoring when it comes to the implementation of agreements. Inadequate scalabil-ity and impact measurement of agreed measures make it difficult to build up legitimacy for inclusion in the inter-national climate-policy processes (Gordon, 2013: 297).

Another critical point is the fact that as a club of metrop-olises increases its decision-making power, megacities and global cities, which have their own interests, also find themselves playing an advocacy role for small to medium-sized cities.

Overall, city-network clubs like the C40 group should not be regarded as the only new actors for international climate policy, but rather part of the interaction between different levels (Aust, 2013; Gordon, 2013). The deci-sion-making structures in international climate policy are shaped by the complex relationship structures and

context, city clubs are one of many actors operating at different levels with different degrees of decision-mak-ing power at their disposal (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2006).

Overall there are indications that clubs of large cities like C40 are becoming effective with respect to climate-change-related adaptation and action needs. The WBGU plans to examine the importance of networks of major cities more intensely in its next flagship report because of their highly rated transformation potential.

4.3

Individual and collective responsibility

4.3.1

Political consumerism: Boycotts and buycotts The term ‘political consumerism’ refers to consumer actions in which the consumer does not base a purchase decision solely on product characteristics like price, quality or distinction gain, but also takes into account aspects like the production conditions or the manufac-turer’s other economic activities. The purpose of this decision is not only to satisfy consumer needs, but also to send a political signal relating to certain busi-ness and manufacturing practices (Micheletti, 2003).

The most prominent forms of political consumerism are the boycott, i. e. deliberately avoiding certain products or manufacturers, and the buycott, a targeted decision in favour of a certain product or producer.

The boycott continues a long tradition of specifi-cally avoiding certain products or producers in order to exert an influence on, say, the environmentally harm-ful behaviour of producers (as in the case of the boy-cott of Shell gas stations in protest against the disposal of the Brent Star in 1995) or on discriminatory political systems (e. g. the boycott of goods from South Africa at the time of the Apartheid regime). A buycott is a more recent form of political consumerism in which people either buy from a specific provider or purchase a spe-cific product to express support or to reward certain pro-duction practices. Boycotts in particular can also be used for stigmatizing or discriminatory purposes (Beck, 1997;

Holzer, 2007). However, the current discourse on polit-ical consumerism relates primarily to consumer actions where the underlying values target issues such as climate change or sustainability in general, but also social justice and health (Balsiger, 2013). Against the background of the debate on sustainable consumption and the respon-sibility of consumers for sustainable development high-lighted in the Rio Declaration of 1992 (UNCED, 1992), political consumerism is therefore also of great relevance for climate policy.

Examples of political consumerism are many and var-ied, since all routine consumer decisions can in princi-ple be ‘politicized’ and understood or used as a signal to suppliers and manufacturers. However, such signals

are expressed in public. Boycott or buycott activities that are clustered into campaigns attract an especially high level of public attention. Networks and organiza-tions like ‘Behind The Label’ or the ‘Clean Clothes Cam-paign’, for example, draw attention to the political

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