4.2.1 The Science: Salience and Knowledge Capacity

Scientific knowledge about climate change, developed over the preceding decades, is widely viewed as crucial to its emergence as an issue area (Bulkeley & Newell Reference Bulkeley and Newell2015; Corry & Jørgensen Reference Corry and Jørgensen2015; Vogler Reference Vogler2016). It explicitly underpinned the capacity of climate mitigation advocates to articulate a credible argument for change and raise its salience. Nineteenth-century studies had identified a ‘greenhouse effect’, whilst Eunice Newton Foote’s research had found that the heating effect of the sun was highest in the cylinder containing carbon dioxide (CO₂) (History 2023). In 1938, G. S. Callender identified higher concentrations of CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere than in the previous century, with fossil fuel use accounting for the difference (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 161). During the 1950s and 1960s, the development of computer-based models became increasingly central to climate-related science (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Franta Reference Franta2021). By 1958, Charles Keeling’s systemic measurements of atmospheric CO₂ provided the first unequivocal proof that CO₂ concentrations were rising, whilst a later project, run by Gilbert Plass, concluded that doubling CO₂ concentrations would increase global temperatures by 3–4˚C (Weart Reference Weart2008).

Much of the development of early research, within meteorology and environmental science communities, had taken place within European, and later US, organisations (Mercer & Simpson Reference Mercer and Simpson2023). The US concentrated some efforts on knowledge building in the 1970s when climate research was brought together under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and in 1978, the US passed the National Climate Program Act, which created the National Climate Program Office (Mildenberger Reference Mildenberger2021). Ironically, given that US scientific communities had been crucial in the early decades of making the case for climate change (Bulkeley Reference Bulkeley2016: 24), it has subsequently sat as often on the side of anti- as pro-mitigation debates.

The 1980s and 1990s then saw a more explicitly global effort to develop detailed and rigorous capacities to understanding climate change, its causes, and its effects. This included institution-building by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) (Jackson Reference Jackson2007; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010), which set up the independent Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases (AGGG) in 1986 (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 164). The establishment of the IPCC, in 1988, contributed towards a considerable increase in deliberative and knowledge capacity. It increasingly reflected and communicated the now-established anthropogenic climate change consensus.

Findings from this growing research base included vital details of the impact of global warming on ecosystems and plant and animal species, as well as human societies (Falkner Reference Falkner2008), and, just as importantly, the urgency of acting now and not waiting for significant climate change to be demonstrated (WCED 1987). Proposed solutions included improved monitoring capabilities, further investments in climate knowledge capacities, reductions in causative gases, and adaptation (ibid.). In line with this, the 1988 Canadian government-sponsored Toronto Climate Conference called for worldwide CO₂ emissions to be reduced by 20% by 2005, and long term by 50% (Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Franta Reference Franta2021). Although by this stage climate conferences had expanded to include a broader range of actors, some see this as the high point of scientific leadership (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 164). The IPCC’s second assessment report was seen as vital in building salience and political momentum in the run-up to the UN Kyoto negotiations (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 115; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 18).

A range of scholars, and practitioners of the time, have already pointed to the fundamental role of scientific knowledge in establishing both the salience and credibility of climate change as an issue (Paterson Reference Paterson1996; Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004; Jackson Reference Jackson2007; Vogler Reference Vogler2016). This is partly, see below, because it provided the evidence base for taking immediate action. Climate science, in turn, was more widely communicated by environmental movements, pro-mitigation NGOs, and policymakers at domestic and UN negotiation scales (Dryzek et al. Reference Dryzek, Downes, Hunold and Schlosberg2003; Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004). The scientific framing of climate change as a global problem requiring a global solution also provided a sound basis for the concentration of deliberation at the UN scale (Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Vogler Reference Vogler2016).

Climate science also fit well with increasingly accepted sets of Western-informed political ideals regarding the policy role of scientific knowledge, which supported this epistemic community’s ability to frame climate issues for negotiation (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001). Scientific research had already underpinned the global rise of industrialisation and technologies and may have been complicit in denigrating other longer-standing, often Indigenous, forms of knowledge about relationships between humans and nature (Mercer & Simpson Reference Mercer and Simpson2023). Climate science, and the increasing dominance of maths and modelling, shared a methodological language with neoliberal economics and was perceived as ‘objective’ and ‘non-political’ (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Stevenson et al. Reference Stevenson, Auld, Allan, Elliott and Meadowcroft2021). Growing credibility, in turn, underpinned new levels of salience amongst policymakers and some social groups. Indeed, once a person finds the scientific arguments about the anthropogenic nature of climate change and the range of negative outcomes credible, it infers some requirement to act politically via collective choice (see Paterson Reference Paterson1996: 30). These dynamic relationships between building deliberative capacities and the ability to raise the salience of a subject can be understood, then, as important aspects of processes of getting climate mitigation into policy agendas.

4.2.2 Social and Media Framings: Connecting Science to People

Given the limitations of science framings, social intermediaries were needed to interpret anthropogenic climate change in ways that broader sections of the public could better relate to and understand. This is a form of politicisation in social interaction terms to the extent that it contributed towards broader capacities to understand this new issue area. In the 1970s and 1980s, environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) played a role in connecting, amplifying, and explaining climate science (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Ciplet et al. Reference Ciplet, Roberts, Khan, Biermann and Young2015). These civil society actors had more experience in making cognitive and personal interest-based appeals and were more capable of making climate risks and likely societal outcomes more understandable through narrative visions of futures under conditions of global warming. ENGO resources, and capacity to reach more audiences, accumulated as membership grew, as more climate knowledge was developed, and by connecting transnationally, like the Climate Action Network formed in 1989.

There had emerged, in addition, climate ‘leaders’ that bridged the gap between science, generalist politicians, and sections of the public – some were scientists that had entered government, others ran high-profile global organisations, and/or became reasonably high-profile media figures (Paterson Reference Paterson1996; Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001). This coincided with other activists constructing alternative, more sustainable visions for human activity – see, for example, Amory Lovins’ popular ideas about alternative, ‘soft’, more democratic, and peaceful energy pathways (Lovins 1977). The soft energy pathway, articulated in 1977, inferred far higher levels of conservation and energy efficiency, decentralised energy accessible to more people, and renewable energy. The book was published at the time of oil shocks, when more people were aware of vulnerability to fossil fuel imports at high prices, to show that environmentally sustainable energy can also be socially sustainable (Newell Reference Newell2021: 175). This and other quasi-popular books contributed to raising the public profile, and salience, of climate change, the need for mitigation, and possibilities for more sustainable energy systems (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 33; Newell Reference Newell2021: 175).

Parts of the media too played a role in articulating the need for immediate action. In the US this converged around specific events, including coverage of Earth Day, when 20 million US citizens protested the destruction of the natural world, and of the first photos of Earth taken by astronauts, which made the finite nature of our shared planet clearer to many viewers (BBC 2023). There had also been coverage of the deteriorations in air quality, and their devastating and very visible effects, in many countries in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004). The 1980s then proved to be the hottest decade on record. As such, environmental, including weather, events represented an increasingly clear route through which scientific arguments could connect to wider publics and for societal engagement with climate issues (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 138).

It is within these broad environmental movements that scientific narratives about the dangers of climate change and of the need for immediate action are echoed and amplified (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004; Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Ciplet et al. Reference Ciplet, Roberts, Khan, Biermann and Young2015; Newell Reference Newell2021). The rise of Greenpeace, combining notions of sustainability with peace, is illustrative here. It was initially founded, in Canada in 1971, to oppose nuclear but throughout the 1970s and 1980s developed considerable expertise and public narratives on climate (Leggett 1990 in Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 101). Active collaboration and interconnections between environmental and scientific communities, both within and between countries, were vital to broadening the audience and raising salience (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004). For example, early political gains from environmental movements in the US gave legitimacy and support to the demands of Japanese environmental movements (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 45), whilst the authoritative nature of scientific knowledge lent credibility to ENGO arguments for change. In these early decades, ENGOs did much to reveal the extent to which existing public policy was inadequate, that mitigation strategies needed to be adopted, and, later, in holding governments to account (Ciplet et al. Reference Ciplet, Roberts, Khan, Biermann and Young2015: 155).

ENGOs also had communicative strategies that targeted business leaders and policymakers, often calling on politicians to take heed of climate science and act accordingly. Greenpeace explicitly set out to broaden its climate message to reach business audiences. One of its clear successes was its decision to approach insurance companies, in the early 1990s, to explain the serious implications of climate change for their business models – using risk as a narrative. These narratives struck a chord bringing some insurance companies, and their representative groups, into the pro-mitigation camp (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 28). The narrative of climate risk has come to dominate how insurance firms, and more recently banks, incorporate climate change into their business planning. This is not to suggest that all businesses were either neutral or against mitigation before this time, the Club of Rome whose first report was ‘Limits to Growth’ included business representatives (Meadows et al. Reference Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens III1972), but that ENGOs were active in broadening the appeal.

4.2.3 Political Framings of Mitigation: Targets and Policies

Listening to the science and ENGO engagements did, under conditions of growing science knowledge authority, convince a range of politicians from different political parties in a range of countries that climate change was an issue that required action (Paterson Reference Paterson1996). Scientific narratives had made reasons for mitigation action apparent, but did not offer up much in the way of how to make mitigation a political reality – no tools of negotiation, routes to political agreement, or ideas about how to engender policy and social change. A range of somewhat different political narratives about how to negotiate a deal and appropriate mitigation solutions started, however, to fill this gap at UN and domestic levels. They suggested concrete solutions, albeit of different types, whilst the political institution of the UN provided the forum for deliberation and negotiation.

By the late 1980s, a strong coalition of countries in support of climate mitigation had started to form, including the European Community (EC),Footnote ¹ Sweden, Germany, Canada, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, the UK, some least developed countries, and the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), and to push for a global agreement. Interactions between specific representatives of regions and countries were also important – one example being the conversation between the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the President of the Maldives, which led to the UK adopting a climate leadership role (Paterson Reference Paterson1996: 34). For some key advocate countries, where climate change’s electoral profile had grown, domestic political support played a formative role in their adoption of climate mitigation advocacy. This was the case in Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s making it easier for German politicians and civil servants to strongly support both global and domestic action. In 1992, the German Advisory Council on Global Climate Change was set up, which invested resources and time in further developing climate research capacities (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 154). The EC came a little later to the position of mitigation protagonist, but they subsequently worked hard to push the agenda (Victor & Heller Reference Victor and Heller2011; Vogler Reference Vogler2016).

In terms of identifying and agreeing on political tools that might be effective in establishing mitigation, one of the early debates was around whether to set firm targets for emissions reduction or not. One of the clear outcomes of the 1988 Toronto Climate Conference had been the recommendation to reduce worldwide CO₂ emissions by 20% by 2005, and long term by 50% (Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Franta Reference Franta2021). As will be seen below, this proposal caused a not insignificant amount of political backlash – not least from the US. In the run up to the UN Kyoto conference, the EU, UK, Germany, and AOSIS group advocated lower global emissions reduction targets: 10% below 1990 levels by 2005 and 15% by 2010 (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 114).

There were several factors supporting the EU’s position on emissions reduction. These included the expansion of the union, at the end of the Cold War, the perceived need to grow in international stature at the time when climate was becoming a global issue, and the identity of the community as a peace project (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 138). Germany’s position, and strong domestic support, was also critical – in 1990, it had already established a domestic emissions reduction target of 25–30% against 1987 levels by 2005 (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 151). The EU was also a core sponsor of allocating quantifiable reduction targets to specific countries and the EU as a separate entity within stated timeframes, later dubbed the ‘targets and timetables’ approach (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 66). This approach aligned directly with scientific arguments about the need to reduce GHG emissions but would be applicable only to a limited range of countries to take historic emissions into account. In 1996 the EU also argued that a mean temperature rise of 2ºC represented the threshold of dangerous change, but for small island states this was unacceptably high (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 40).

A second way to think about political narratives of this time period is to consider what perspectives dominated and how they informed different approaches to environmental policy – what Berstein refers to as the ‘fit’ between climate change and broader political institutions. Global political debates about climate mitigation had originally started in an era where Keynesian economic ideas dominated global, and many domestic, governing bodies and these shaped what solutions were deemed appropriate. In the 1970s and early 1980s, UN political framings of environmental policy had emphasised the role of public authority in securing action and leaned on political ideas associated with ‘command-and-control’ policies (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 36). This included discussion around the need to: limit growth, levy carbon taxes to raise the cost of emitting, and bring in state regulations (Vogler Reference Vogler2016; Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010). In the deliberations running up to Kyoto, Sweden, the Netherlands, the EU, and Japan all favoured carbon taxes, whilst Sweden and the Netherlands had already implemented them domestically (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 104). In the mid-1980s, the standout environmental report ‘Our Common Future’ stresses (broadly) Keynesian and (re-)distributional ideas and related policies. These included increased flows of aid from international development banks; improved compensatory financing for commodity pricing to even out economic shocks; stronger bargaining positions for developing countries versus transnational corporations (TNCs); and improved technical transfer arrangements (WCED 1987: 67–91 in Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 66).

Not all countries, of course, had agreed with the notion of command-and-control measures, as we will see below, whilst many large corporations articulated strongly against tax whilst also advocating voluntary measures (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 104). Here, to some extent, neoliberal economic and business interests came together in the move away from state-led mitigation solutions. Indeed, the later rejection of carbon taxes at the UN level in preference for a recommendation to set up emissions trading schemes (ETSs) is an example of the influence of changing political ideas, as the shift from Keynesian to neoliberal dominance gained in momentum but also reflected some country and corporate interests. Proposals for emissions trading were first made in a paper by a UK-based economist, Michael Grubb, in 1989. Grubb’s initial idea was that it would be both efficient and equitable – at a time when (cost-)efficiency was emerging as an important policy value (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 29). It was envisaged as a mechanism to enable North-South transfers of funds and technology. The principle of per capita emissions would be used as the legitimate basis for allocation, which would mean that low emissions per capita countries would have a surplus to sell back to high emissions countries. Interestingly, early on, neither industrialised nor developing countries supported the proposal, the former as it implied financial transfers and the latter as it implied that they would have to reduce emissions (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 26).

At the same time, the debate about climate policy tools was hotting up in the EU, which had been the key, large-scale supporter of carbon taxes. The notion of a carbon tax was seen as a ‘step too far’ for EU business communities, including the European Roundtable of Industrialists and the Union of Industrial Employer’s Confederation in Europe, who clubbed together with US and UK business groups in opposition (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010). Indeed, their attempts to thwart it were referred to, at the time, as ‘the most ferocious lobbying ever seen in Brussels’ (The Economist 1992 in Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 104). It mattered, in domestic politics terms, that carbon taxes had often proved unpopular with certain vocal societal groups, whilst some member states were reluctant to cede tax powers to the EU (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 26). OECD countries had, anyway, become increasingly focused on economic efficiency and saw markets, including for emissions, as sufficient to produce efficiency whilst lowering emissions. The US was the first to formally propose emissions trading in 1996 (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 27), supported by business groups insisting on flexibility and avoiding strict limits. As such, again, the ETS fits with the newly dominant ideology and with the interests of increasingly dominant business and financial actors (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 27).

4.2.4 Justice Framings: Limiting Mitigation to Industrialised Nations

It was understood early in the process of UN deliberations that developing economies needed to be parties to any agreement – not least given BRICS countries’ population sizes and forecast growth in absolute emissions. It was also considered necessary to include as many world nations as possible for credibility reasons and to assuage domestic audiences in OECD nations. Many developing economies were strongly in favour of climate action, in recognition of the severe implications. Most, however, were prepared to commit to a global framework only on the justice-based condition that it should be industrialised nations, with historic responsibilities, that should lead the way in emissions reduction. Indira Gandhi’s 1972 speech encapsulates this framing – she recognised environmental issues but reiterated that she was not in a position to suggest to citizens living in precarious conditions that India needs to spend money protecting oceans, rivers, and the air within the context of competition for scarce public resources (Ramakrishna Reference Ramakrishna, Rowlands and Greene1992).

In the mid-1970s, the world was very unequal on most metrics, including daily income per capita – following centuries of colonialisation and extraction. Most low- and middle-income economies were, unsurprisingly, focused on economic development, based largely on the industrialisation-heavy model that the Global North, including the Soviet Union, had adopted. There had been significant borrowing in the 1970s and 1980s related to these growth strategies, and in the 1980s, the Latin American debt crisis exacerbated global inequalities (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 21). This was also the case as, increasingly, borrowing was undertaken on ‘Washington Consensus’ conditionalities set out by global financial institutions dominated by industrialised nations, but also badly exacerbated by the oil shocks of the 1970s and early 1980s, given that most developing economies were importers of fossil fuels.

Clear differences between positions taken by developing and developed economies were emerging (Dasgupta Reference Dasgupta and Dubash2019). Early on in the process of climate negotiations, advanced developing economies, like China and Brazil, had relatively low emissions per capita. But on an absolute basis, by the mid-1990s, their emissions were starting to grow quite rapidly, not least as industrialisation required high fossil fuel energy inputs. It became clear that developing economies with low historic responsibilities and shared interests in continuing industrial-based development should group together to avoid having to commit to limits on emissions. India and Brazil emerged as early leaders in putting forward a developing economy position focused on specific equity narratives (Vogler Reference Vogler2016; Sengupta Reference Sengupta and Dubash2019). In the run up to the Stockholm UNCHE in 1972, G77 countries had expressed concern over the narrow environmental focus on issues such as population growth and urbanisation and strongly objected to the ‘limits to growth’ approach (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 33). They demanded, through the UN, the inclusion of development issues and, by 1971, UN General Assembly resolutions directly linked environmental action and sustainable development. It was agreed that economic development plans should be compatible with a sound ecology and that ‘adequate environmental conditions can be best ensured by the promotion of development’ (UNGA Res. 2849 in Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 33). Notably, the US and UK voted against this, whilst other industrialised nations abstained, already marking out disagreement along industrialised-developing economy lines.

These dividing lines continued into the negotiations that preceded the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, where the UNFCCC was formally established, and the UN Kyoto COP of 1997. The shared suspicion persisted that environmental rules would be used as a strategy to disrupt developing economy industrialisation and social development, referred to as environmental colonialism (Agarwal & Narain Reference Agarwal, Narain and Dubash2019). There was also a view, expressed by Indian representatives, that developed countries were using scientific data that was not politically neutral (Raghunandan Reference Raghunandan and Dubash2019). They claimed that a study, published in the US by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with the UN, was overly focused on emissions associated with deforestation and methane from livestock and underestimated the effects of CO₂ from fossil fuels (Agarwal & Narain Reference Agarwal, Narain and Dubash2019; Raghunandan Reference Raghunandan and Dubash2019). India developed its own research to refute this report (Raghunandan Reference Raghunandan and Dubash2019).

The 1989 UN General Assembly Resolution 44/207 had called on member states to urgently prepare a ‘framework convention’ – and India started to develop its position early. It hosted the ‘Conference of Select Developing Countries on Global Environmental Issues’ in New Delhi in 1990, where it secured general developing economy support for its position on climate – in essence, that they should not bear the burden of climate action. The principles were that the industrialised world was responsible for high emissions; that developing world emissions were relatively low, and they needed to develop; and that any formal agreement should also provide for technology transfer and developing country funds (Sengupta Reference Sengupta and Dubash2019). This was the position taken by most developing economies, albeit some (notably AOSIS) took stronger pro-mitigation positions (Dasgupta Reference Dasgupta and Dubash2019). Core to the claim about relatively low emissions from BRICS countries was the argument, like Michael Grubb’s, that measurement should be on the basis of per capita rather than absolute emissions.

Although the US, under George Bush Senior’s presidency, had objected to these principles being part of the UNFCCC text, various proposals were put forward that built on them (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 37). The proposals were that developing economies should not bear ‘legal responsibility’ for climate mitigation; any voluntary measures adopted should be consistent with national development and associated costs would need to be met by the developed world; and there should be low emissions technology transfer (Dasgupta Reference Dasgupta and Dubash2019; Raghunandan Reference Raghunandan and Dubash2019). Importantly, the negotiating position set out by India also called on industrialised nations to accept time-bound emission reduction obligations (ibid.). In a similar approach, Brazil called for ‘relative responsibility’ – specifically that Annex 1 countries should reduce emissions by 30% below 1990 by 2020 – that is, in relation to their accumulated, historical responsibilities at that time (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 96).

The emphasis on action being taken by industrialised countries encapsulated notions of justice as international distributions of burdens and responsibilities (Sovacool & Dworkin Reference Sovacool, Dworkin, Sovacool and Dworkin2014). This, in turn, evoked the language of mitigation policy as a cost, which was also heavily used by industrialised economy groups contesting climate action, and assumptions about trade-offs between economic and environmental security objectives (Khan et al. 2021; Marti & Puertas 2022 – both in Maltby & Misik Reference Maltby and Misik2024: 153). To the extent that UNFCCC frameworks took account of these justice framings, for example, through adopting the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, this represents some capacity for the UN process to incorporate different interests.

4.3.1 Action is Premature, the Science is Too Uncertain

Narratives based on uncertainty and denying the purpose of new mitigation policy were central to many campaigns. In 1983, the US National Academy of Sciences warned that continued fossil fuel use would have dire consequences, but a group of influential economists counter-argued on the basis that global warming might not be that bad (Franta Reference Franta2021). Others, like the GCC, argued that climate change is not anthropogenic, and therefore that political action cannot have any mitigating effects (Rheem 1996 in Franta Reference Franta2021). However, like early responses to demands to protect the ozone layer, many started to pursue a strategy of pointing to the limits of, or actively undermining, climate science to evidence their positions on denial. Even as these narratives opened climate science up to question, albeit based on very one-sided information, this was one of the more severe depoliticising narratives in that it denied any reason for making mitigation subject to collective choice.

Over time, this narrative converged around the dangers of pursuing climate mitigation on the basis that the science was still too uncertain. Energy and industrial groups, who had invested in creating advocacy and policy teams to communicate anti-climate messages, actively picked up on the sometimes-tentative language of climate science to caution against rushing into action until the main scientific issues had been ‘settled’ (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 101). Similarly, in 1989 the US sided initially with the USSR and China in framing Dutch, German, and Swedish calls to stabilise CO₂ emissions by 2000 and reduce emissions by 20% by 2005, as ‘premature’ (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 150). This was accompanied by an expansion in the construction and weaponisation of more specific narratives of uncertainty designed to undermine the credibility of specific scientific groups, including the IPCC. The key was to exploit any uncertainties or tentative language in documents produced by them (Franta Reference Franta2021). Climate science became the target for anti-mitigation groups given how important knowledge authority had been in building credibility, salience, and political support.

This approach was soon bolstered by strategies of producing alternative climate science. This involved giving a platform to the work of known climate sceptics to directly refute the work of the IPCC (Garner Reference Garner2011: 106). This strategy was similar to that taken by tobacco firms who had funded their own scientists to convince the public that smoking harms were unproven (Cohen Reference Cohen2020; Franta Reference Franta2021). Indeed, a handbook had already been produced in 1978 which set out how to undermine science in the service of business interests (Franta Reference Franta2021). This strategy was boosted by privileged access to the media at the press conferences put on, and paid for, by industry to announce the results of their anti-mitigation research (ibid.). Similar narratives and strategies remain in place today – presidential election campaigns of Jair Bolsonario and Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign in the UK all used social media to undermine the credibility of scientists and ‘experts’ (Marquardt et al. Reference Marquardt, Oliveira and Lederer2022).

These were powerful narratives in political and public terms. For members of the public, especially those who remained undecided on climate change, it became more problematic to agree to significant change, particularly if that involved higher costs, if the evidence for action was uncertain. Indeed, in the words of Andy Stirling, few strategies have been more “powerfully self-fulfilling, than the ways incumbent interests configured ‘scientific’ knowledges such as to condition wider social expectations over what is ‘realistic’ or ‘unrealistic’ as directions for … change” (Reference Stirling2014b: 86). The narrative of scientific uncertainty was explicitly used by the US as part of the debate in the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), established to agree on Kyoto terms, in support of its opposition to the EU’s drive for quantifiable emissions reduction targets (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 151). The US delegation had been instructed to support only a weak, voluntary framework convention (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 103), whilst President Bush Senior refused to attend the Rio conference if emissions targets were to be included in the framework convention (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 152). They were joined in opposition to global targets by Japan, Canada, Switzerland and oil-producing countries.

4.3.2 Climate Action Is Too Expensive

A second, equally powerful narrative set out a battleground choice between environmental action and the economy (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 60). This framing highlighted mitigation policy as costly, whilst ignoring the negative economic effects of inaction. It was arguably initiated by the US but found broad purchase. Whilst pre-1988 most countries had viewed climate as a scientific and environmental problem, the US, from the start, viewed it from an explicitly economic perspective (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 164). President Bush Senior’s administration favoured a deregulatory approach to environmental matters, like Reagan’s before (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 103). The US adopted what they termed a ‘no regrets’ approach whereby any environmental policy adopted could only pose minimal costs to the economy, with a keen eye on industrial competitiveness in fossil fuel and car industries (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 151). The US White House had set up its own environmental committee, the White House Domestic Policy Council (WHDPC), to prevent the State Department or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from moving faster than it desired. It prioritised measuring economic costs and cost-benefit calculations (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 164), in line with wider economic policy orthodoxies of the time.

Many corporations had expressed concerns about the business costs of climate mitigation (Meckling Reference Meckling2011), both in terms of lost opportunities and of meeting new regulations and targets. This underpinned, for many, stated preferences for flexible and voluntary measures (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 94). A clear strategy then emerged to pit one set of experts, pro-mitigation climate scientists, against another, neoliberal economists. From the early 1990s onwards, economic consultants were hired by the oil and gas industry, and the George Bush Senior administration, to estimate the costs of various proposed mitigation policies (Franta Reference Franta2021). They used models that inflated policy costs without taking account of any economic benefits of mitigation policy, or the many costs associated with climate impacts.

This framing was repeatedly used to undermine mitigation politics in the US (Franta Reference Franta2021). In the run up to the Rio Summit, the US Department of Energy released a report stating that the 20% reduction in emissions, put forward at Toronto, would require a carbon tax of $500 billion per ton (Bradley et al. 1991 in Franta Reference Franta2021: 4). The American Petroleum Industry (API)-funded report of the same year claimed that there would be no economic benefits until the year 2100 and that climate damage would be limited to no more than 0.5% GDP (Franta Reference Franta2021). Whilst significant resources and investment were put behind producing these cost claims, it is noteworthy that similar funds were not being spent on calculating the economic and social costs of climate change – indeed not for some time to come.

The focus on policy costs, interestingly, was also taken up by the IPCC, which, in its attempts to include social science in its second assessment report, had reached out to economics to inform the WGIII report, which deals with climate mitigation. Again, under US influence, WGIII research became somewhat focused on assessing the economic costs of climate mitigation policy according to cost–benefit analyses of environmental problems. Analysis used to predict costs of an international climate treaty – that it would hit developed economy GDP by about 3.5% and developing countries by about 1.75% – was presented at the 1996 UN climate conference (Franta Reference Franta2021). Their cost estimates were subsequently taken up by other countries that had not had time or resources to dedicate to making such a calculation (ibid.). This indicates the importance both of having capacities to create and communicate mitigation frames and of first-mover advantages in mitigation policy knowledge. The mitigation policy cost framing has had widespread and enduring appeal and shapes assumptions built into net zero scenarios used by the IPCC still today (Clift & Kuzemko Reference Clift and Kuzemko2024). This is depoliticising to the extent that it has for decades limited the capacity for deliberating and understanding the full extent of benefits and costs associated with climate mitigation.

4.3.3 Mitigation Is Bad for Ordinary People

A third, closely related, framing was utilised to counter the popular upswing in environmental groups of the 1970s/1980s and, thereby, to undermine arguments for climate action on the basis of democratic support. In social inclusion terms, this is an interesting strategy – it recognises the importance of citizens within democracies and seeks to mobilise groups that feel marginalised behind a countermovement – not unlike many right-wing populist strategies today. As discussed in Chapter 3, the struggle for mitigation has been shaped by which narratives broader populations hear, connect with, and believe on climate change and, indeed, by popular understanding of the policies that can be pursued to reduce emissions. It matters, then, where people access such information, how it is framed in relation to their lived experiences, and who provides it. Much as more visible environmental damages had supported the growth of environmental movements by making it more tangible, so too had the degree to which high emissions practices had become part of everyday lives shaped views on how difficult it might be to mitigate. It is this tangible notion that narratives about mitigation being harmful to ordinary people seek to engender and speak to.

Mobil Corporation enlisted a campaign of telling Americans that they would lose jobs and face a reduced quality of life (Mobil Corporation 1997). Such narratives hit home for employees of high-emissions industries – but also for those who enjoyed high emissions, for example car, cultures. These were, of course, partial stories that, again, ignored jobs benefits associated with creating new, low-emissions industries, and made no mention that the research informing Mobil’s claims had been funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API). Like cost-based narratives, this framing has stood the test of time – with strong echoes in election campaigns of the populist far right today that frame climate mitigation as harmful to the interests of ordinary working people (Lockwood Reference Lockwood2018; Marquardt et al. Reference Marquardt, Oliveira and Lederer2022). Recent research on the politics of mitigation positions these arguments as a form of securitisation whereby accepted ways of life, the norms and values of dominant social groupings, are framed as under threat from climate mitigation (McLaren & Corry Reference McLaren and Corry2023).

Such negative framings of the market, economic, and job implications of mitigation were further augmented by framings of mitigation as premature and associated questions about the common sense of taking action (Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Franta Reference Franta2021). In the run up to Kyoto, a significant amount of money was invested in undermining mitigation – targeted specifically at citizens. Western Fuels Association and Edison Electric Institute, for example, founded the deliberately misleadingly titled ‘Information Council for the Environment’, which ran a $500,000 campaign to ‘reposition global warming as theory, not fact’ (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 39). The citizen-focused campaigns, ‘The Cooler Heads Coalition’ and ‘Coalition for Vehicle Choice’, spent $13 million on campaigns to discredit both the Kyoto Protocol specifically and climate change as an issue (ibid.).Footnote ² Their strategy was to focus on schools, local media, and ‘middle America’, widely distributing leaflets claiming that any climate change experienced was natural and that burning coal and oil is a good thing given the energy, prosperity, and jobs that it provides (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 39). The ‘American Energy Alliance’, formed by the API, developed an ‘influence campaign’ focused on the costs of mitigation directed at columnists and TV hosts (Morgan Reference Morgan1996 in Franta Reference Franta2021: 7), whilst the GCC also ran a major multi-media, newspaper, radio, and television campaign to discredit mitigation (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 119).

Another well-used narrative, articulated by anti-regulatory groups against emissions controls (Meckling Reference Meckling2011), drew on the powerful combination of popular anti-regulation, anti-government ideas, and of framings of climate action as costly. Painting the IPCC as market interference or “government by stealth” stirred up emotions in those that believed that markets should be free of political intervention (Lorenzetti et al. 1996 in Franta Reference Franta2021). The use of an ‘anti-regulatory’ stance was seen as having contributed towards keeping binding emissions reductions out of the UN Framework Convention prior to Kyoto (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 109). Anti-regulatory sentiments were, and still are, popular in many Anglo-Saxon countries, which is partly why this form of mitigation contestation was interpreted as being directly linked to popularised neoclassical economic ideas (Antonio & Brulle Reference Antonio and Brulle2011). Any political attempt to restrict business (i.e., place controls on fossil fuels) was seen by many as tantamount to an attack on free markets and individual rights (ibid).

To the extent that pro-mitigation coalitions, and climate scientists, felt that they had to respond to this variety of contestations, the wide communication of anti- and pro-mitigation framings at this stage tended to reduce any available space for more positive articulations of mitigation strategies, pathways, or policies. That a positive societal outcome will proceed from reducing emissions is mainly only inferred in pro-mitigation framings that are otherwise focused on avoiding harms, whilst anti-mitigation framings consciously destroy space for deliberation of positive socio-economic outcomes.

4.4.1 Compromise: From Environment to GHG Emissions Targets

Some analysis of early climate agreements emphasises the degree to which climate science was compromised to fit with the hegemonic liberal economic order of the time (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011). Whilst this insight is useful in many ways in understanding the nature of the science-politics compromise focusing on movement away from early climate narratives can underplay aspects of change to the existing economic order. The Kyoto Protocol, by putting in place GHG emissions reduction targets binding on countries that represented 60% of the world’s emissions, formalised a new norm. Specifically, it formally recognised that emissions are not a harmless outcome of economic growth but a danger to society. The protocol was also informed by narratives articulated by developing economies of differentiated responsibility and of target setting for developed countries only. Focusing on the hegemonic nature of the compromised agreement also fails to differentiate sufficiently between groups within the liberal international order – that is, between US and fossil fuel interests and the EU and other nations pushing for change.

This moved global governance on from a position of not recognising the GHG emissions upon which modern economies had been built to one where scientific claims of the harms associated with emissions had been agreed upon, rendering climate change more ‘actionable’ (Haarstad et al. Reference Haarstad, Sareen and Wanvik2023). New multilateral institutions and norms were established and responsibility for historic, and reducing current, emissions was formally assigned. Specifically, the Kyoto Protocol calls for reducing the emissions of six GHGs in 41 countries, plus the EU, to 5.2% below 1990 levels during the ‘commitment period’, 2008–2012 (UN 1997). The protocol also established vital monitoring, review and verification, and compliance systems. Climate change mitigation had emerged from a potential solution discussed within niche groups to a global public policy area with dedicated rules, governance, and knowledge capacities, and the norm of emissions reduction was established.

In negotiation terms, the achievement of agreeing to a convention and protocol is often related to the significant efforts of the EU and its negotiating partners (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 41), and to their efforts in keeping other high emitters on board at key times through incorporating their interests. As seen above, it was the EU, with reference to climate science, that pushed strongly for the uptake of the ‘targets and timetables’ policy approach.

They did so explicitly against significant opposition from the JUSCANZ, later the Umbrella, negotiating group.Footnote ³ At the time of Rio, the US negotiator and UK Environment Minister found compromise language that made it possible for the US President, George Bush Senior, to attend keeping the possibility for future agreement alive. Bush had objected to developed countries being held formally responsible for emissions reduction, but did concede to the compromise position that parties could adopt national policies that would demonstrate developed country ‘leadership’ with the aim of returning individually or jointly to their 1990 levels (Schreurs Reference Schreurs2004: 153–154). The change of government in the run up to Kyoto then led to the US being able to agree to more defined emissions reductions (Vogler Reference Vogler2016). The flip-flop back and forth between Republican and Democrat positions reflected the divided nature of the domestic debate about climate mitigation.

Compromise positions on emissions reduction did resulted in new norms, but the large concessions from science-based arguments also mattered to this compromise position. The emissions reductions agreed upon did not match up to scientific recommendations of the time (Green Reference Green2022). It is also worth noting that the 1990 base year against which to measure emissions reductions worked particularly well for some powerful parties to the Kyoto Convention. The UK had already begun to phase out coal by this time, for non-environmental reasons; reunification had already positively impacted emissions in Germany; whilst the great Russian recession had started close to 1990, resulting in huge reductions in emissions (Kuzemko Reference Kuzemko2015; Vogler Reference Vogler2016). As Russia was one of the world’s highest emitters, the EU had focused considerable efforts on bringing it fully into the Kyoto Protocol, which was achieved via a series of deals. Russia was exempted from capacity-funding responsibilities; was allowed to trade Assigned Amount Units (AAU), otherwise referred to as ‘hot air’; was invited to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO); and was allowed to count forests as carbon sinks (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 72).

The 1990s also coincided with a period of economic globalisation that included the deindustrialisation of many OECD countries. Due to their growth as manufacturers and exporters, a considerable number of consumption-related emissions moved to China, India, and other developing economies. Agreement was also made more possible by the fragmentation of business groups – including in energy. By Kyoto, some new renewable and energy efficiency companies had been formed, whilst this nascent industry spoke out in support of a global limit on GHG emissions (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 107). Divisions had also started to emerge within oil groups – European incumbents, Shell and BP, openly recognised climate change and the need to transition to alternatives. The International Climate Change Partnership (ICCP) was formed, including large companies like DuPont, Allied Signal, AT&T, Electrolux, General Electric, and 3M, which openly recognised the threat of climate change and advocated for mitigation (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 110).

In terms of lasting implications, the Kyoto Protocol turned the EU narrative on ‘targets and timetables’ into a policy norm – one that has pervaded climate politics at global, national, and local scales since this time. At the same time, targets were focused on ‘territorial’ over global emissions. This is important as this focus did not take account of GHG emissions from growing global supply chains and underplayed the impacts of the migration of heavy industry to developing economies (Vogler Reference Vogler2016). Indeed, between 1990 and 2010, emissions embodied via the migration of heavy industry towards developing economies grew by an average of 10% a year – to a total of 1.4 billion tonnes (Schiermeier Reference Schiermeier2012). As such, although middle-income countries had avoided agreeing to targets at later stages of UN negotiations, emissions, measured in territorial terms, had grown significantly for China and India.

The ways in which target setting was taken up further contributed towards the new norm of (some) scientific arguments directly underpinning UN agreement. The EU had directly cited scientific arguments about the need for measurement and targets, whilst the US administration, under Clinton, had also cited the IPCC’s second assessment report as a justification of their decision to join (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 115). Scientific knowledge authority was being used as a form of legitimacy and increasing credibility for mitigation actions, but also as a basis for political agreement. At the same time, technical GHG emissions reduction narratives increasingly resonated with the increasing emphasis on technical ‘expertise’ in informing policy and measurable outcomes within IGOs (van Coppenolle et al. Reference Van Coppenolle, Blondeel and Van de Graaf2023). Emissions, at least in theory, are material outputs that can be measured and monitored, and reported on, thereby showing evidence of progress and/or policy failings. This, in turn, necessitated the establishment of new capacities and regimes to measure and report emissions (Vogler Reference Vogler2016), which have proven important in revealing which governments have met targets or not and attempts to hold them to account.

There is a second, long-standing consequence of the target-oriented nature of climate mitigation – the narrowing down to GHG emissions measurement from the earlier, more holistic environmental position. This marked a collapsing of the complexity of the climate system and its interaction with human behaviours to a single metric (emissions) and, later, paved the way for ‘net zero’ (van Coppenolle et al. Reference Van Coppenolle, Blondeel and Van de Graaf2023). Measuring policy success according to falling emissions leaves room for environmentally controversial forms of energy, such as nuclear, whilst the wider environmental effects of mitigation efforts were often not seen or acknowledged (Newell & Bumpus Reference Newell and Bumpus2012). The singular emphasis on emissions reduction also meant that maintaining and/or extending emissions sinks as a climate solution was somewhat sidelined. This marks quite a departure when considering that climate mitigation governance grew out of the environmental movement, and that climate change was not mentioned in the 1972 UNCHE ‘principles’ (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 16). Such technical targets also left little room for the consideration of social, environmental, or other outcomes of mitigation policies – a theme to which this book returns in Chapter 7.

Some aspects of the liberal order were, then, contested by the creation of the Kyoto Protocol. Placing mitigation on the global agenda, and conferring responsibility on specific nations, was a foundational form of politicisation – delineating a new purpose to which authority could legitimately be put. At the same time, notably, conflict often persists post-compromise as the agreed policy may initially be framed as addressing the issue and resolving underlying conflicts, whilst only really masking them (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011: 372). Certainly, conflict persisted along a number of lines. Over the decades that followed, it became abundantly clear that the Kyoto Protocol was inadequate spurring demands for more climate action. Anti-mitigation groups also continued to contest emissions reduction, including in the US. Indeed, following another change in administration, the US under George Bush Junior refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

4.4.2 Compromise: Neoclassical Economics and Appropriate Policy

If the agreement to GHG emissions reduction targets was a ‘win’ in terms of formally recognising the need for mitigation, much of the rest of the agreement reached fell further short of scientific and ecological recommendations (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Meckling Reference Meckling2011; Vogler Reference Vogler2016; Katz-Rosene & Paterson Reference Katz-Rosene and Paterson2019). In the early decades of the climate debate, groups of environmental scientists had supported state regulations and carbon taxes as preferred policy measures. Steven Bernstein explains the shift away from this position, towards a more market-friendly position, partly in relation to the epistemic authority of climate science coming to an end (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001). From the perspective taken in this book, given that climate science was not in a position to provide all the answers, it is little wonder that its epistemic authority hit up against limitations. At the same time, the capacity of climate science to influence political debate did not wane completely given the established norm for policymakers to use it as one basis for making mitigation decisions.

The notion of fit with existing institutionalised policy ideas and power relations does much to explain the compromise on approach to policy (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Vogler Reference Vogler2016). Both earlier climate solutions allowing for a greater role for government intervention, taxation, and regulation and the policies agreed upon later at Kyoto reflected political ideas of their time. By the time climate change had emerged as a salient problem, global governance institutions were starting to embrace neoliberal economic ideas. The 1980s had seen a significant turn, led by Chile, the US, and the UK, towards more market-friendly ideas with associated preferences for least-cost policy, echoed in some anti-mitigation narratives, and for incentivising rather than regulating market actors. By Rio, “most developing countries had already largely accepted – whether by will or submission” – the new policy orthodoxy (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011: 381). As such, the political gap left by climate science on how to mitigate was filled with neoliberal economic ideas about appropriate policy. This is depoliticising to the extent that it narrowed down deliberation about alternatives, but it is politicising to the extent that this policy compromise both reflected societal ideas about how to govern and contributed to capacity to govern by offering solutions, however limited.

Indeed, for some in opposition to mitigation, and businesses in the undecided category, the move to flexible, market-based instruments was the compromise that convinced them to support the Protocol (Meckling Reference Meckling2011; Green Reference Green2021). Here we see an interesting alignment of neoliberal economic ideas, and associated preferences for flexible instruments and least-cost policy, with business interests. The Kyoto choices of ETSs, over tax instruments, to put a price on carbon and of carbon offsetting instruments both exemplified the accepted approach to policy. Growing preferences for least-cost policy approaches were also reflected in the Second Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group III on mitigation, which had switched analytical focus onto cost–benefit analyses and assessing the costs of climate mitigation policy. Seeing climate mitigation as a cost, and treating it as such analytically, echoes various anti-mitigation narratives outlined above. Still, in 2024, the costs of mitigation were given far greater emphasis in models and scenarios of 1.5ºC futures than the socio-economic costs of not mitigating (Clift & Kuzemko Reference Clift and Kuzemko2024).

These approaches to policy can, and have, been questioned in relation to their efficacy partly because they placed greater emphasis on the role of market actors in mitigating climate change, including the many businesses that had opposed mitigation. They have also been opposed on the basis that supporting countries, and businesses, can pass emissions reduction responsibilities to others via offsetting. The UN Joint Implementation (JI) policy, which essentially encouraged and enabled offsetting, had been advocated for by the anti-mitigation group, JUSSCANZ, and those business groups preferring flexible mechanisms, as the quid pro quo for agreeing to targets binding on Annex 1 countries (Falkner Reference Falkner2008: 119; Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 139). Offsetting, the norm of kicking the emissions can down the road, remains common practice today for a wide range of actors – not least as part of corporate greenwashing strategies (Buller Reference Buller2022).

A wide range of businesses and groups, including Shell, BP, the European Petroleum Industry Association, and various financial groups, had advocated for emissions trading as part of a wider preference for flexible mechanisms (Falkner Reference Falkner2008; Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Meckling Reference Meckling2011). In the run up to Kyoto, the climate establishment, including the EU and some environmental NGOs, came to accept this position (Green Reference Green, Barnett, Pevehouse and Raustiala2022), as it fit the policy ideals of least-cost policy and of incentivising rather than regulating market actors to reduce emissions (Meckling Reference Meckling2011). The emission trading ‘bandwagon’ took off post-Kyoto – spawning an industry in emissions trading – the industry was worth $128 billion by 2008 – it did not engender any substantive change in other high emissions practices and business models. Whilst mitigation was monetised via putting a value on trading, the cost of emissions remained low failing to engender significant changes to high-emissions business models (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 74–75). The ETS norm, whilst by no means taken up by all nations actively seeking to mitigate, did influence some policy choices at the regional and national levels. The EU was the first to implement an ETS and, for the first decade or so, they placed a heavy emphasis on it as a primary tool in meeting emissions reduction targets. By 2024, there were 36 systems in place in jurisdictions covering 58% of global GDP, but with mixed track records in emissions reduction (Green Reference Green2021).

On the one hand, by agreeing to certain policies and targets, climate mitigation became actionable with some prospect of contributing towards the social goal of mitigation. On the other hand, by naming certain policies as appropriate, and establishing certain norms around offsetting, counting mitigation costs, and trading carbon, this placed some limits on the policy landscape. These policies might have been more convenient choices, given the interests of many businesses, but setting up these policies as good governance choices was also seen as dangerous in climate change terms (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010). This is not just because they were insufficiently effective, but also because they distracted from the pursuit of alternatives (Clift & Kuzemko Reference Clift and Kuzemko2024).

4.4.3 Compromise: Economic Growth

A compromise had already been made, before Kyoto, referred to as the ‘sustainable development paradigm’, which suggested that economic growth and environmental sustainability are compatible (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001; Asara et al. Reference Asara, Otero, Demaria and Corbera2015). This was visible in the shift away from early environmental narratives of ‘limits to growth’ towards placing growth as central to processes of sustainable change. The growth compromise also became central to the nature of the climate change agreement at Kyoto. Growth was a core issue for all concerned, not least developing countries, who had been worried that global climate legislation could be used as an excuse to limit their economic and social development. Kyoto’s split of parties into Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 groups was based partly on how economically developed each country’s economy was, essentially embedding the idea that emissions underpin economic growth. Similarly, the UNFCCC explicitly recognised that “economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing country Parties” (UNFCCC 1992). The Rio Declaration had already squared away conflict between climate action and growth by conferring a new kind of ecological ‘legitimacy’ onto economic growth (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 105), following the Brundtland Report, which had made “accelerated economic growth” its top strategic priority (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011: 380).

From electoral politics perspectives, this is the least controversial compromise – so embedded were assumptions about the necessity of growth (Dryzek Reference Dryzek2022). Economic growth was a core government commitment, alongside security, in almost every world nation and, as such, a popular electoral narrative in democracies. Likewise, both Keynesian and neoclassical economic policy orthodoxies were both concentrated on how to deliver growth, albeit via very different political approaches (Green Reference Green2022). If the focus of Rio was partly to strike the first post-Cold War North-South bargain, then avoiding threats to economic growth was the obvious way of uniting the two. Indeed, as has been argued elsewhere, the move from the ‘limits to growth’ approach was one of the key compromises, alongside the adoption of market-friendly policies, that brought climate mitigation into the mainstream of international governance (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 3). Development should come first, whilst it was assumed that the outcome of development would be more available capital to spend on sustainability policies. If politics as social interaction is partly about meeting policy goals – this growth compromise can be seen as politicising – even if some climate change specialists would question whether continuing to grow will result in meeting emissions reduction goals.

The compromise on growth reflected perceived failures, during the decade since the 1972 Stockholm conference, to produce positive environmental outcomes as well as narratives that focused on mitigation as an economic cost. By 1984, the OECD, under Environment Director Jim MacNeill, had decided that there had been too much focus on solutions that were a “cost burden to industry” and wider economies (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 198). As a result, the ‘Environment & Economics’ conference was established to find more market-friendly solutions with many influential states and businesses in attendance. The conference concluded that the environment and the economy can be made mutually reinforcing (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 199). This formed the basis for a compromise around ‘ecological modernization’ (Bäckstrand & Lövbrand Reference Bäckstrand and Lövbrand2016), drawing on Cornucopian ideas of the possibilities of human ingenuity (Dryzek Reference Dryzek2022).

Neoliberal economic ideas prescribed particular policy approaches to delivering growth with climate mitigation. One of the main purposes of the ‘polluter pays’ principle put forward by the OECD, which implies the use of market-friendly instruments such as pollution charges and tradeable permits, was to support economic growth by achieving mitigation with minimal distortion of markets (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2001: 196). Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and JI policy programmes were designed to be flexible in order to enable continued economic growth, and associated emissions, in Annex 1 countries whilst paying for reductions in the developing world. Together with measuring emissions territorially, they supported a spatial disconnect between the point of consumption and emissions in production (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 26). Beyond embedding ideas about the automatic compatibility of mitigation with growth, other negative environmental and socio-economic side effects of CDMs in developing economies are well documented (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010; Newell & Mulvaney Reference Newell and Mulvaney2013).

What is less well debated in research on Kyoto outcomes are the inbuilt, but problematic, assumptions about positive relationships between economic growth, industrialisation, and energy demand growth – and how they relate to emissions. Although the political reification of growth is clearly articulated in UNFCCC documents, underlying assumptions about the role of energy and extraction in fuelling growth are left implicit. The role of fossil fuels in energy production, which had for a century or so underpinned economic growth, was obscured. These positive assumptions downplay the importance of implementing mitigation policies – not least around fossil fuel phase out (Clift & Kuzemko Reference Clift and Kuzemko2024). Certainly, fossil fuel phase out was not articulated at the UNFCCC level as a policy approach, whilst very few phase out plans were enacted at national or sub-national levels in the decades post-Kyoto.

Likewise, linking back to the compromise of limited approaches to policy, the Kyoto Protocol contained nothing on demand reduction as a route to reducing emissions. This is an interesting omission given the 1980s lesson, taken from consumer country responses to the oil shocks, that energy demand reduction is a useful policy tool for improving energy security (Kenner & Heede Reference Kenner and Heede2021). Nearly 30 years later, lingering preoccupations with growth, supported by energy that is still 80% provided by fossil fuels, persist. Models and scenarios of future energy systems under 1.5ºC limits, used by a wide range of political actors, assume continued energy demand growth or, at best, stagnation on the basis of assumptions about it fuelling economic growth (Clift & Kuzemko Reference Clift and Kuzemko2024).

4.4.4 Compromise: Equity and Justice

Some aspects of justice and equity narratives, articulated by developing nations including India and Brazil, went on to inform the basis of a further compromise around differentiated responsibilities. This is an example of the UN negotiation process incorporating some of the views articulated by middle- and low-income countries, reviewed above. To the extent that the JUSCANZ group, amongst others, had objected to divisions of responsibilities, this represented a compromise undertaken by anti-mitigation groups. Questions about equity and justice had been a key aspect of UN climate debates from the start. There had been some emphasis on questions of intergenerational justice and uneven effects of climate change on different countries, particularly small island states, in narrating why it was a global issue. UN climate mitigation debates became increasingly centred around questions of historic responsibility for emissions and the rights of developing countries to grow their economies via industrialisation – as had OECD countries. From a realist theoretical perspective, emphasising relative power relations, the acceptance of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (CBDR-RC) was puzzling (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 137). Concessions, however, needed to be made to developing countries given UN climate negotiation rules about consensus-based decision-making. This, in turn, represents politicisation in the form of establishing capacities to engender agreement amongst competing positions.

Normative views on limited responsibility, capability building, and developed countries taking the lead were operationalised in the Kyoto Protocol and built into principles of mitigation in the categorisation of convention parties (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 91). CBDR-RC had become a key part of the final text adopted at Rio. It openly acknowledged that ‘the largest share of historical and current global emissions’ originated in developed countries; that developing countries’ share of global emissions would need to grow; and that parties should protect the climate in accordance with CBDR-RC (UNFCCC 1992). The Berlin Mandate, of 1995, set out which countries would be in Annex 1 and, therefore, responsible for reducing emissions. Notably, the EU also used equity considerations, the ‘bubble’ protocol, to assign responsibilities and gain internal EU member agreement. Beneath the overall EU emissions reduction target of 8%, some former Soviet Union countries continued to grow emissions reflecting their need to develop economically (UN Climate Change 2024). China was not included as an Annex 1 party, despite high absolute emissions, given its low emissions per capita versus developed nations (Schiermeier Reference Schiermeier2012).

Annex 1 parties, excluding Russia, were also assigned responsibility for the provision of sustainable development finance (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 40), whilst Article 4.4 set out the duties of Annex 1 countries to aid developing countries particularly vulnerable to climate change and meet the cost of adaptation (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 103). These approaches to measurement and financial responsibility also echo narratives put forward by middle-income countries, in particular India and Brazil.

Long-lasting implications flow from the specific interpretations of equity and justice built into the UNFCCC. The rapid economic growth of middle-income countries, particularly China and India, meant that high levels of absolute emissions were not covered by the Kyoto agreement in the decades that followed. China and India had, of course, vigorously defended their rights to emit based on their need for economic development (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 61), and on assumptions about fossil fuel energy usage as a basis for industrialised forms of growth. It proved nearly impossible, in the decades post-Kyoto, to add to the membership of Annex 1 as developing countries, also including South Korea, grew into considerably sized economies with high absolute emissions (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 40). Clear issues had emerged, then, in relation to climate mitigation, but other political contestations also emerged. CBDR-RC became an electoral issue in the US based on the ‘unfairness’ of allowing emerging economic rivals, with an emphasis on China, not to reduce emissions and on increasingly accepted views of mitigation as an economic cost. George Bush Junior articulated this narrative in his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, and it was widely echoed in the environmental policy pullbacks of the first Trump administration.

On the basis that the rights and duties incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol UNFCCC were about rights to develop and historic responsibility, they arguably incorporated arguments about international distributional justice but were less reflective of a range of other ethical arguments. Justice and equity can, of course, mean many things. Article 3.1, where much of the CBDR-RC principle is set out, did provide “some basis for allocating benefits and burdens in respect of past actions and present and future generations of humankind” (Vogler Reference Vogler2016: 87). The meaning of ‘equity’ was, however, left under-defined contributing to a range of subsequent contestations. Although technical data had been used to evidence historic emissions differentials and where emissions originated, technical and scientific narrations of climate change as an issue were limited when it came to recognising or making other justice claims (Sultana 2021 in Lefstad & Paavola Reference Lefstad and Paavola2024). Technocratic policies, especially those focused on emissions, failed to recognise wider societal needs such as the need to reduce emissions in the near term to protect future generations’ rights.

The focus on equity and justice issues between countries excluded considerations of distributional justice within countries and of those most vulnerable, in socio-economic terms, to the effects of climate mitigation policy (Newell & Mulvaney Reference Newell and Mulvaney2013). On the one hand, it remained the case that certain groups and areas within nations were particularly vulnerable to continued emissions growth – and not just in terms of the impacts of changing weather, like floods, droughts, and fires. But also, in terms of air pollution, which was fast becoming one of the leading avoidable causes of disease and death globally (WHO 2015). On the other hand, mitigation policies themselves also have different socio-economic outcomes. For example, CDMs and voluntary carbon offset markets tended to offset high carbon lifestyles in the Global North by acquiring land and resources in poorer countries (Newell & Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010: 32–33). More widely publicised (at this stage potential) outcomes were job losses. Even as very few fossil fuel phase out strategies existed at this point, the threat of sections of the population, especially in fossil fuel-producing regions, being ‘left behind’ under conditions of sustainable transitions was politically potent. For some societal groups, this threat was exacerbated by the fact that China, in absolute not per capita terms, started to overtake US emissions by the end of the 00s. This adds to arguments of China as ‘free riders’ and domestic action as unfair, but, importantly, also to anti-mitigation narratives of climate action as ‘pointless’ – and not just in the US.

Although reflecting some key narratives within UN climate debates, the lack of recognition of and accounting for other forms of justice and equity have arguably contributed towards policy that tends to be emissions focused but not on considering, or delivering on, broader societal needs. The justice compromises, then, shored up contestations not only in terms of not meeting the social goal of climate mitigation but also in terms of those who viewed mitigation as unfair. These are all important factors when considering the relationship between policy, outcomes, and politics over time.