3.1 Introduction

This chapter explores the growing influence of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in contemporary global climate governance. Compared to other intergovernmental treaty secretariats, the political influence of the UNFCCC Secretariat has traditionally been considered rather limited. Most notably, Busch (Reference Busch, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009: 245) characterized the role of the UNFCCC Secretariat as “Making a Living in a Straitjacket.” However, we contend that the UNFCCC Secretariat has lately adopted a novel strategy to exert influence on the outcome of international climate negotiations and global climate policymaking by orchestrating the various climate initiatives undertaken by subnational and nonstate actors. Orchestration offers a “soft touch” approach and is an indirect mode of governance whereby a given agent interacts with intermediaries to influence a certain target group (Abbott and Snidal Reference Abbott and Snidal2010; Abbott et al. Reference Abbott, Genschel, Snidal and Zangl2015). Building upon this concept, we conceptualize the UNFCCC Secretariat as an international (environmental) bureaucracy that uses and works with cities as well as civil society groups, investors, and companies in order to aim at creating a momentum that nudges national governments to take more ambitious climate actions (Abbott and Bernstein Reference Abbott and Bernstein2015).

We perceive the UNFCCC Secretariat as an illustrative case for studying how international environmental bureaucracies can evolve from a rather low-key and servant-like secretariat to an actor in its own right – taking on the role of an orchestrator that seeks to shape policy outcomes through changing the behavior of others. Using orchestration as a conceptual lens, we identify new types of influence that were apparently not in the minds of those authors that studied the role and function of international bureaucracies as managers of global environmental problems about ten years ago (Biermann and Siebenhüner Reference Biermann, Siebenhüner, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009). In particular, we recognize (i) awareness-raising, (ii) norm-building, and (iii) mobilization as forms of influence that the UNFCCC Secretariat exerts in global climate policymaking. This new way of how soft power is deployed underscores the increasingly proactive role of the UNFCCC Secretariat in the global response to climate change.

Empirically, this chapter zooms into three initiatives: the Momentum for Change Initiative, the Lima–Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), and the Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA). These initiatives have been created to enhance the overall effectiveness of the global response to climate change and push the intergovernmental process forward by coordinating the myriad initiatives of subnational governments, nonprofit organizations, and business entities. This in turn has contributed to the shift away from a “regulatory” climate regime toward a “catalytic and facilitative” approach, in which subnational and nonstate actors play a much more prominent role (Hale Reference Hale2016: 12). Thus, the main argument of our contribution is that orchestration entails indeed a specific form of influence, and although we cannot evaluate whether this will ultimately lead to more effective global climate policymaking, we show that the UNFCCC Secretariat is no longer a passive bystander but has adopted new roles and functions in the global endeavor to cope with climate change.

To advance our argument the chapter is structured as follows: Section 3.2 reviews the literature on influence exerted by international environmental bureaucracies. Then, we link this discussion to the concept of orchestration and sketch our methods of data collection. Section 3.3. provides a brief overview of the UNFCCC Secretariat and then focuses on the three initiatives in which the secretariat interacts with sub- and nonstate actors. Finally, Section 3.4 draws conclusions about the growing influence exerted by the UNFCCC Secretariat in global climate policymaking and points to some aspects that from our point of view merit attention in future research.

3.2 The Growing Influence of International (Environmental) Bureaucracies

Biermann and Siebenhüner (Reference Biermann, Siebenhüner, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009: 1) asked, “What is the role of international bureaucracies in world politics?” The two scholars argued that the literature in the fields of international relations management and legal studies underestimates the degree and variance of influence that these institutions have in global affairs. Influence is defined by Biermann et al. (Reference Biermann, Pattberg, van Asselt and Zelli2009: 40) who follow Webster’s Dictionary as “the bringing about of an effect … by a gradual process; controlling power quietly exerted.” They deliberately do not speak of power as the connotation of coerciveness would be inherent, although the association to soft power (Nye Reference Nye2004) is quite obvious. They further differentiate the observable effects that bureaucratic agents can bring about on the levels of output, outcome, and impact. The following sections mainly focus on outcome since effects on the output level are easy to achieve but do not change much and measuring the (environmental) impact of administrative practices is already difficult within a domestic setting while hardly possible in global multilevel settings. Analyzing influence on the level of outcomes thus implies studying how the behavior of other actors has been targeted and has eventually changed, for example, in the sense of the targeted actor doing something different and becoming more compliant to an international rule-setting (Biermann et al. Reference Biermann, Pattberg, van Asselt and Zelli2009: 43). In the analysis in this chapter, we will build on these conceptual ideas and analyze what kind of observable outcomes the UNFCCC Secretariat can achieve in terms of changing the behavior of actors softly and indirectly through orchestration techniques.

Any exercise in assessing the influence of intergovernmental public agencies, be it the bureaucracies of international organizations or small treaty secretariats, faces the well-established (neo)realist criticism that such effects are at best intervening factors and that the true power lies with nation-states and their respective central governments (Krasner Reference Krasner and Krasner1986; Mearsheimer Reference Mearsheimer1994). Hence, international bureaucracies might be able to facilitate or provide technical assistance and services to national governments but will in the end anticipate the preferences of the most powerful national governments (Drezner Reference Drezner2007). However, we would argue not only that the power of international organizations is gradually growing (Barnett and Finnemore Reference Barnett and Finnemore2004) but also that international secretariats have lately adopted more authoritative functions in global policymaking and gained increasing autonomy vis-à-vis their principals (Bauer and Ege Reference Bauer and Ege2016). International bureaucracies are capable of not just providing more and more output through setting up rules and procedures. They actually provide goods and services and influence other actors also on the outcome level. In fact, they do so independently from the broader development within the institutional structure they are part of and embedded in. We thus claim that international bureaucracies are distinct and partially influential actors that exercise important policymaking tasks (Eckhard and Ege Reference Eckhard and Ege2016). While we see this as a broader phenomenon of global politics, it is particularly prevalent for international environmental bureaucracies (e.g., Hickmann and Elsässer Reference Hickmann and Elsässer2020; Manulak Reference Manulak2017).

Studies in this field have advanced our knowledge on the role and function of international bureaucracies by looking at the specific mechanisms that bureaucracies have at their disposal to provide meaningful outcome and thus have achieved a certain level of influence (e.g., Jörgens et al. Reference Jörgens, Kolleck, Saerbeck, Well, Bauer, Knill and Eckhard2017). In line with these scholars, we investigate the new influence of international environmental bureaucracies and the attempt to use subnational and nonstate actors for achieving progress in the international environmental negotiations. The UNFCCC Secretariat does so through (i) awareness-raising, (ii) norm-building, and (iii) mobilization and we claim this can be best understood as elements of orchestration.

3.3 Taking Influence on Global Environmental Policymaking through Orchestration

Orchestration is a mode of governance that has gained increasing prominence in the disciplines of international relations and international law since it was popularized by Abbott and Snidal in Reference Abbott and Snidal2009. These two scholars argued that a new regulatory structure started to emerge from the ashes of a failed “old governance system,” in which subnational and nonstate actors take a more pronounced position by creating innovative transnational norms for regulating businesses (Abbott and Snidal Reference Abbott and Snidal2009). Private and voluntary standards (Abbott Reference Abbott2012; Green Reference Green2013; Hickmann Reference Hickmann2017b) are changing the global system of rules and norms away from traditional international governance through multilateral treaty-making under UN auspices toward a more heterogeneous, hybrid, and polycentric structure (Abbott, Green, and Keohane Reference Abbott, Green and Keohane2016; Biermann et al. Reference Biermann, Pattberg, van Asselt and Zelli2009; Bulkeley et al. Reference Bulkeley, Andonova and Betsill2014; Hickmann Reference Hickmann2016, Reference Hickmann2017a; Jordan et al. Reference Jordan, Huitema and Hildén2015; Keohane and Victor Reference Keohane and Victor2011; Ostrom Reference Ostrom2010). International organizations could use these new transnational institutions to “attain transnational regulatory goals that are not achievable through domestic or international Old Governance” (Abbott and Snidal Reference Abbott and Snidal2009: 564).

Taking up this thread, Hale and Roger (Reference Hale and Roger2014: 60–61) defined orchestration as “a process whereby states or intergovernmental organizations initiate, guide, broaden, and strengthen transnational governance by non-state and/or sub-state actors.” Hence, orchestration moves beyond the classical sender–receiver model of other governance approaches. It rather follows a so-called O–I–T model, in which an Orchestrator uses an Intermediary to influence a certain Target group. International organizations and their bureaucracies can in principle make use of various intermediaries, such as transnational networks, nongovernmental organizations, or public–private partnerships (Abbott et al. Reference Abbott, Genschel, Snidal and Zangl2015: 6). Orchestrators have a wide range of techniques at their disposal to influence the intermediary, including direct assistance, endorsement, and coordination.

In theory, the orchestrator can thus choose to manage or bypass its targets that are in this study conceived of as nation-states. More precisely, orchestrators manage states when they enlist “intermediaries to shape state preferences, beliefs and behavior in ways that enhance state consent to and compliance with IGO [international governmental organization] goals policies and rules” (Abbott et al. Reference Abbott, Genschel, Snidal and Zangl2015: 11). Orchestrators bypass nation-states when they approach and enlist intermediaries directly, to supply some kind of a common pool resource or public common. In the case of international organizations or bureaucracies as orchestrators, these can hence fulfill their purpose without needing “time-consuming, high-level political approval” (Abbott and Snidal Reference Abbott and Snidal2009: 564).

Orchestration techniques employed by international organizations or bureaucracies as a mode of governance represent a shift in direction of authority, in particular if one adopts a traditional principal–agent perspective that centers around delegation of authority from a principal to an agent (Hawkins et al. Reference Hawkins, Lake, Nielson and Tierney2006a). In the case of the UNFCCC Secretariat, nation-states can be considered the principals and the secretariat the agent. Any deviance by the agent from the mandate it has received from the principals constitutes agency slack, which generally means minimizing the effort by the agent to fulfill its primary mission (shirking) or taking actions that are contrary to the principals’ desired policy direction (slippage) (Hawkins et al. Reference Hawkins, Lake, Nielson, Tierney, Hawkins, Lake, Nielson and Tierney2006b: 8). Moreover, managing and bypassing nation-states would arguably be beyond what can be considered the discretionary space that an agent may be given within the mandate by the principals to accomplish certain tasks.

Whether and to what extent the UNFCCC Secretariat has been engaging in such shirking or slippage actions by orchestrating subnational and nonstate initiatives is an open question. In the past few years, the UNFCCC Secretariat has been described as a potential candidate for orchestrating climate governance at various stages of the policy cycle. Hale and Roger (Reference Hale and Roger2014: 80) argue that “it is possible to imagine the UNFCCC taking a more ‘orchestrative’ role than it does today.” Yet they also acknowledge that “[w]hile it is unlikely to adopt and support, much less launch, particular transnational initiatives, it … could nonetheless be used as a forum for information-sharing, standard-setting, and accountability for transnational initiatives, and for focusing expectations on such practices” (Hale and Roger Reference Hale and Roger2014: 80). A similar argument has been made by Chan et al. (Reference Chan, van Asselt and Hale2015: 470)who suggest that

Thus, these scholars argue that the UNFCCC Secretariat could likely adopt an important role as an orchestrator, while it lacks the mandate, budget, and capacity. Nevertheless, even within these constraints, the suggestions by Hale and Roger as well as Chan et al. go far beyond previous understandings of the secretariat as “Making a living in a straitjacket” (Busch Reference Busch, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009: 245). While previous research has by and large discussed the potential of the UNFCCC Secretariat as an orchestrator, we move toward empirical assessment. In order to understand the mandate under which the secretariat operates, the following sections explore three illustrative examples of how the UNFCCC Secretariat has expanded its influence on the outcome level on global climate policymaking by using orchestration as a mode of governance, in particular after the failure at the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen to reach a new international climate treaty.

The analysis relies on three sources of information: (i) an extensive desk study of existing scholarly work on the role and function of international bureaucracies and the UNFCCC Secretariat; (ii) a systematic content analysis of official documents, online material, and “grey” literature on the different initiatives in which the UNFCCC Secretariat interacts with sub- and nonstate actors; and (iii) a series of seventeen semistructured expert interviews with staff members of the UNFCCC Secretariat as well as representatives of different subnational bodies and nongovernmental organizations.

3.4 Studying the Influence of the UNFCCC Secretariat

The origins of the UNFCCC Secretariat date back to early 1991 when the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, assigned a higher official in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development with the task of building up a team of about a dozen people to support the intergovernmental negotiations that led to the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992 (Yamin and Depledge Reference Yamin and Depledge2004: 487). After a steady increase in tasks and personnel over the past two decades, the UNFCCC Secretariat now employs about 500 people (including both higher level employees and administrative posts) and possesses a yearly budget of approximately USD 90 million (UNFCCC 2017g).

Several scholars have addressed the role and functions of the UNFCCC Secretariat in global climate policymaking (Bauer, Busch, and Siebenhüner Reference Bauer, Busch, Siebenhüner, Biermann, Siebenhüner and Schreyögg2009; Busch Reference Busch, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009; Depledge Reference Depledge2005, Reference Depledge2007; Hickmann et al. Reference Hickmann, Widerberg, Lederer and Pattberg2021; Jörgens, Kolleck, and Saerbeck Reference Jörgens, Kolleck and Saerbeck2016; Michaelowa and Michaelowa Reference Michaelowa and Michaelowa2016; Yamin and Depledge Reference Yamin and Depledge2004). These scholars concede that the UNFCCC Secretariat maintains an important position with regard to the organization of the international climate negotiations and in supporting the various associated institutions and subbodies. However, most scholars have considered the broader political influence exerted by the UNFCCC Secretariat on other agents as rather low and have not claimed that a real influence on behavioral change is really discernable. Only the most recent accounts hold that the secretariat has developed an observable influence on global climate policymaking (Jörgens, Kolleck, and Saerbeck Reference Jörgens, Kolleck and Saerbeck2016; Michaelowa and Michaelowa Reference Michaelowa and Michaelowa2016).

As previously indicated, Busch (Reference Busch, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009: 251) most prominently claims in his case study that “[t]he climate secretariat is a ‘technocratic bureaucracy’ that has not had any autonomous political influence.” He identifies the particular problem structure of the policy domain of climate change as a main reason for the limited leeway of the UNFCCC Secretariat and argues that the UNFCCC Secretariat has been put into a “straitjacket [which] reduces the potential for the climate secretariat to effectively exploit its key position and to have autonomous influence” (Busch Reference Busch, Biermann and Siebenhüner2009: 256). However, we put forward the argument that the UNFCCC Secretariat has lately been involved in a number of initiatives that seek to incorporate subnational and nonstate actors more directly and this potentially allows new forms of leverage.

In the following analysis, we first outline interactions between the secretariat and subnational and nonstate actors within the intergovernmental process. Then, we discuss three initiatives of the UNFCCC Secretariat’s engagement with subnational and nonstate actors (i.e., the Momentum for Change Initiative, the LPAA, and NAZCA). We do not claim that the UNFCCC Secretariat has substantially altered the international landscape of climate politics and it can be questioned whether the described activities will have a discernable impact. Yet influence in the sense of changing the behavior of actors through orchestration is clearly visible.

3.5 Conclusions

This chapter explored the growing influence of the UNFCCC Secretariat in contemporary global climate governance. Based on the previous analysis, we put forward the argument that the secretariat has lately adopted a novel strategy to exert influence on the outcome level of climate policymaking by orchestrating the various climate initiatives undertaken by subnational and nonstate actors.

We particularly recognize (i) awareness-raising, (ii) norm-building, and (iii) mobilization as forms of influence that the UNFCCC Secretariat exerts in the global response to climate change. In the Momentum for Change initiative, the secretariat has used nonstate actors to raise awareness on the issue of climate change and push national governments to take a more ambitious stance on climate change. In the LPAA, the secretariat acquired new forms of influence by involving the parties as well as all sorts of subnational and nonstate actors to build a norm that a new climate treaty should be adopted in Paris. Finally, the secretariat put considerable efforts into the launch and maintenance of the NAZCA platform to accelerate and mobilize the global mitigation and adaptation ambition. These findings suggest that the UNFCCC Secretariat has found new ways to exert influence on the intergovernmental process by interacting with sub- and nonstate actors with the overall aim of inducing national governments to adopt more progressive climate targets.

In addition, the UNFCCC Secretariat used the different initiatives for a new communication strategy reaching out to the media and certain celebrities. This is in line with what Jörgens et al. (Reference Jörgens, Kolleck, Saerbeck, Well, Bauer, Knill and Eckhard2017) recently termed an “attention-seeking bureaucracy.” In other words, the UNFCCC Secretariat essentially operated according to the principle Do Good and Make It Known. Policywise, the overall objective of these initiatives is to reinvigorate the global endeavor to address climate change by emphasizing pioneering climate initiatives of cities and their networks, civil society groups, nonprofit entities, and private companies as well as business associations. In this way, momentum shall be built up for an increased level of ambition to address climate change. The analysis hence suggests that the UNFCCC Secretariat can no longer be adequately described as a purely technocratic international environmental bureaucracy (Hickmann and Elsässer Reference Hickmann and Elsässer2020; Hickmann et al. Reference Hickmann, Widerberg, Lederer and Pattberg2021). Instead, in this chapter we put forward the argument that the secretariat influences not only the output but also the outcome level in the field of global climate politics.

The UNFCCC Secretariat took a certain window of opportunity and involved subnational and nonstate actors as a novel strategy, influencing them to raise the global level of ambition to address climate change. Through its outreach strategy and policy dialogue with actors other than national governments, the secretariat provided impetus for a variety of climate-related projects in all parts of the world carried out by subnational governments, nonprofit entities, and private businesses. These findings suggest that the UNFCCC Secretariat could loosen its straitjacket and in recent years considerably expand its political influence in the global response to climate change.