Chris Höhne

🚀🌍 The ACCLIMATE Project has officially launched!
Our consortium met in @wuppertalinstitut.bsky.social, to kick off this Horizon Europe project, accelerating #climate_action & building a #low-emissions, #climate-resilient future 🍃🌱
Stay tuned! #ACCLIMATEproject #Sustainability

COP29: Not a "Gift from God" Wuppertal Institute publishes initial assessment of COP29 in Baku – a setback was avoided barely

Our annual @wuppertalinstitut.bsky.social #COP report is out. This year it's called "Not a 'Gift from God'" for obvious reasons. It is available at wupperinst.org/en/a/wi/a/s/.... Key findings include:

Finally, we thank Thomas Risse and our excellent research assistants Myrodis Athanassiou, Sarah Hechler, Maren Lorenzen-Fischer, and Kristina J. Schmidt. For more information on our research project (funded by DFG), see transnorms.eu

Thanks to the editorial team & reviewers @GEP & to @paucastro.bsky.social, Alvine Datchoua, Nicole Doerr, Harald Fuhr, Anna Fünfgeld, Aarti Gupta, Carola Klöck, Markus Lederer,@maxlesch.bsky.social, Jens Marquardt, @mjph.bsky.social, Jens Steffek,@antjewiener.bsky.social, & Jan Wilkens for comments.

To conclude, our analysis points to potential avenues for long-term changes of the norm bundle itself and provides indications for future state behavior.
The paper is available here: doi.org/10.1162/glep...
Looking forward to the 3rd NDCs in 2025!

Second, interlinkages with the human rights regime point to successful transnational socialization in democratic states. This suggests an overall synergistic relationship between the regimes, when tailormade social interventions on climate change are envisioned.

We additionally make sense of the two innovative changes: First, the low-carbon economy discourse seems to be driven by competition in higher income countries. This discursive pathway to a low-carbon transition may open up opportunities for actors pushing for decarbonization.

Yet, the formerly strict divide appears to become blurrier in the 2nd NDCs.
Emerging & industrialized economies (Umbrella, EU, BASIC) present plans for green growth.
In contrast, developing countries with lower income (LDCs) emphasize conventional growth plans to combat poverty.

When states prioritize some norms over others, this continues to align with the annex divide despite the Paris Agreement’s decreasing differentiation, reflecting differences in domestic circumstances (e.g, vulnerability, income).

Overall, countries’ pledges rely on UNFCCC’s norms, indicating the stability of the liberal order.  It thus seems unlikely that radical approaches to climate mitigation will shape policies any time soon.

We then link these (inductively identified) topics to the norms derived from the UNFCCC and compare the respective topics of 1st and 2nd NDCs to look for continuity and change.

We use quantitative text analysis (topic modeling) to map the topics states address in their 1st and 2nd NDCs. Words that show up together in docs are grouped, allowing us to assign labels based on keywords and a qualitative assessment of texts. #textasdata.

We study the changes in how states translate the norms embedded in @UNFCCC in their climate policy pledges, comparing 1st NDCs (from 2015-16) with 2nd NDCs (2020-21).
We find many similarities, but two innovations stand out in the second NDCs: Low-carbon economy & human rights!

📣🔔 +++ New paper +++ @mathislohaus.bsky.social, Christian Kahmann, and I have a new piece in Global Environmental Politics: “Continuity and Change in Norm Translations After the Paris Agreement: From First to Second Nationally Determined Contributions”. doi.org/10.1162/glep... (online first)

Yet, the formerly strict divide appears to become blurrier in the 2nd NDCs.
Emerging & industrialized economies (Umbrella, EU, BASIC) present plans for green growth.
In contrast, developing countries with lower income (LDCs) emphasize conventional growth plans to combat poverty.

When states prioritize some norms over others, this continues to align with the annex divide despite the Paris Agreement’s decreasing differentiation, reflecting differences in domestic circumstances (e.g, vulnerability, income).

Overall, countries’ pledges rely on UNFCCC’s norms, indicating the stability of the liberal order.  It thus seems unlikely that radical approaches to climate mitigation will shape policies any time soon.

We then link these (inductively identified) topics to the norms derived from the UNFCCC and compare the respective topics of 1st and 2nd NDCs to look for continuity and change.

We use quantitative text analysis (topic modeling) to map the topics states address in their 1st and 2nd NDCs. Words that show up together in docs are grouped, allowing us to assign labels based on keywords and a qualitative assessment of texts. #textasdata.