"Friedheim in the Greenhouse": Tracing key positions of key actors on key climate issues

Abstract

The climate negotiation process is probably the most complex international environmental negotiation process to date. A high number of actors and issues are involved. In order to increase the understanding of the political feasibility of different options and solutions developed within these negotiations, it is useful to apply a relatively simple and workable methodological approach in order to "score" and keep oversight over the key positions of key actors on key issues.

An interesting approach is the methodology developed in R.L. Friedheim’s Negotiating the New Ocean Regime which analyzes the Law of the Sea negotiations that took place from the late 1960s up to the early 1980s. Hence, the first part of the paper discusses key ingredients of this approach: decomposition of complex international negotiation, issue-variables, policy alternatives/policy themes, underlying themes, scaling technique and scaling of policy alternatives. This methodology is found to be useful for the purpose of research projects such as the "Modeling International Negotiations" (MIN) project. Some shortcomings of this methodology are also identified.

The second part of this paper discusses the extent to which, and how, this methodology could be applied in the case of global climate change and the global climate negotiations.

1) This working paper is written in the context of the research project "Modeling International Negotiations: Exploring the Settlement Range in the Global Climate Change Negotiations" (the "MIN-project"). Arild Underdal, CICERO and Department of Political Science, Oslo University, is leading this project.