Governing Climate Technologies: Is there Room for Democracy?

Abstract

Technologies for mitigating and adapting to climate change are inherently political. Their development, diffusion and deployment will have uneven impacts within and across national borders. Bringing the governance of climate technologies under democratic control is imperative but impeded by the global scale of governance and its polycentric nature. This article draws on innovative theorising in the deliberative democracy tradition to map possibilities for global democratic governance of climate technologies. It is argued that this domain is not beyond the reach of democracy. Civil society has a unique and expanded role to play in generating democratic legitimacy by fostering public deliberation; translating and transmitting concepts, ideas and messages; and promoting and facilitating deliberative accountability.

Keywords

Climate change technology democracy global governance civil society

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abels

2007. ‘Citizen involvement in public policy-making: Does it improve democratic legitimacy and accountability? The case of pTA’. Interdisciplinary Information Sciences 13(1):103–116. CrossRef.

Abbott

K.W.

Forthcoming. ‘The transnational regime complex for climate change’. Environment & Planning C: Government & Policy. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1813198 or CrossRef.

Anshelm

and Hansson

. 2011. ‘Climate change and the convergence between ENGOs and business: On the loss of Utopian energies’. Environmental Values 20(1): 75–74. CrossRef.

Bäckstrand

2008. ‘Accountability of networked climate governance: The rise of transnational climate partnerships’. Global Environmental Politics 8(3): 74–102. CrossRef.

Barry

2001. Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London: Athlone Press.

BIC (Bank Information Center). 2010. ‘Concentrated solar power in MENA’. http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11853.aspx (accessed October 2010).

Biermann

, Zelli

, Pattberg

and van Asselt

. 2010. ‘The architecture of global climate governance: Setting the stage’. In Biermann

, Pattberg

and Zelli

(eds.), Global Climate Governance Beyond 2012: Architecture, Agency, and Adaptation, pp. 15–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CCW (Creating Carbon Wealth). 2012. ‘Creating climate wealth – North America 2012’. http://ccw2012dc.eventbrite.com/ (accessed 17 March 2012).

CIF. 2010. ‘Strategic environment, social and gender assessment of the climate investment funds’. SCF/TFC.6/Inf.2, October. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/sites/climateinvestmentfunds.org/files/SCF%20Inf%202%20nv%20Soc%20Gender%20Assessment%20nov%202010_0.pdf (accessed September 2011).

10.

CIF. 2009. ‘Summary of the co-chairs, CTF Trust Fund committee meeting, January 29–30, 2009’, paragraph 11. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/sites/climateinvestmentfunds.org/files/CTF_Co-chair_Summary_01_29_09.pdf (accessed September 2011).

11.

CIF. 2008. ‘Governance framework for the Clean Technology Fund’. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/…/climateinvestmentfunds…/CTF_Governance_Framework_jan_0.pdf (accessed September 2011).

12.

CIF. n.d.(1). ‘CTF observers’. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/CTF_Observers (accessed September 2011).

13.

CIF. n.d. (2). ‘Country and regional investment plans’. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/Country%20Investment%20Plans (accessed September 2011).

14.

CIF. n.d. (3). ‘2011 Partnership Forum’. http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/partnership_forum_2011_home (accessed September 2011).

15.

Corell

and Betsill

M.M.

. 2001. ‘A comparative look at NGO influence in international environmental negotiations: Desertification and climate change’. Global Environmental Politics 1(4): 86–107. CrossRef.

16.

CRF. n.d. ‘The Climate Response Fund’. http://www.climateresponsefund.org/ (accessed September 2011).

17.

CTI-PFAN. n.d.(1). ‘PFAN Global Fact Sheet’. http://www.cti-pfan.net/upload/resources/file/PFAN%20Global%20Factsheet.pdf (accessed September 2011).

18.

CTI-PFAN. n.d.(2). ‘About us’. http://www.cti-pfan.net/aboutus.php?id=12 (accessed September 2011).

19.

CWR (Carbon War Room). n.d.(1) ‘About the Carbon War Room’. http://www.carbonwarroom.com/about-cwr (accessed September 2011).

20.

CWR n.d.(2). ‘Carbon management: Operation Climate Insure’. http://www.carbonwarroom.com/sites/default/files/2.f.i_-_Geoengineering_1-pager.pdf (accessed September 2011).

21.

CWR n.d.(3). ‘FAQs’. http://www.carbonwarroom.com/what-we-do/faq (accessed 17 March 2012).

22.

Dingwerth

2007. The New Transnationalism. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossRef.

23.

Dryzek

J.S.

2010. Foundations and Frontiers of Deliberative Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.

24.

Dryzek

J.S.

2009. ‘Democratization as deliberative capacity building’. Comparative Political Studies 42: 1379–1402. CrossRef.

25.

Dryzek

J.S.

2006. Deliberative Global Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

26.

Dryzek

J.S.

, Downes

, Hunold

, Schlosberg

and Hernes

H.K.

. 2003. Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.

27.

Dryzek

John S.

and Stevenson

Hayley

. 2011. ‘Global democracy and earth system governance’. Ecological Economics 70: 1865–1874.

28.

Eley

1992. ‘Nations, publics, and political cultures’. In Calhoun

(ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere, pp. 289–339. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

29.

Feenberg

1992. ‘Subversive rationalization: Technology, power, and democracy’. Inquiry 35(3): 301–320. CrossRef.

30.

Fisher

D.R.

, 2010. ‘COP-15 in Copenhagen: How the merging of movements left civil society out in the cold’. Global Environmental Politics 10(2): 11–17. CrossRef.

31.

Fraser

1992. ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy’. In Calhoun

(ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere, pp. 109–142. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

32.

Grant

Ruth W.

and Keohane

Robert O.

. 2005. ‘Accountability and abuses of power in world politics’. The American Political Science Review 99(1): 29–43.

33.

Gutmann

and Thompson

. 1996. Democracy and Difference. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

34.

Hunt

Suzanne

. 2011. ‘Operation Bright Skies: Scaling up renewable fuels with the US Navy’. 28 February. http://news.carbonwarroom.com/2011/02/28/operation-bright-skies-scaling-up-renewable-fuels-with-the-us-navy/ (accessed October 2010).

35.

Johnson

D.G.

and Wetmore

J.M.

(eds). 2009. Technology and Society: Building Our Sociotechnical Future. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

36.

Joss

2002. ‘Toward the public sphere – reflections on the development of participatory technology assessment’. Bulletin of Science, Technology, Society 22(3): 220–231. CrossRef.

37.

Keohane

R.O.

and Victor

D.G.

. 2011. ‘The regime complex for climate change’. Perspectives on Politics 9(1): 7–23. CrossRef.

38.

Kirkpatrick

2008. Technology and Social Power. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

39.

Leach

, Fairhead

, Fraser

and Lehner

. 2010. ‘Biocharred pathways to sustain-ability? Triple wins, livelihoods and the politics of technological promise’. STEPS Centre Working Paper. http://steps-centre.org/publication/biocharred-pathways-to-sustainability-triple-wins-livelihoods-and-the-politics-of-technological-promise/ (accessed 16 October 2012).

40.

Levidow

2009. ‘Democratizing agri-biotechnology? European public participation in agbiotech assessment’. Comparative Sociology 8: 541–564. CrossRef.

41.

Lövbrand

, Rindefjäll

and Nordqvist

. 2009. ‘Closing the legitimacy gap in global environmental governance? Lessons from the emerging CDM Market’. Global Environmental Politics 9(2): 74–100. CrossRef.

42.

Mansbridge

2009. ‘A “Selection Model” of political representation’. The Journal of Political Philosophy 17(4): 369–398. CrossRef.

43.

Mansbridge

1996. ‘Using power/fighting power: The polity’. In Benhabib

(ed.), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, pp. 46–66. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

44.

Newell

2000. Climate for Change: Non-state Actors and the Global Politics of the Greenhouse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef.

45.

Preston

2011. ‘Re-thinking the unthinkable: Environmental ethics and the presumptive argument against geoengineering’. Environmental Values 20(4): 457–479. CrossRef.

46.

RESOLVE 2010. RESOLVE Facilitation of Self-Selection Process for Civil Society Observers on the CIF Trust Fund Committees. Final Project Report. (Copy held by author).

47.

Nakhooda

Smita

. 2009. ‘Catalyzing low carbon development? The Clean Technology Fund’. WRI Working Paper. World Resources Institute, Washington DC. http://pdf.wri.org/working_papers/development_clean_technology_fund.pdf (accessed October 2010).

48.

Steenbergen

, Bächtiger

, Spörndli

and Steiner

. 2003. ‘Measuring political deliberation: A discourse quality index’. Comparative European Politics 1(1): 21–48. CrossRef.

49.

Stevenson

and Dryzek

J.S.

. 2012a. ‘The discursive democratisation of global climate governance’. Environmental Politics 21(2): 189–210. CrossRef.

50.

Stevenson

and Dryzek

J.S.

. 2012b. ‘The legitimacy of multilateral climate governance: A deliberative democratic approach’. Critical Policy Studies 6(1): 1–18. CrossRef.

51.

Taylor

1995. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.

52.

Thompson

2008. ‘Deliberative democratic theory and empirical political science’. Annual Review of Political Science 11: 497–520. CrossRef.

53.

Winner

1989. The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.