Organising Stakeholder Participation in Global Climate Governance: The Effects of Resource Dependency and Institutional Logics in the Green Climate Fund

Abstract

Public or stakeholder participation in environmental governance has been strongly advocated within the United Nations (UN) since the early 1990s. A relatively new mechanism for global climate finance that emphasises stakeholder engagement is the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a UN strategy for channelling funds from the Global North to the Global South. Drawing on previous critical approaches to multi-stakeholder involvement in global governance, this article explores stakeholder involvement within the GCF. The study combines ideas from institutional logics and resource dependency to provide a better understanding of how stakeholder arrangements are shaped in climate organisations. Results show that the GCF stakeholder arrangement favours private sector stakeholders – stakeholders that take a technical and apolitical approach to climate finance – and disfavours smaller, less resourceful stakeholders as well as those who perform a politicised watchdog function.

Keywords

Global climate governance climate finance stakeholder participation institutional logics resource dependency

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

ActionAid

. 2016. Joint CSO Submission on Issues to be Addressed and Improved in a Comprehensive Review of the Participation of Observers in the Activities of the GCF Board. https://us.boell.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2012/10/cso_jointsub-mission_gcf_observerparticipationreview_final_submitted.pdf.

Armstrong

, Bello

, Gilson

and Spini

2011. Civil Society and International Governance: The Role of Non-State Actors in Global and Regional Regulatory Frameworks. London: Routledge.

Bernauer

and Betzold

2012. ‘Civil society in global environmental governance’. The Journal of Environment & Development 21 (1): 62–66. Crossref

Bertilsson

2022. ‘Managing vulnerability in the Green Climate Fund’. Climate and Development. Crossref

Betsill

2015. ‘NGOs’. In K. Bäckstrand and E. Lövbrand (eds), Research Handbook on Climate Governance, pp. 251–261. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Boström

2003. ‘Environmental organisations in new forms of political participation: Ecological modernisation and the making of voluntary rules’. Environmental Values 12 (2): 175–193. Crossref

Boström

and Tamm Hallström

2010. ‘NGO power in global social and environmental standard-setting’. Global Environmental Politics 10 (4): 36–59. Crossref

Boström

and Tamm Hallström

2013. ‘Global multi-stakeholder standard setters: How fragile are they?’ Journal of Global Ethics 9 (1): 93–110. Crossref

Bracking

2015. ‘The anti-politics of climate finance: The creation and performativity of the Green Climate Fund’. Antipode 47 (2): 281–302. Crossref

10.

Bruun

J.A.

2017. ‘Governing climate finance: Paradigms, participation and power in the Green Climate Fund’. PhD Thesis, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester.

11.

Bulkeley

and Mol

A.P.J.

2003. ‘Participation and environmental governance: Consensus, ambivalence and debate’. Environmental Values 12 (2): 143–154. Crossref

12.

Bäckstrand

, Khan

, Kronsell

and Lövbrand

2010. Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy: Examining the Promise of New Modes of Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

13.

Cassegård

, Soneryd

, Thörn

and Wettergren

Å.

(eds). 2017. Climate Action in a Globalizing World: Comparative Perspectives on Environmental Movements in the Global North. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis.

14.

Cassegård

2021. Toward a Critical Theory of Nature: Capital, Ecology, and Dialectics. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

15.

CAN 2011a. Comments on ‘Draft Report of the Transitional Committee’ of 7 October Submission to: Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund. Washington: Climate Action Network-International. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/submission_by_can_on_tc_draft_report_071011.pdf.

16.

CAN 2011b. Submission to the Transitional Committee for the Green Climate Fund. Washington: Climate Action Network-International. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/can_submission_on_general_submission.pdf.

17.

CMIA 2019. Private Sector Submission on the Strategic Plan of the Green Climate Fund. London: Climate Markets and Investment Association.

18.

Dombrowski

2010. ‘Filling the gap? An analysis of non-governmental organisations responses to participation and representation deficits in global climate governance’. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 10 (4): 397–416. Crossref

19.

Dryzek

J.S.

and Stevenson

2011. ‘Global democracy and earth system governance’. Ecological Economics 70 (11): 1865–1874. Crossref

20.

Duyck

2015. ‘Promoting the principles of the Aarhus Convention in international forums: The case of the UN climate change regime’. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law 24 (2): 123–138. Crossref

21.

Ford

L.H.

2003. ‘Challenging global environmental governance: Social movement agency and global civil society’. Global Environmental Politics 3 (2): 120–134. Crossref

22.

Friends of the Earth US . 2011a. No title. Comments from various CSOs on ‘Draft report of the Transitional Committee to the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties, Transitional Committee, 2011’ (TC-4/2). https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/comments_from_various_cso_on_tc_report_of_7_oct.pdf.

23.

Friends of the Earth US et al. 2011b. Preliminary Views on Workstream III: Operational Modalities Pertaining to Sub-workstream III.1: Finance Entry Points. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/cso_wsiii_240511.pdf.

24.

GCF 2011. The Governing Instrument. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/governing-instrument.pdf.

25.

GCF 2013. Observer Organization Accreditation and Observer Participation. GCF/B.05/Inf.05. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/gcf-b05-inf05.pdf.

26.

GCF 2016a. Compilation of Submissions: Terms of Reference for the Comprehensive Review of Observer Participation in the Activities of the Board. GCF/B.12/34. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/gcf-b12-34.pdf.

27.

GCF 2016b. Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the Board, 8–10 March 2016. GCF/B.12/33. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/gcf-b12-33.pdf.

28.

GCF 2016c. Decision of the Board on the Terms of Reference for the Review of Observer Participation. B.BM-2016/11. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/bbm-2016-11.pdf.

29.

GCF 2019. Adaptation: Accelerating Action Towards a Climate Resilient Future. Green Climate Fund working paper No. 1. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/accelerating-action-towards-climate-resilient-future.pdf.

30.

GCF 2020a. Updated Workplan of the Board for 2020–2023. GCF/B.28/Inf.13. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/gcf-b28-inf13.pdf.

31.

GCF 2020b. Partners (website). https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/partners.

32.

GCF 2021a. Observers (website). https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/partners/observers.

33.

GCF 2021b. GCF Handbook. Incheon: Green Climate Fund. https://www.greencli-mate.fund/sites/default/files/document/gcf-handbook-march2022.pdf.

34.

Goodin

R.E.

and Dryzek

J.S.

2006. ‘Deliberative impacts: The macro-political uptake of mini-publics’. Politics & society 34 (2): 219–244. Crossref

35.

Greenwood

, Raynard

, Kodeih

, Micelotta

E.R.

and Lounsbury

2011. ‘Institutional complexity and organisational responses’. The Academy of Management Annals 5 (1): 317–371. Crossref

36.

Harmeling

, Müller

and Seck

2011. Some Lessons Learned from the Adaptation Fund for the Design of the Green Climate Fund. https://ecbi.org/sites/default/files/Subm%20Lessons%20learned%20from%20the%20Adaptation%20Fund_final.pdf.

37.

Heinrich Böll Foundation. 2011. Some Preliminary Civil Society Views and Recommendations on Work Stream I: Scope, Guiding Principles, and Cross-cutting Issues. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/boellfohbf_wsi_240511.pdf.

38.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Women's Environment & Development Organisation. 2011. Joint Submission by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Women's Environment & Development Organisation to the Transitional Committee for the Design of the Green Climate Fund on Workstream I. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/submission_by_hbs_and_wedo_on_general_submission.pdf.

39.

Kronsell

and Bäckstrand

2010. ‘Rationalities and forms of governance: a framework for analysing the legitimacy of new modes of governance’. In K. Bäckstrand, Khan

, Kronsell

and E. Lövbrand (eds), Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy, pp. 28–46. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

40.

Kuchler

and Lövbrand

2016. ‘Simulative governance: on the collaborative narrative of civil society participation in the CDM stakeholder framework’. Environmental Politics 25 (3): 434–453. Crossref

41.

Lövbrand

and Khan

2010. ‘The deliberative turn in green political theory’. In K. Bäckstrand, Khan

, Kronsell

and E. Lövbrand (eds), Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy, pp. 47–66. Edward Elgar Publishing.

42.

Mathy

and Blanchard

2016. ‘Proposal for a poverty-adaptation-mitigation window within the Green Climate Fund’. Climate Policy 16 (6): 752–767. Crossref

43.

Metzger

, Soneryd

and Linke

2017. ‘The legitimisation of concern: A flexible framework for investigating the enactment of stakeholders in environmental planning and governance processes’. Environment and Planning A 49 (11): 2517–2535. Crossref

44.

Nasiritousi

, Hjerpe

and B.O. Linnér. 2014. ‘The roles of non-state actors in climate change governance: Understanding agency through governance profiles’. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 16: 109–126. Crossref

45.

Pallett

and Chilvers

2013. ‘A decade of learning about publics, participation, and climate change: Institutionalising reflexivity?’ Environment and Planning A 45 (5): 1162–1183. Crossref

46.

Rhodes

R.A.W

2007. ‘Understanding governance: Ten years on’. Organisation studies 28 (8): 1243–1264. Crossref

47.

Sconfienza

2015. ‘The narrative of public participation in environmental governance and its normative presuppositions’. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law 24 (2): 139–151. Crossref

48.

Swyngedouw

2005. ‘Governance innovation and the citizen: The Janus face of governance-beyond-the-state’. Urban studies 42 (11): 1991–2006. Crossref

49.

Tavory

and Timmermans

2014. Abductive analysis: Theorizing qualitative research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

50.

TC 2011a. Submissions by members of the Transitional Committee. Internal reference document-1, 26. The Transitional Committee p., UNFCCC.

51.

TC 2011b. Submissions by members of the Transitional Committee. Internal reference document-4. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC.

52.

TC 2011c. Submissions by members of the Transitional Committee. Internal reference document-5. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC.

53.

TC 2011d. Working Arrangements for the Transitional Committee for the Design of the Green Climate Fund. Note by the UNFCCC secretariat. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/tc_1_3_working_arrangements_for_the_tc_.pdf.

54.

TC 2011e. Workshop on the Role of the Green Climate Fund in Fostering Transformational Change, Engaging Civil Society and Leveraging the Private Sector. Discussion note. Second workshop. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/workshop_discussion_note.pdf

55.

TC 2011f. Workstream II: Governance and Institutional Arrangements. Scoping paper. TC-2/WSII/1. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/tc2_ws2_1_290611.pdf.

56.

TC 2011g. Workstream III: Operational Modalities Sub-workstream III.1: Finance Entry Points. Scoping Paper. TC-2/WSIII/1. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/tc2_ws3_1_300611.pdf.

57.

TC 2011h. Provisions of decision 1/CP.16 relevant to the work of the Transitional Committee for the design of the Green Climate Fund. TC-1/5. The Transitional Committee, UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/tc-1_5_provisions_of_1_cp_16_relevant_to_the_work_of_the_tc.pdf.

58.

UNDP 2011. Inputs to the GCF Transitional Committee on Workstreams II and IV; Issues Raised During the First Technical Workshop of the TC. New York: United Nations Development Programme. https://unfccc.int/files/cancun_agreements/green_climate_fund/application/pdf/undp_wsii_iv_080611.pdf.

59.

UN 1992. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. New York: United Nations.