Project properties
Title Bringing Paris Home: Analysing the feasibility of a two-level accountability ‘game’
Group Public Administration and Policy
Project type thesis
Credits 12
Supervisor(s) Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen
Examiner(s) Katrien Termeer
Contact info sylvia.karlsson-vinkhuyzen@wur.nl
Begin date 2018/02/14
End date 2018/12/31
Description The historic Paris Agreement (PA) provided a significant step in the efforts to establish a multilateral rule-based system to address climate change. It has over 170 parties who each have submitted a Nationally Determined Contribution – a pledge and plan of what mitigation efforts they are taking upon themselves. How much each country promises to do is entirely up to them – and currently the aggregate promises would lead to global warming of over 3 degrees – rather than the well below 2 or 1.5 that is the objective of the PA. One of the key design elements of the PA is, however, a ‘global stocktake’ in which its parties will every five years assess ‘collective progress towards achieving the purpose…and its long-term goal’ (Article 14.1). It is stipulated that the result of this stocktaking ‘shall inform parties in updating and enhancing their actions and support’ (Article 14.3). The idea is thus that every country shall reflect on the outcome of the global stocktake and use this as input to the revision of their NDC or the formulation of their subsequent one. The first GS will take place in 2023 but already in 2018 there will be a ‘practice run’ referred to in the PA as a Facilitative Dialogue – and now going under the name the Talanoa Dialogue.

A pre-condition for this ideally virtual cycle of global dialogue/stocktake and increased domestic ambition in NDCs is that there is a planning process at domestic level in countries that is timed in parallel or after the Talanoa Dialogue/global stocktake where the content of NDCs can be discussed and indeed revised. Very little is known, however, about what the processes look like through which countries have designed their NDCs, the role of parliaments and other key actors in these and what provisions have been made to revise NDCs in relation to the five year cycles of global stocktakes. This thesis project would contribute to get an overview of country approaches to link their national NDC revision process with the international review process in the Talanoa Dialogue in 2018 and in the global stocktakes as of 2023. The thesis could either aim for analysing and comparing national data (publically available climate policy and legislation) in a larger number of countries, or go for one or two countries and make in-depth case studies with field work and interviews into their domestic planning processes.

The work could include field work at climate meetings in Bonn in May 2018 and/or Katowice in December 2018, Bonn in May 2019 – but these have to be self-financed.
Used skills Research skills in the field of political science, public administration etc. Document analysis, interview skills, analytical ability
Requirements General requirements for writing a thesis with PAP, particularly well suited are MID students from the politics and governance and sustainability diplomacy tracks