There is also the urgency of addressing this issue; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has underlined that the international community has a narrow window of opportunity to act to keep global temperature rise at safe levels.
[3] In the first decade of the 21st century, a paradox had arisen between rising awareness about the causes and consequences of climate change and an increasing concern that the issues that surround it represent an intractable problem.
This took the form of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), beginning with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992.
With the exception of the Kyoto Protocol, international agreements between nations had been largely ineffective in achieving legally binding emissions cuts.
[8] It commits all nations of the world to achieving a "balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century.
[11] The conference addressed nations from across the globe and sought to emulate the diplomatic success of the Montreal Protocol in phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals.
[14] These divides have fed into all issues of international climate governance, bringing with them questions of social justice and equity that remain current today.
In recent years, international trade, free capital flows and the development of some southern nations (for example China and India) have redefined global socio-economic and political relations.
First, where climate governance necessitates change at a behavioural level, there is a need to educate the public in order to achieve this (for example reducing car travel).
Significantly, the Kyoto Protocol offers participating countries three market based mechanisms as means to meeting their binding emissions reduction targets.
[21] It relies on measuring, monitoring and verification techniques to commensurate carbon, allowing seemingly disparate activities to appear on the same balance sheet.
Third, so-called "co-benefits"[24] such as health benefits through less air pollution or livelihood security through land restoration can be beneficial for individual countries.
[40] In addition, institutions encourage communication between different levels of power (local, regional, national and international) to govern resources, whilst also engaging a broad set of stakeholders e.g. NGOs and the public.
[38] Success has mainly been attributed to the fact that through adaptive governance, the social impact is dealt with locally to achieve a more effective result[41] whilst still allowing communication to flow between low to high levels of command.
For example, Brunner & Lynch in 2010 studied how the Barrow community in Alaska successfully communicated with local and regional governments to develop adaptive strategies for minimizing extreme weather impacts.
[42][43] Finally, using this experimental approach for such a precarious and influential system as our climate has been considered too risky, especially as Earth is potentially nearing the 2 degree global warming tipping point.
[44] Even with these limitations, adaptive governance is evidently a successful strategy at local scale in addressing unique climate change impacts on social systems.
Therefore, the idea of focusing on and monitoring localized problems to achieve a global goal may well be highly influential as the impacts of climate change become increasingly widespread and complex.
[46] Movement at a national level could also stimulate multilateral negotiations as some countries look set to press ahead with legally binding emissions cuts.
On 17 May 2011, the UK Government introduced the Fourth Carbon Budget which aims to "set an ambitious target in law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ... and build momentum toward a legally global climate change deal".
[51] This was prompted by the Paris Agreement, the emergence of climate-related legislation, the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board's Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and, most recently, the heightened awareness of physical impacts and risks detailed in the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Global Warming 1.5 °C.
[52] Recent studies highlight the growing importance of urban experiments, where cities are testing innovative solutions to address climate change through governance mechanisms that involve both public and private sectors.