Off the Beaten Track

Four new research reports have been published under the COP21 RIPPLES project funded under the European Horizon 2020 research programme. Building on previous analysis the four reports analyse specific issue areas: the role of the financial system in catalysing transformative change, international technology and innovation governance as well as sectoral decarbonization clubs as a specific means to close some of the governance gaps identified in previous analysis.
Collectively these four reports propose challenges to the EU and the incoming European Commission that can lead to the reorientation of its climate-related foreign policy and offer inspiration for how to engage constructively and in the spirit of the Paris Agreement in the international realm:

Deliverable 4.3a: From transformational climate finance to transforming the financial system for climate
It is only very recent that financial sector governance has started to include environmental perspectives and to accept a responsibility to contribute proactively to the global transformation towards sustainability. The analysis entitled "From transformational climate finance to transforming the financial system for climate" by Hugues Chenet (University College London), Luis Zamrioli, Bianka Kretschmer and Rodrigo Narvaez (former Climate Analytics) traces this paradigm shift, dissects the underlying theories and narratives that dominate governance of the financial system and compares the specific governance approaches of the EU and China.

Deliverable 4.3b: International Technology and Innovation Governance for Addressing Climate Change: Options for the EU
The second contribution is a major cross-cutting theme which emerged as salient in all of the sectoral analysis performed in the previous task WP4.2: the role of technological innovation and transfer of sustainable zero-carbon technologies. In their contribution "International Technology and Innovation Governance for Addressing Climate Change: Options for the EU" the authors Tomas Wyns, Gauri Khandekar and Lisanne Groen (Vrije Universiteit Brussels – Institute for Environmental Studies – VUB-IES) develop a novel typology of innovation, and systematically assess national (US, EU, China) innovation systems, bilateral (US-China, EU-China, EU-US) technology cooperation, as well as international governance of climate technology.

Deliverable 4.3c: A Sectoral Perspective on Climate Clubs
The third theme differs from the previous two in that it does not relate to a cross-cutting aspect of sectoral transformation such as technology/innovation and finance, but concerns a specific means of governance: the promise and potential of decarbonisation clubs. In their contribution "A Sectoral Perspective on Climate Clubs" (Wolfgang Obergassel, Hanna Wang-Helmreich, and Lukas Hermwille from the Global Climate Governance Research Unit in the Energy, Transport and Climate Policy Division at the Wuppertal Institute systematically review the existing literature on climate or decarbonisation clubs and advance on it by proposing to focus decarbonisation clubs on specific sectors. Building on the sectoral analysis of previous task they go on to discuss the generic potential to close the identified governance gaps of a sectoral decarbonisation club for three sectors, namely land-based transportation, power generation and energy-intensive industries.

Deliverable 4.3d: Exploring the Prospects for a Sectoral Decarbonisation Club in the Steel Industry
This stream of research is further advanced in a fourth contribution: In "Exploring the Prospects for a Sectoral Decarbonization Club in the Steel Industry" Lukas Hermwille specifically explores potential club benefits, incentives for members as well as challenges to the establishment of a sectoral decarbonisation club in the steel industry. The paper concludes by providing a first conceptual sketch of how such a steel sector club could be configured.

For updated information on publications and the COP 21 RIPPLES project can be found under the links below.