Multilateralism for Whom? The Politics of Transparency in the Global Climate Regime

Climate change is, at its core, a political problem. Who is responsible to take action? What actions are needed? Who pays? This thesis examines how these politics permeate into the global climate regime’s seemingly technical reporting and review requirements, also called transparency arrangements. The hope is that transparency will hold less ambitious countries to account and facilitate enhanced climate action from all. In practice, this thesis finds limited evidence of transparency fulfilling those objectives. Rather, transparency rules and their implementation reflect and reinforce the broader political contestations of the global climate regime, wherein developed country priorities of common responsibility and a focus on mitigation tend to prevail over developing country priorities of differentiated responsibility and climate finance. This finding calls into question the conceptualization of transparency arrangements, and the Paris Agreement more generally, as a neutral institutional mechanism. Instead, this thesis supports the conceptualization of such mechanisms as sites of politics and steering that merit further scrutiny.