Toward De- Centred Climate Change Governance in South Asia

1. Toward De-Centred Climate Change Governance in South Asia Navroz K. Dubash Centre for Policy Research Presented at IUCN Commission on Environmental Law Conference on Climate Change Law and Governance in South Asia New Delhi August 13-14, 2010

2. Stepping Back • Climate Change governance • Do we have climate change governance in India/South Asia? • Do we need climate change governance? • If no, business as usual • If yes … • How should climate change governance be conceptualized? • What are the objectives of climate change governance? • How should climate change governance be implemented?

3. Conceptualizing CC GovernanceWhy a Co-Benefits Framing? • Co-benefits: Climate change co-benefits of development actions • Political acceptability and principle • Historical responsibility and differentiated responsibility • Regulating carbon is hard • Requires a transmission mechanism to existing governance framework • Carbon markets unlikely to serve this need • Sectoral approach • Institutions are organized around sectors, not carbon • Challenge is to integrate climate objectives into existing institutions

4. Objectives of CC Governance • Promoting mitigation and adaptation as part of a multiple objective problem (co-benefits) • Identify full range of co-benefits • Do existing mechanisms capture the range? • Accelerate implementation of co-benefits actions • Climate as a political opportunity to better implement what we should do anyway • Identifying and costing climate (non co-benefits) measures • Dynamic: anticipating changing trajectories • Mitigation • Adaptation

5. Implementing CC GovernanceApproach • Beyond old school top-down command and control regulation • Expand the toolkit • Multiple levels and institutions • Role of procedures and information • Role of socialization

6. Implementing CC GovernanceWhere are we now? • Stroke of the Pen Regulation • Top down • Command and control • Legislation or policy led • Eg. Vehicle standards, mandatory building codes • Note that these are not carbon based

7. Implementing CC GovernanceExpanding the Toolkit • Regulation and (environmental) governance • Reflexive law • Governance as learning through communicative rationality • Multilevel Governance • Integration across scales • Global Administrative Law • Procedural safeguards as an instrument of accountability

8. CC Governance as Multi-Level • Ministries • Urban and local bodies • Municipalities • Panchayats • Regulators for electricity, water • Professional associations and other such “gatekeepers” • Educational institutions • Networks

9. Role of Procedures and Information • Force consideration of options by bureaucracies • E.g. Carbon accounting for infrastructure • Procedures as a “contingent opportunity structure” • Create spaces for action • Enabled by information • E.g. Regulatory hearings • Enables mobilization of interested parties • “Beneficiaries of compliance” e.g.. Solar industry • “Victims of non-compliance” e.g. Representatives of flood prone areas • Positive feedback with global climate change regime • reporting mechanism

10. Processes of Socialization • From a “logic of consequences” to a “logic of appropriateness” • Institutions as site of socialization • E.g. Associations of architects • Importance of communicative rationality • Webs of dialogue/circles of deliberation • Model-mongers and norm entrepreneurs • E.g.. Friedman: IT meets ET • Shifts in epistemic communities • E.g. From state-led electricity to electricity markets to clean energy services

11. Concluding Thoughts • Co-benefits should be more than laissez faire • Approach: Harness and steer rather than dictate or override • Short run change will come by shifting incentives • Long run change will come through re-aligning goals and processes of socialization • Need attention to • Multiple levels • Multiple institutions • Multiple levers

12. Thank you ndubash@gmail.com

13. Conceptualizing CC GovernanceWhat Approach in Practice? • Sectoralapproach: beyond mitigation and adaptation • Focus on leveraging and using institutions, at multiple scales • Broaden range of institutions, regulatory levers and approaches