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Power in the Public Sphere: The UN Climate Negotiations as a Contemporary International Public Sphere
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Power in the Public Sphere:
The UN Climate Negotiations as a Contemporary International Public Sphere
Simone Pulver
Brown University
Watson Institute for International Studies
Center for Environmental Studies
January 2004
Abstract The conundrum of international climate regulation is that it even exists. Global climate change has issue characteristics that pose major challenges to supporters of international climate policy. Nevertheless, the international community of states has embarked on a regulatory trajectory of binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, this trajectory lies much closer to the preferences of environmental NGOs than to the preferences of most fossil fuel companies and other conservative business interests. This article uses Habermas’ concept of the public sphere to explain the trajectory of the international climate policy and to analyze the environmental community’s success in shaping that trajectory in the face of strong opposition from the structurally and materially powerful oil industry. I argue that the particular institutional characteristics of the climate negotiations—their ideology of science-based environmental stewardship, their global scope, their emphasis on the public good, and their commitment to public access and participation—enable the participatory parity, rational debate about the common interest, and formation of strong public opinion which define a public sphere.
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Power in the Public Sphere:
The UN Climate Negotiations as a Contemporary International Public Sphere
Simone Pulver
Brown University
Watson Institute for International Studies
Center for Environmental Studies
January 2004
Abstract
The conundrum of international climate regulation is that it even exists. Global climate change
has issue characteristics that pose major challenges to supporters of international climate policy.
Nevertheless, the international community of states has embarked on a regulatory trajectory of
binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, this trajectory lies much
closer to the preferences of environmental NGOs than to the preferences of most fossil fuel
companies and other conservative business interests. This article uses Habermas’ concept of the
public sphere to explain the trajectory of the international climate policy and to analyze the
environmental community’s success in shaping that trajectory in the face of strong opposition
from the structurally and materially powerful oil industry. I argue that the particular institutional
characteristics of the climate negotiations—their ideology of science-based environmental
stewardship, their global scope, their emphasis on the public good, and their commitment to
public access and participation—enable the participatory parity, rational debate about the
common interest, and formation of strong public opinion which define a public sphere.
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