Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
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.