Chapter I: Introduction
1.6 Thesis Outline
This is a thesis by publication and consequently most of the chapters comprising the
body of the thesis have been prepared for peer-review journal publication. The
introduction, methodology (Chapter II), discussion (Chapter VII) and conclusion
(Chapter VIII) are the exceptions to this, as they are instead part of the ‘context statement’
separate sections corresponding to the different levels identified in the second research
question.
1. Chapter III explores the politics behind changing the global institution of
UNEP, and puts forward a number of options for UNEP to progress in form
and function without the ratification and/or participation of the US. This
article was published as a working paper with the Earth ESG (presented in this
thesis as Chapter III), and presented as a conference paper at the ESG 2014
Norwich Conference
2. Chapter IV examines the possibility of majority voting within the UNFCCC
by exploring the legal, political and institutional barriers and opportunities for
change in decision-making processes. A key finding is that majority voting is
both legally and politically possible and could enable a number of forms of
critical mass governance (CMG) without countries such as the US. A version
of this paper has been published as a peer-reviewed discussion paper with the
Frei Universitat Berlin (see Appendix II), and presented as a conference paper
at the 2014 ESG Norwich conference. The final version was published as a
peer-reviewed article with the international journal International Environmental Agreements (presented in this thesis as Chapter IV).
3. Chapter V explores how a 2015 climate treaty could effectively operate with
US legal participation. This is done by varying treaty structure and content to
allow for US participation through presidential-executive agreements. This
paper has been published as a peer-reviewed article with the international
4. Chapter VI addresses the opposite scenario by investigating how a 2015
climate treaty could operate effectively without US ratification. A suite of
measures including the incorporation of subnational actors in the US and both
facilitative and punitive non-party measures are highlighted and combined to
suggest different models for dealing with US non-participation in a future
climate agreement. This paper is in peer review with the international journal
Climate Policy (submitted draft presented in this thesis as Chapter VI).
Each chapter is preceded by a short preface outlining the contribution of the
research findings to the overall thesis and argument. The discussion chapter (Chapter VII)
brings together the findings of each chapter and synthesises them into two different
models for governing environmental issues without US ratification and/or participation.
This is then used as a basis for the construction of a conceptual framework for visualising
how a transformation towards these governance structures could occur. The results are
then placed in the context of the two framing debates explored previously. A version of
the discussion chapter has been accepted for presentation as a conference paper at the
2015 ESG Canberra conference. Following the discussion, a brief conclusion reviews the
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