Climate Diplomacy

Abstract

This article explores the diplomacy of climate change negotiations � their form, structure, and the principles that shaped them. It focuses on two interacting levels of climate change diplomacy � one empirical and one analytical. The first � the empirical level of analysis � examines the architecture of climate change negotiations, starting with the UN General Assembly resolution that set the terms of reference for the intergovernmental negotiating committee on a framework convention on climate change and ending with the sixteenth conference of parties in Canc�n, Mexico in December 2010. The second level of analysis locates the move from club to network forms of climate diplomacy on a larger canvas of debate about the nature, relevance, and adequacy of diplomacy in a complex and global world. The story explored here raises questions about legitimacy and effectiveness that are central to debates about global governance.