For a long time it has been argued that climate challenges, such as climate change, can be best addressed on the international stage. But the inertia on the international political stage in recent years has contributed to a “polycentric approach” (Ostrom) to addressing the multifarious problems of climate challenges. Thus, climate governance is being understood as multi-level and multi-actor system. The “Agenda 21” of the UN-Summit in Rio provided the first conceptual basis for this approach. The multi-level system, in which climate governance takes place, seems to provide the most advanced experience as a global system with typical horizontal and vertical dynamics, supporting innovation and lesson-drawing.

Speaker such as Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Prof. Dr. Martin Jänicke, Environmental Policy Research Centre, Prof. Dr. Hans Bruyninckx, European Environmental Agency, Dr. Halldór Thorgeirsson, United Nations Climate Change Secretariat and Prof. Dr. Laurence Tubiana, Special Representative of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will elaborate on the question whether the multi-level system of climate governance has become a global system with an inherent logic and dynamics. All in all, the conference “Towards a Global System of Multi-Level Climate Governance” seeks to understand the dynamics of climate politics in a multi-level governance system. In doing so, the conference brings together selected researchers and practitioners in the field of global climate governance to discuss its inherent logic, vertical and horizontal dynamics as well as its constraints and possibilities. The Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU), Free University Berlin, in co-operation with the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS), Potsdam, will held the conference on 08 September 2014 at the IASS in Potsdam.

Here you can see the program of the conference and information about the venue.