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Berlin Sustainability Talk: From Copenhagen to Legoland? On the Rise of the Building Blocks Approach in International Climate Policy

Nov 25, 2010 | 02:00 PM

Lecture and discussion mit Dr. Robert Falkner, Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Robert Falkner reviews in his talk the options for future international climate policy after the 2009 Copenhagen conference. He argues that a major reassessment of the current approach to building a climate regime is required. This approach, which he and his colleagues refer to as the 'global deal' strategy, is predicated on the idea of negotiating a comprehensive, universal and legally binding treaty that prescribes, in a top-down fashion, generally applicable policies based on previously agreed principles. From a review of the history of the 'global deal' strategy from Rio (1992) to Kyoto (1997) and beyond he concludes that this approach has been producing diminishing returns for some time, and that it is time to consider an alternative path - if not goal - for climate policy.

An alternative that is most likely to move the world closer towards a working international climate regime is a 'building blocks' approach, which develops different elements of climate governance in an incremental fashion and embeds them in an international political framework. Falkner argues that this alternative is already emergent in international politics.

The talk will be held in English.

The Berlin Sustainability Talk is a monthly brown bag seminar at the Environmental Policy Research Centre (ffu). It presents a forum for discussion and exchange about ongoing research projects and recent trends in environmental policy research with scholars of other institutes, business representatives, politics, and public administrations as well as the interested public.

Time & Location

Nov 25, 2010 | 02:00 PM

Environmental Research Centre, Freie Universität Berlin, Ihnestraße 22, Berlin-Dahlem, Room 3.1c