Is a Breakthrough on Climate Change Governance on the Horizon?

The recently released Fifth Assessment report of the IPCC has highlighted again with unprecedented scope and insight the urgency of addressing climate change. The international community has pledged to devise the next international agreement on climate change by 2015, while the EU and in particular the Scandinavian countries have forged ahead advancing a variety of policies to respond to climate change. Similarly, regions, municipalities, and private actors across the world are also contributing to climate governance. This paper asks whether the world is reaching a tipping point where a breakthrough on climate change governance is near?. The answer is approached by contrasting the governance model within which the IPCC operates and the conditions of policy and governance interaction toward the more scientific foundations laid out by IPCC, with the range of multilateral climate governance, with experimental or transnational attempts at addressing climate change. The results indicate that while the two governance modes are linked, the center of gravity of the global response to climate change has shifted away from the United Nations negotiations. This shift provides opportunities but it also reveals great challenges for developing a pathway from knowledge to governance and climate action that can lead to an effective global response to climate change.