9 Global Governance 385 (2003)
Climate Govenance beyond the State

handle is hein.journals/glogo9 and id is 395 raw text is: Global Governance 9 (2003), 385-399 Climate Governance Beyond the State Sverker C. Jagers and Johannes Stripple hen the new Bush administration, announced in March 2001 that the United States would abandon the 1997 Kyoto protocol, governments, media, and environmental organizations all launched major protests. The statement by John Prescott (UK deputy prime minister) that the Kyoto protocol is the only game in town was significant for these protests.' It is, however, only in a very limited sense that the Kyoto protocol, or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, can be conceived of as the only game in town. In this article, we maintain that both the will and the capacity to govern the atmosphere is diffused among several governors. Our understanding of climate governance is derived from more general approaches to global governance, leading us to suggest that global cli- mate governance should refer to all purposeful mechanisms and meas- ures aimed at steering social systems toward preventing, mitigating, or adapting to the risks posed by climate change. Proceeding from such a conception, global (climate) governance must not be performed by states only; it is also a matter for other authorities-for example, non- governmental organizations and epistemic communities. In line with this reasoning, we argue that private authority is an important form of climate governance and that several of the climate-related measures taken by the insurance industry ought to be viewed as instances of global climate governance. Further, the emergence of the insurance industry in climate politics raises questions not just about the efficiency and equity of governance necessary for mitigating climate change, but also about the much less debated governance required for adapting to climate change. Defining Global (Climate) Governance The absorptive capacity of the atmosphere is a limited resource in the sense that the quantity and physical quality of emissions is a matter of 385

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