ABSTRACT In 2015, an Agreement was made in Paris at the 21st conference of the Parties of the UN. The purpose of the Paris Agreement was to collectively target climate change and keep the global warming under 2°C. Since then, the strength of this Agreement has been evaluated in numerous ways, optimists and pessimists present arguments for different theories and opinions. While some argue that the agreement is too weak because of its non-binding features and vagueness, others argue that the very same vagueness has opened up a new door. To contribute with a new perspective, the aim of this study is to describe and analyse different conceptions of nature in the Nationally Determined Contributions submitted to the Paris Agreement by Parties who signed it. Based on previous research about different conceptions of nature, an analytical framework is built and used through a text analysis of some of the Contributions. The findings of this qualitative, descriptive case study are meant to create a deeper understanding of the Contributions made to the Paris Agreement, describing if different conceptions of nature are found and whether this affects the way the Parties aim to tackle the climate crisis.

This paper is a qualitative text analysis with a purpose of evaluating strengths and weaknesses of the Paris Agreement in the light of the eight design principles of Elinor Ostrom's theory on how to govern the common resources. The eight design principles are; clearly defined boundaries, congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions, collective-choice arrangements, monitoring, graduated sanctions, conflict-resolution mechanisms, minimal recognition of rights to organize, nested enterprises. These principles then lay the ground for the chosen methodological framework. Processes of categorization and coding the Agreement into categories based upon the eight principles then allows for an understanding of strengths and weaknesses shown in the Agreement, in relation to the theory. The result is then also discussed in relation to further considerations that might be important factors to take into account when understanding the Paris Agreement. The paper is based around the document on the Paris Agreement as well as the book by Ostrom named Governing the Commons “The Evolution of Institutions for CollectiveAction”. Further documents and articles are presented throughout the paper, especially in the analysis and discussion to provide for a wider picture on the subject and to avoid an all-biased paper.

Magister Legum - LLM / Global climate change is a serious, severe, and potentially irreversible problem. If no actions are taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures and sea levels will rise, wreaking havoc on earth, particularly in developing countries. The Stockholm Declaration of 1972 facilitated the first international consensus concerning the application of CBDR to international environmental problems. This was in reaction to the developing countries refusal to adhere to the same standards as the developed countries as they perceived this as a burden to their economic growth, which is unjust due to the developed countries historical culpability.

In 2015, the COP21 creates a new hybrid mode of multilateral governance, which aims to make the action of non-states actors a bridge between the political commitments and the government’s actions. The business world is one of these actors with ambitious new roles to implement the Paris Agreements and its NDCs. Yet it seems that nobody has yet questioned whether companies can also act as leaders at their level or at least help their country/organisation to take the lead. To understand how business perceived their roles in the governance landscape post Paris-Agreement, several questions were asked to see what kind of leadership themselves were looking for. Who are the designated leaders for business when it comes to climate leadership? How have them evolved ? Why are they recognized as such? And what is the role of business in delivering Parties' NDCs in the post Paris-Agreement area? Thanks to a unique data collection of questionnaires distributed on COP22 to 25, it appeared that European leadership is not only the most consistent but also the most recognised, although the other EU partners in the BIG3 are far from demeriting. As the issue is particularly political, it was found that the recognition of leadership is not only due to certain leaders but also to many laws, which create and restrict many opportunities for business. The history and culture of the countries concerned also provided many answers. Finally, it seemed unanimous that a cooperative work between governments and business would allow a better and faster reach of both NDCs and SDGs.

In 2015, the COP21 creates a new hybrid mode of multilateral governance, which aims to make the action of non-states actors a bridge between the political commitments and the government’s actions. The business world is one of these actors with ambitious new roles to implement the Paris Agreements and its NDCs. Yet it seems that nobody has yet questioned whether companies can also act as leaders at their level or at least help their country/organisation to take the lead. To understand how business perceived their roles in the governance landscape post Paris-Agreement, several questions were asked to see what kind of leadership themselves were looking for. Who are the designated leaders for business when it comes to climate leadership? How have them evolved ? Why are they recognized as such? And what is the role of business in delivering Parties' NDCs in the post Paris-Agreement area? Thanks to a unique data collection of questionnaires distributed on COP22 to 25, it appeared that European leadership is not only the most consistent but also the most recognised, although the other EU partners in the BIG3 are far from demeriting. As the issue is particularly political, it was found that the recognition of leadership is not only due to certain leaders but also to many laws, which create and restrict many opportunities for business. The history and culture of the countries concerned also provided many answers. Finally, it seemed unanimous that a cooperative work between governments and business would allow a better and faster reach of both NDCs and SDGs.

Thesis Title: Globalization and its effects on law This thesis deals with the phenomenon of globalization and its consequences for law. Due to the fact, that the concept of globalization is very extensive, the thesis focuses only on selected aspects of law as a social phenomenon. In this sense, law is perceived as a political tool for the involvement of other subjects in its creation, which naturally leads to the disruption of the centuries-old role of the state as a hegemon of legislative norm-making. The thesis is divided into three parts, whilst the first chapter focuses on the phenomenon and genesis of globalization as such. It points to its frequent criticisms and concludes that, despite all the shortcomings, it is a very positive process, which ultimately makes the world society as a whole wealthier. Recently, however, the concept of globalization has been discussed at political levels, especially in the context of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016. The aim of this chapter is to point out the fact that even these elections need to be perceived from the perspective of disillusionment with the process of globalization and its non- economical and rather cultural aspects. However, it must be said that this hypothesis has only been confirmed indirectly and it is appropriate to...

In December 2015, the world leaders gathered in Paris trying to address the urging challenges with climate change. The product of this meeting is called the Paris Agreement. Beforehand, many argued that another failure could not be accepted and the policymakers must let science influence the policy process. The aim of this study was to explore, through the epistemic community approach, in what way IPCC where able to influence the Paris Agreement. The results shows that the Paris Agreement was highly influenced under the topic sustainable development, while IPCCs assessments for mitigation and adaption was partly implemented.

This paper aims to study Swedish newspapers and their reporting on climate change and the climate threat in regard to different discourses. The two discourses, one regarding rhetoric controlled by a mindset of chatastrophy and the other concerning responsibility were discussed in relation to the content of the Paris agreement. The agreement also functioned as the chosen time period for the essay. This means articles from 2015 and forward were analyzed and the discussed. The methods used for the study were critical discourse analysis which was created by Norman Fairclough in combination with theories regarding policymaking and represented problems, a theory and method created by Carol Lee Bacchi. The essay’s results focused on the two discourses and the content of the Paris agreement, in these the discourses were identified and analysed. The conclusions showed that the rhetoric surrounding climate change was influenced by a doomsday an chatastrophic influenced rhetoric that affected the articles and opinions. Another conclusion showed that in relation to the Paris agreement the question of responsibility was placed on the more developed countries in the agreement but in the media the responsibility was more abstract and concerned a more unclear version of humanity. Therefore the blame for climate change is unclear and uncertain.

Climate change has become a catalyst for global action on greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change orchestrated the Paris Agreement to propel the international community towards implementing definitive carbon abatement plans. These policy commitments are known as Nationally Determined Contributions. However, as of yet many signatories to the Agreement are struggling to align their mitigation pledge with domestic policies. The energy sector is one of the key industries implicit in this carbon abatement process. New energy policies will need to be radically reoriented towards a low-carbon trajectory. In the literature, this pursuit is classed as a socio-technical transition. The Philippines is severely vulnerable to the risks posed by extreme weather patterns exaggerated by increasing temperatures. The country has actively engaged with the climate change discourse but recent trends demonstrate a reversal in low-carbon energy sector planning. Its status as an emerging economy with high potential GDP growth rates increases the urgency to act now to avoid becoming locked-in to an outdated energy system. A discourse and thematic analysis was conducted on key Philippine government texts concerning future energy policy. The approach enabled an exploration of the mechanisms underlying power sector governance in the context of the Paris Agreement. The multi-level perspective provided a conceptual framework for the findings, and enabled the identification of relationships and antagonism within discourses linked to energy system. This framework breaks down the system into three tiers and facilitates analysis of the interplay between landscape pressures, regime resistance and niche experimentation. The results indicated a disparity between the two government agencies on the necessity of low-carbon sector planning. The Philippine Climate Change Commission correlated the benefits of carbon abatement much more closely with the wider goals of sustainable development. The department of energy meanwhile advocated fossil fuel capacity building to meet economic requirements. Divergence in storylines led to a poor alignment between domestic energy policy and the aims of the Paris Agreement. An appreciation of the barriers to a unified overarching mitigation discourse, will assist in the creation of long-term abatement strategies required by the Paris Agreement.

As climate change continues to permeate the current political discourse and its effects becomes increasingly visible, the way countries respond to the situation is crucial for determining the extent of future environmental degradation. The Paris Agreement is an attempt to mitigate and adapt to the situation, however the western values tied to it have been criticised. The effectiveness of democracy in environmental protection has been questioned, especially its ties to capitalism and individualism. This thesis uses the theory of authoritarian environmentalism to investigate this debate and see whether the claims have any legitimacy in the context of the Paris Agreement and the promises made in relation to it.     This thesis is a structured focused comparison which compares the policies and projects in three democratic and three autocratic African countries in close geographical proximity and similar environmental situations, to investigate if and in what way the type of government affects the promises made, and whether they are kept, to the Paris Agreement and its signatories. The indicators used for the thesis include policies and internationally funded projects, due to their accessibility, however it is worth noting that they only give a crude approximation of the activities and ambition in the countries, with several others having important roles.    The quality of the six countries’ Intended Nationally Determined Contributions is investigated and followed up with an evaluation of some of the projects active to examine if the countries are implementing their promised efforts, already in these early, yet important, stages of the Agreement. In addition, the theory is applied to the countries’ efforts and some conclusions are reached, including the overall good quality of the countries’ environmental work and confirming that authoritarian countries can produce quality policies, while still having lacking areas, similar to their democratic counterparts, pointing to the complexity of the topic.