A well-timed shift from local to global agreements accelerates climate change mitigation

This paper investigates the effectiveness of different policy strategies for achieving high participation in stronger mitigation commitments to combat climate change. It argues that a well-timed shift from local to global legally binding agreements can dramatically accelerate mitigation compared to using only local, only global, or both agreement types simultaneously. Local agreements promote and sustain mitigation commitments in early-adopting groups, while global agreements subsequently draw in late-adopting groups. The study suggests that focusing negotiations on local agreements initially, followed by a push for stringent global agreements, could be the most effective approach.

Vadim A. Karatayev, Vítor V. Vasconcelos, Anne-Sophie Lafuite, Simon A. Levin, Chris T. Bauch, Madhur Anand