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Pacific island countries have strong economic, political and environmental incentives to switch from imported fossil fuels to indigenous renewable energy technologies, and are well positioned to achieve such a switch, given their ample renewable energy potential as well as their ambitious renewable energy goals. For the Pacific island countries to reach these goals, however, they depend on donor funding. This paper therefore analyses energy-related aid to the South Pacific from 1990 through 2012, and specifically evaluates its development in three areas: energy technology, grid vs. off-grid solutions, and project components. Using data from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, I find a recent shift in donor thinking: donors have, over the past years, put greater emphasis on renewable energy, especially hydro and increasingly solar power. Donors have also invested more in off-grid solutions – often solar-powered. Finally, donors have begun to focus more on ‘software׳, that is, capacity-building, training and policy-making. If Pacific island countries, together with the donors, continue on this path, they are well-positioned to reach their ambitious renewable energy goals – and to serve as an example for other countries, both developing and developed, islands and non-islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der Klimawandel und die damit verbundenen Gefahren stellen ein großes und langfristiges Problem für die kleinen Inselstaaten dar. Schwierigkeiten bei der Klimaanpassung resultieren derzeit vor allem aus falschen Vorstellungen und mangelndem Wissen, problematischen Entscheidungsstrukturen sowie fehlenden Ressourcen und der Abhängigkeit von Gebern. Für eine Anpassungsstrategie ist neben der Unterstützung der Geberländer ein lokales empowerment erforderlich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the lobbying behavior of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) during international climate change negotiations. With limited resources, these NGOs need to strategically invest their resources to maximize impact. A key decision concerns the target of lobbying efforts: Whom do ngos lobby, and why? Two possible explanations are contrasted: influence and responsiveness. Accordingly, NGOs can focus on responsive targets that are likely to bring NGO input to the table or they can focus on influential targets whose voice is heard at the negotiation table. These two explanations are tested using data from a survey of NGOs active in international climate change negotiations. I find that NGOs strategically target their lobbying efforts, approaching both responsive and, more importantly, influential delegations. However, given that ngos primarily contact their home delegation, as well as the president of the negotiation session, further information on the nature and content of contacts between NGOs and government delegations is necessary for understanding NGO-government interactions in international climate change negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small island states have been able to obtain some remarkable achievements in the climate change negotiations by building a cohesive coalition, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Its cohesion, however, has been affected by changes in the UNFCCC process. The increase both in the number of issues on the climate agenda and the number of negotiation groups may have helped or hindered compromise and finding common ground. To track how AOSIS has fared in the climate change regime, the activities and positions of AOSIS, and of individual AOSIS members over three distinct periods (1995–2000, 2001–2005, 2006–2011) in the climate change regime, are compared. It is found that group activity has declined in relative terms and although there is overall agreement regarding mitigation and adaptation, there is less consensus regarding forestry (e.g. LULUCF and REDD) issues. However, despite controversies in some areas, AOSIS has remained a tightly coordinated and cohesive alliance that continues to be a key player in global climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-governmental organizations play an increasingly important role in the formation and implementation of environmental policies and institutions. The growing involvement of non-state actors in environmental governance is generally welcomed for two reasons: civil society presumably helps governments reach more effective and democratic agreements by providing information and legitimacy. Yet, there are reasons to doubt civil society’s capacity to fulfill these two functions. Many non-governmental organizations themselves lack democratic legitimacy; and weak international agreements are often the result not of lack of information, but of lack of political will. While non-state actors clearly have an important role to play in global environmental governance, this article calls for more research to identify when and how non-state actors indeed contribute to more effective and democratically more legitimate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While small island developing states (SIDS) are micro-contributors to anthropogenic climate change, they are among the most vulnerable to its impacts, with some islands even facing the possibility of extinction. Recognising their vital stake in an effective climate regime, small island states formed a negotiating group, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), to represent their interests in the international climate negotiations. Given their limited power, however, to what extent, and by what means, did AOSIS impact the climate regime? Assuming that both the process and outcome of negotiations depend largely on power, this article argues that low-power parties can nonetheless exert influence in international negotiations by ‘borrowing’ power, that is, by drawing on external power sources. A framework for analysis is thus developed and used to assess AOSIS's negotiating strategies and respective successes in the climate change regime from 1990 to 1997. As the analysis reveals, AOSIS made use of external sources of power over this period, and shaped the negotiations to a remarkable degree, much more so than the a priori power distribution would predict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]