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International audience; Coalitions help smaller countries – who may be otherwise be unable to attend meetings such as COP26 in person – make their voice heard. Although coalitions are central to multilateral negotiations, and although an increasing number of coalitions are active in climate negotiations, they remain understudied. Our recent edited volume "Coalitions in the Climate Change Negotiations" (Klöck et al. 2020) therefore unpacks the landscape of coalitions in climate negotiations, examining coalition formation, maintenance, and effects. The contributions indicate that coalitions are closely related to negotiation dynamics; tend to remain once formed; and operate at different levels – which leads to a complex web of partially overlapping coalitions.; Les coalitions aident les petits pays - qui, autrement, ne seraient pas en mesure d'assister à des réunions telles que la COP26 - à faire entendre leur voix. Bien que les coalitions soient essentielles aux négociations multilatérales et qu'un nombre croissant d’entre elles soient actives dans les négociations sur le climat, elles restent peu étudiées. C'est pourquoi notre récent ouvrage "Coalitions in the Climate Change Negotiations" (Klöck et al. 2020) examine le paysage des coalitions dans les négociations sur le climat, en se penchant sur la formation, le maintien et les effets des coalitions. Les contributions indiquent que les coalitions sont étroitement liées à la dynamique des négociations, qu'elles ont tendance à se maintenir une fois constituées et qu'elles opèrent à différents niveaux - ce qui conduit à un réseau complexe de coalitions qui se chevauchent partiellement.

Coalitions play a central role in the international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. By getting together, countries join resources in defending their interests and positions. But building coalitions may come at a cost. Coalition positions are a result of compromise between their members, and thus the increase in bargaining power may come at a price if the preferences of their members are heterogeneous. Relying on automatic text analysis of written position papers submitted to the negotiations, I analyze the extent to which coalitions represent the preferences of their members and discuss whether this contributes to disproportionate policy responses at the international level. I focus on a recently formed coalition: the Like-Minded Developing Countries, a large and heterogeneous group that brings together emerging, oil-dependent and poor developing countries.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ecologia apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia A análise das perceções dos cidadãos acerca das alterações climáticas permite uma maior compreensão sobre como estes concebem e lidam com este problema e o que fazem em resposta. Foi o objetivo deste trabalho estudar as perceções da população de Penela acerca das alterações climáticas e vulnerabilidades locais, realizado através de um inquérito por questionário. Praticamente todos os inquiridos ouviram falar nas alterações climáticas, em especial pela comunicação social, e a percentagem de ceticismo é baixa. A amostra inquirida apresenta níveis de preocupação elevados e percecionasse como informada, no entanto, revela dificuldade em definir o que são as alterações climáticas. Poucos alteraram as suas ações e as mais praticadas são a reciclagem, separação do lixo, redução e reutilização de materiais e a poupança de água e energia. As alterações climáticas tendem a ser percecionadas como mais graves a nível mundial do que localmente mas a maioria dos inquiridos consideram-se já serem afetados pelas mudanças no clima. Quase todos os inquiridos consideram que lidar com as alterações climáticas é da responsabilidade de todos na sociedade e em particular, do governo nacional. Os problemas ambientais mais importantes são a poluição e os eventos meteorológicos extremos. Como problema não ambiental destacam a saúde. Caraterísticas socioecónomicas e demográficas como a idade, nível de escolaridade e profissão influenciaram as perceções dos inquiridos, em especial a escolaridade. Inquiridos com níveis de escolaridade mais elevados são os que se percecionam mais informados, preocupados e com mais tendência a agir. Espera-se que este estudo possa ser relevante para as autarquias locais na elaboração de políticas climáticas que envolvam os cidadãos. The analysis of citizens' perceptions on climate change provides a better understanding of how they conceive and deal with climate change and what they do in response. The objective of this work was to study the perceptions of the population of Penela on climate change and local vulnerabilities, conducted through a questionnaire survey. Virtually all respondents have heard about climate change, particularly in the media, and the percentage of skepticism is low. The surveyed sample has high levels of concern and perceive themselves as informed, however, reveals difficulty in defining what climate change is. Few have changed their actions and the most practiced are recycling, waste separation, reduction and reuse of materials and saving water and energy. Climate change tends to be perceived as more grave worldwide than locally but most respondents already consider themselves to be affected by climate change. Almost all respondents consider that dealing with climate change is the responsibility of everyone in society and in particular the national government. The most important environmental problems are pollution and extreme weather events. As a non-environmental problem, they highlight health. Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics such as age, educational level and profession were found to influence the citizen's perceptions on climate change, specially the educational level. Respondents with higher levels of education are the ones who perceive themselves to be more informed, concerned and more likely to act. It is hoped that this study may be relevant to local authorities in shaping climate policies that involve citizens.

Many multilateral environmental agreements have adopted differentiated rules for different countries, based on the recognition of the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDRs) of states. By establishing two rigid groups of countries with and without emissions reduction obligations, the intergovernmental climate regime represents the most extreme case of such differentiation. The regime has struggled to overcome this rigidity and the resulting political deadlock between developing and developed countries. Transnational climate governance (TCG) initiatives have emerged as an alternative to provide mitigation, adaptation or finance outside the multilateral process. By drawing on synergies between public and private actors, it is hoped that they overcome the paralysis of the intergovernmental process. Yet, they take place in the same world of unequal peers, with different levels of capacity and responsibility for climate change. This article investigates the extent to which such TCG initiatives reflect the CBDR principle. Do different types of initiative – involving different types of actor or with different climate-related goals – address differentiation in distinct ways? Does taking account of CBDRs affect the membership of transnational initiatives? This article explores these questions empirically by analyzing a sample of TCG initiatives in terms of how they include differential treatment of states and non-state members. It concludes that TCG initiatives address differentiation in a pragmatic way. Most frequently, they either offer participants flexibility in how to implement their commitments, or provide support to members from developing countries. Such support is, so far, still insufficient to address the limited involvement of developing country actors.

Classification (PsychINFO): 3000 Social Psychology 3040 Social Perception & Cognition 4070 Environmental questions e attitudes People’s knowledge and beliefs about intangible problems such as climate change rely heavily on mediated discourses of science and policy. This thesis employs a dialogical and rhetorical approach to social representations to examine how two mediating systems -the mainstream press and environmental non-governmental organizations- represent and reconstruct climate change. The first empirical chapter focuses on the articles published over one decade (1999-2009) in the mainstream Turkish press. The analyses reveal that climate change emerged as a matter of public concern after 2005 in relation to the ecological extremes faced with in the country (Study 1), and that high levels of dramatization in the press in this national context were achieved by drawing on these local impacts and dire risks, and divorcing them from the global and political aspects of the problem (Study 2). Through this separation between the global and the local, and by reconstructing an image of solid scientific knowledge, a hegemonic representation of a serious ‘human-caused threat’ was established, without identifying by whom or how it would be dealt with (Study 3). The second empirical chapter focuses on the interviews (N=22) with non-governmental actors involved in climate change information and policy in Turkey and Portugal. The analyses show that when responding to less reflexive tasks, the non-governmental experts also confine themselves to the hegemonic representation: ‘a human caused problem’ (Study 4). Yet, in their reflexive representations, they focus more on the solutions to the problem, bringing into play, contrasting and reconciling two more representations: ‘an environmental problem’ and ‘a socio-political problem’ (Study 5). It is shown how these representations interfere with each other in two argumentative contexts, in which the interviewees organized the points of agreement and disagreement in a way which makes their views more acceptable to others (Study 6). Overall, these studies show that, in pursuit of persuasion, the mainstream press mainly resorted to a unifying threat and to emotions, whereas the non-governmental actors resorted to negotiation and reconciliation of divergent views.