Summary

This scientific paper argues that a framework for understanding prospects for reform must combine perspectives about agency and architecture in order to gain insights into the coming together of the supply and demand of reform proposals. An international institution that faces growing calls for reform is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In this paper, UNFCCC reform options are examined through an interview study with a range of stakeholders.

This article is published by the scientific journal Earth System Governance. 

Key messages

• The authors highlight that there must be demand for reforms and supply of viable reform proposals for key actors to agree on, where trust is a conditioning factor. Prospects for reform thus depend on the extent to which key demands and key reform ideas match amongst key sets of actors and alignment could be spurred by agency and mediated by trust.
• By using the UNFCCC as a case, we find that one of the key issues hindering progress toward reform is diverging views on what the role of the UNFCCC should be as the regime moves into an implementation stage. The UNFCCC is the only global legal framework for climate cooperation and its legislative or negotiating function remains central even in the era of implementation.
• The legislative role of COPs is important to maintain for outstanding issues of fossil fuels phase out, adaptation, finance, loss and damage, and other aspects of reaching global net-zero emissions and beyond.