Comparing National Responses to Climate Change: Networks, Discourse, and Action

Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (Compon) is an international research project on the factors that determine the capacity and success of nations and global agreements to reduce levels of atmospheric greenhouse gasses.  Countries and their policy actors have developed a range of responses to GCC from some positive action to outright denial with crucial effects upon global agreements. The Compon project currently includes research teams in 13 countries and at the international level, with more in formation, including largest emitters as well as other significant cases.  The information network of climate change information from the IPCC constitutes a common golden thread.  How each socio-political field processes this information determines its response.  The Compon project focuses on the interactions among domestic and international organizations in this field.  The teams use common methods to collect data on national discourse networks and action networks.  This data allows empirical tests on hypothesized effects: stakeholder participation on diffusion of scientific acceptance; formation, membership and orientations of advocacy coalitions; bridging and bonding ties among groups; cultural evaluation of science and nature; intensity of dominant interest group defense of carbon-based economy; legitimacy and activism of domestic scientific establishment; political institutions; activism of civil society. The Compon project is establishing a global social science research and data network on climate change as a panel study that will monitor national and global reactions into the future as climate change effects intensify. The data will be put into a public use dataset. The project welcomes new teams and collaborators.