In recent years, the private insurance sector has started to incorporate cli- mate change issues into its standard business practices and even begun to lobby governments to regulate and reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The establishment of the ClimateWise Principles (ClimateWise) in 2007 embodies this effort. ClimateWise is an example of what scholars studying corporate strategy identify as a self-regulatory institution. To date, however, academic scholarship has failed to explain the emergence and func- tion of ClimateWise, a unique initiative designed to leverage the insurance industry’s technical and political authority in governing climate change risks. This article will make the case that ClimateWise emerged in response to strategic incentives to reduce exposure to climate change risks, but that the form of this unusual self-regulatory institution was driven by institutional conditions.

"Private voluntary programs for environmental improvement expanded rapidly in both number and scope over the past decade, particularly at the international level. At present, a wide range of international “green” initiatives is available to firms, including those specifically geared toward mitigating climate change. Voluntary climate programs range from those targeted at specific production sectors such as automobiles, food or forests dealt with later in this book, to those that cut across sectors, such as measures that embrace the financial industry and its practices. Because financial firms are the gatekeepers to capital for the real economy, they represent leverage points that have significant influence across the economy as a whole. Voluntary private programs such as these are increasingly promoted by states as viable means by which to promote sustainable development. Despite this attention, it is still unclear whether participation in private voluntary programs results in significant improvements in the environmental performance of firms.
In this chapter we focus on problems identified with private voluntary programs in general, and assess whether those problems play themselves out in voluntary climate change programs designed for the financial sector. We argue that although aspirations are high for international voluntary corporate initiatives broadly, these initiatives embody flaws that must be taken seriously. For this reason, we
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argue, any suggestion that state-based regulation should be scaled back for firms engaging in voluntary measures should be viewed skeptically. In the case of private voluntary programs that embrace the financial sector, the problems tend to be amplified because many climate-based voluntary measures are connected in generating a market signal that could unlock the financial sector’s resources to impose a cross-sectoral cost structure on GHG emissions. 
In this chapter we focus on problems identified with private voluntary programs in general, and assess whether those problems play themselves out in voluntary climate change programs designed for the financial sector. We argue that although aspirations are high for international voluntary corporate initiatives broadly, these initiatives embody serious flaws that must be taken seriously. For this reason, we argue, any suggestion that state-based regulation should be scaled back for firms engaging in voluntary measures should be viewed skeptically. In the case of private voluntary programs that embrace the financial sector, the problems tend to be amplified because many climate-based voluntary measures are connected in generating a market signal that could unlock the financial sector’s resources to impose a cross-sectoral cost structure on GHG emissions.
""

Scholars of global environmental politics (GEP) have devoted little attention to the study of international accounting standards. This neglect is due to the technical language of accounting standards and a paucity of understanding on the
political connections between these standards and environmental outcomes. As a first step to correcting this neglect, this article shows how the accounting technicalities of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) mask important political choices influencing the environment.

Abstract: This thesis asked two research questions: 1) how are the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and ClimateWise designed to achieve their objectives and 2) what explains the emergence of these unique initiatives? In answer to the first question, the thesis argues that the CDSB and ClimateWise adopt an “unconventional” approach to environmental co-regulation that embraces what I call “cognitive governance” within accounting (CDSB) and insurance (ClimateWise) markets.

L'augmenta on incessante de la présence de dioxyde de carbone dans l'atmosphère est une cer tude, même pour le plus sep que des scien fiques. Ce qui est moins certain, ce sont les conséquences; la climatologie n'est pas une science avancée au point où les prévisions climatologiques pour les décennies à venir seraient aussi fiables que les prévisions météorologiques des semaines à venir.

In recent years, the private insurance sector has started to incorporate cli- mate change issues into its standard business practices and even begun to lobby governments to regulate and reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The establishment of the ClimateWise Principles (ClimateWise) in 2007 embodies this effort. ClimateWise is an example of what scholars studying corporate strategy identify as a self-regulatory institution. To date, however, academic scholarship has failed to explain the emergence and function of ClimateWise, a unique initiative designed to leverage the insurance industry’s technical and political authority in governing climate change risks. This article will make the case that ClimateWise emerged in response to strategic incentives to reduce exposure to climate change risks, but that the form of this unusual self-regulatory institution was driven by institutional conditions.

The 2008 financial crisis has had an important, but neglected, impact on carbon market governance in the United States. It acted as a catalyst for the emergence of a domestic coalition that drew upon the crisis experience to demand stronger regulation over carbon markets. The influence of this coalition was seen first in the changing content of draft climate change bills between 2008 and 2010. But the coalition’s more lasting legacy was its role in shaping the content of, and supporting, the passage of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd–Frank bill) in July 2010. Although that bill was aimed primarily at bolstering financial stability, its derivatives provisions strengthened carbon market regulation in significant ways. This policy episode demonstrates new patterns of coalition building in carbon market politics as well as the growing links between climate governance and financial regulatory politics. At the same time, the significance of these developments should not be overstated because of various limitations in the content and implementation of the Dodd–Frank bill, as well as the waning support for carbon markets more generally within the US since the bill’s passage.

Flood insurance has remained unavailable in Canada based on an assessment that it lacks
economic viability. In response to Canada’s costliest flood event to date in 2013, the Canadian
insurance industry has started to develop a framework to expand existing property insurance
to cover flood damage. Research on flood insurance has overlooked why and how
insurance systems transition to expand insurance coverage without evidence of economic
viability. This article will address this gap through a case study on the emergence of flood
insurance in Canada, and the approach to its expansion. Between 2013 and 2016, insurance
industry officials representing over 60% of premiums collected in Canada were interviewed.
These interviews revealed that flood insurance is being expanded in response to institutional
pressure, specifically external stakeholder expectations that the insurance industry will adopt
a stronger role in managing flood risk through coverage of flood damage. Further evidence
of this finding is explored by assessing the emergence of a unique flood insurance model that
involves a risk-adjusted and optional product along with an expansion of government policy
supporting flood risk mitigation. This approach attempts to balance industry concerns about
economic viability with institutional pressure to reduce flood risk through insurance. This
analysis builds on existing research by providing the first scholarly analysis of flood insurance
in Canada, important “empirical” teeth to existing conceptual analysis on the availability of
flood insurance, and the influence of institutional factors on risk analysis within the insurance
sector.

Based on archival sources, this article analyzes the Canadian contribution to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. It finds that continental imperatives were of pivotal importance in the development of Canadian foreign environmental policy at the Stockholm conference and its preparatory meetings. In the context of the passage of Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, Canadian diplomats set out to use the 1972 conference as a tool to fuel the progressive development of international environmental law and to generate support for a set of marine pollution principles. Following the conference, Canadian officials employed the gains achieved at Stockholm to legitimize and institutionalize the government’s unilateral Arctic anti-pollution measures. In so doing, the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau sought multilateral solutions to bilateral problems in the environmental sphere.

This article tests three hypotheses concerning the influence of international secretariats in world politics.  This is a topic that has so far received limited systematic attention by International Relations theorists, who have tended to regard secretariats as bit players in global affairs.  Drawing on institutional design literature, I develop a detailed theoretical explanation for both secretariat leadership and state mastery of international organizations.  Because powerful actors anticipate channels for informal influence when designing secretariats, they seek to maximize formal bureaucratic autonomy.  I assess the explanatory power of this theory through an analysis of negotiations over the design of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).  A detailed archival investigation reveals that powerful countries, led by the United States, sought to maximize the autonomy of the UNEP secretariat.  Developing countries, which expected to exert less informal influence on the new secretariat, sought to ensure strong intergovernmental control over UNEP’s secretariat. Since UNEP has been a frequently cited example of secretarial leadership and initiative, finding that the UNEP secretariat’s ability to act autonomously was in significant part determined by past institutional design choices holds relevance for theory development.

This article develops a theoretical explanation for the timing of change in international institutions. It provides a rational choice response to key insights of historical institutionalist scholarship. Many existing theories—such as rational choice and sociological institutionalisms—explain the timing of change mainly by listing its causes. An analysis of the timing of change in many realms of institutional activity, however, demonstrates that incentives to alter institutions frequently accumulate, unaddressed for extended periods of time. The result is persistent institutional suboptimality, punctuated intermittently by phases of transformation. To account for divergence from the expectations of existing theories, I test two hypotheses concerning the role of transaction costs and temporal coordination dilemmas in hindering change. Introducing the concept of Temporal Focal Points, the article explains why temporal landmarks, such as international crises and prominent anniversaries, are frequently associated with non-linear, transformative change. To assess the explanatory potential of this framework, I analyze the record of change in United Nations environmental institutions. The case study supports the hypotheses advanced, leading to the conclusion that the when of institutional change can tell us a lot about the why of change.