Anna Chistikova and Matvey Chistikov Present Research on Climate Coalition Cohesion at Conference in China
Their paper, "Assessing the cohesion of climate change coalitions within the UNFCCC: a semantics-based approach", focused on analysing the cohesion of climate coalitions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The authors worked from the hypothesis that internal homogeneity is a key condition for the stability and effectiveness of any coalition.
The study employs quantitative semantic analysis of 74 national Long-Term Low-Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS). First, the authors used agglomerative hierarchical clustering to identify six "optimal" clusters based on the semantic similarity of the strategies. These clusters were then compared with actual UNFCCC coalitions, allowing the researchers to construct a ranking from the most to the least cohesive groups.
The results demonstrate that the principle of homogeneity can manifest in multiple ways. Shared negotiating positions, levels of socio-economic development, and the presence of political ties beyond climate-related issues all play an important role in coalition cohesion. Geographic proximity also has a complex impact: on the one hand, it relates to the physical effects of climate change, which create similar vulnerabilities and drive common approaches to mitigation and adaptation; on the other, it may reflect a shared historical background, language, political culture, and other identity-related factors.
The authors conclude that political and strategic cultures, along with historical factors, influence coalition-building not only within specific regions, but also on a broader, global scale. Their findings underscore the importance of considering not only climate-related, but also non-climate, particularly identity-based, factors in the analysis of how international climate coalitions form and endure.