Directionality of problem shifting between international environmental regimes and its impacts on fragmentation

Abstract

Problem shifting has been identified as a common occurrence in international environmental governance, as addressing an environmental problem in one issue area may create problems for another. Instances of problem shifting have often been thought of as symmetrical between a pair of regimes, but this may not be the case due to political salience of different environmental issues, member state interests, or the biophysical interlinkages between issue areas. This thesis looks into whether the direction of problem shifting between the climate and ozone regimes may impact the level of fragmentation between these regimes, operationalized as the role of institutions in addressing interlinked issue areas, and coordination between regimes. This thesis hypothesized that shifting a problem from the climate regime to the ozone regime will lead to more fragmentation, while a problem shifted into the climate regime will decrease regime fragmentation as it is addressed more efficiently. This argument was made based on the central role of the climate regime, as rapidly addressing climate change has gained high priority on the agenda in international environmental governance. The hypotheses were tested through a secondary literature review based on studies focusing on the relation between the two regimes of climate and ozone. Findings show that addressing problem shifting in either direction has led to increased fragmentation, therefore falsifying the hypotheses for this regime pair. However, the research functions as a first step to identify directionality of problem shifting between regimes, and further research could look into whether this impacts other aspects of the interactions between international environmental regimes. Understanding the nature of problem shifting can contribute to addressing the governance objectives of international environmental regimes on the whole, rather than focusing on individual regimes.