IR Theoretical Approach to the Paris Climate Agreement: Neo-Neo Debate Eco-Marxism and Green Capitalism

Abstract

Continued inability of the international climate negotiations to reach a common resolution has been subject to academic and scientific research focus. These studies have focused on the ways of fostering cooperation and preventing free-riding in climate negotiations through the development of balancing methods. This article first attempts to explore why climate negotiations since 1997 Kyoto Protocol have failed and how such failures could be overcome in 2015 Paris UN Climate Conference through a neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist context. Especially neorealist concepts such as systemic anarchy self-helf and relative gains along with the neoliberal institutionalist response to them through complex interdependence and abolute gains have been instrumental to crafting a theoretical answer to the success of most recent climate negotiations. The article then adds two new systemic-theoretical approach to the debate namely Eco-Marxism and Green Capitalism and aims to contextualize these approaches within international relations theoretical literature.