ABSTRACT
The period from 2012 to 2014 saw the replacement of the old, divided, United Nations regime by the new, inclusive, expanded one with the Group of Eight (G8) and the Group of 20 (G20) as the dominant centre of global governance on climate change. This replacement first saw the G20 emerge alongside and at times ahead of the G8 as the lead plurilateral summit institution on climate change control. Second, it saw the G8 replaced by the Group of Seven (G7) alone at its summit in 2014, as Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimean region of Ukraine disrupted but did not delay the G7’s revival of climate leadership. As the landmark Conference of the Parties (COP) conference to replace the Kyoto regime in Paris in December 2015 drew nigh, the inherited UN regime was being replaced in principle, practice, and, prospectively, in formal promise, by the inclusive, expanded, equal one led by the G8 and G20. As Peter Haas (2008, 6) noted, “the very thinness of the social constructions of the issue developed through the UN mean they can be replaced with other procedural and substantive norms, such as coordinating UN negotiations with discussions elsewhere, or going beyond consensus voting rules.”
