National climate change legislation: the key to more ambitious international agreements

This paper examines the links between countries’ domestic ambition on climate change – in particular related to domestic legislation – and their position at the international negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It begins with a short analysis of the factors influencing countries’ negotiating positions and explores how advancing domestic climate change legislation links to, and influences, international mitigation ambition.1 Finally, this paper explores the role of legislators in influencing negotiating positions and makes three recommendations on how to maximise the positive influence of legislators on the negotiating process.