1 Accountability of Networked Climate Governance The Rise of Transnational Climate Partnerships

Public-private partnerships (PPP) have been advanced as a new tool of global governance, which can supply both effective and legitimate governance. The aim of this paper is to map the landscape of various types of climate partnerships, classified according to their different functions (policy-making, implementation, advocacy etc) and their degree of public-private interaction (ranging from private to hybrid participation), The legitimacy of the different types of climate partnerships will be examined, focusing particularly on accountability. The paper raises the question whether climate partnerships are symptomatic of a shift to market multilateralism, replacing universal state-centric multilateralism epitomized by the Kyoto process. Three kinds of partnerships are advanced – public-private (hybrid), governmental and private-private. The frequency of these is mapped in climate governance. Most of the climate partnerships have functions of advocacy, service provision and implementation. None are standard setting, which indicates that governmental actors are less willing to ‘contract out ’ rule-setting authority to private actors in the climate change. Some partnerships, such as the WSSD climate partnerships and CDM projects represent ‘new ’ modes of hybrid governance with high degree of public-private interaction. However, many partnerships, not least the voluntary technology agreements such as the AP6, have elements of ‘old ’ form of governance based on the logic of lobbying, corporativism, co-optation and interstat