What Can the Post-2015 Climate Regime Learn From Global Financial Governance?

After the 2008 financial crisis, governments and international organizations have engaged in an intensive reform of global financial sector governance. This process was one of the most significant recent reforms of global governance. There are analogies and differences between the challenges of financial sector governance and climate change. Nonetheless, the analogies are sufficient to make a comparison worthwhile. Both issues involve large-scale, systemic externalities; incentives for states and firms to free-ride; distributional consequences and deep implications for national policies. This paper uses the example of financial sector governance to inform the discussion on the post-2020 climate regime, in particular on the institutional needs of the climate regime, the interplay between venues of climate cooperation and the normative value of soft law.