Blockchain Papers

Tan, Kwan Hong

This thesis examines whether Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) can resolve the fundamental trilemma of global public goods provision, specifically addressing the seemingly impossible simultaneous achievement of effective climate action, responsible AI governance, and equitable international coordination. Building upon Dani Rodrik's recent formulation of a "new trilemma" that constrains contemporary global governance, this research develops a novel theoretical framework termed "Decentralized Trilemma Resolution" (DTR) that demonstrates how DAO governance mechanisms can transcend traditional coordination failures through innovative institutional design. The research contributes to both DAO governance literature and global public goods theory by proposing that blockchain-based decentralized governance can create positive-sum dynamics across traditionally competing policy objectives. Through comprehensive analysis of existing DAO implementations, including Gitcoin's $50+ million in public goods funding, Klima DAO’s coordination of $17+ million tonnes of carbon credits, and Aragon′s governance infrastructure supporting $4+ billion in managed assets, this thesis provides empirical validation for the theoretical framework. The DTR framework introduces four core mechanisms that enable trilemma resolution: Multi-Stakeholder Token Governance (MSTG), Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability (ATA), Modular Governance Architecture (MGA), and Incentive Alignment Mechanisms (IAM). Mathematical formalization demonstrates how these mechanisms create superadditive utility functions where coordination across climate action, AI governance, and equitable development generates synergistic rather than competitive outcomes. Key findings indicate that DAOs demonstrate 6-20x faster decision-making, 3-5x higher stakeholder participation, and 2-5x lower administrative costs compared to traditional governance mechanisms. However, challenges remain in enforcement capabilities, regulatory recognition, and scaling to nation-state level coordination. The thesis concludes that hybrid models combining DAO governance with traditional institutional structures offer the most promising pathway for near-term trilemma resolution, while pure DAO governance may emerge as viable for global coordination as technical and regulatory infrastructure matures. This research provides the first systematic framework for understanding how decentralized governance can address the fundamental coordination challenges of the 21st century, offering both theoretical insights and practical implementation pathways for policymakers, technologists, and global governance practitioners.

SANDRA INGELKOFER, RENATA FAIZOVA

Climate governance is entering a period of turbulence, with policy reversals in some democracies and rapid expansions elsewhere. This paper compares how centralized, decentralized (federal), and polycentric/hybrid governance designs shape mitigation and adaptation outcomes. Using a qualitative comparative approach across China, the United States, Canada, Türkiye, Norway, and Saudi Arabia, assessing policy ambition, legal instruments, implementation capacity, subnational authority, stakeholder participation, finance mobilization, and equity considerations. A qualitative comparative approach is applied across six country cases - China, the United States, Canada, Türkiye, Norway, and Saudi Arabia - evaluating policy ambition, legal instruments, implementation capacity, subnational authority, stakeholder participation, finance mobilization, and equity considerations. Insights are then extended to the Central Asian context, where climate governance remains predominantly centralized, shaped by Soviet-era institutional legacies, uneven local capacity, and constrained civic participation. The analysis demonstrates that no model is universally superior; the most effective arrangements combine top-down coherence with bottom-up experimentation and social legitimacy. Norway’s polycentric governance model and Türkiye’s hybrid approach illustrate how localized climate planning can be integrated within broader national frameworks. For Central Asia, pragmatic hybrid pathways are recommended that align national targets and financing with empowered regional pilots, transparent monitoring, and inclusive engagement. These context-sensitive combinations offer the best prospects for durable emissions reductions, climate resilience, and just transition outcomes in the region.

Shyam Nath, Yeti Nisha Madhoo

Abstract This paper extends the climate literature by examining the feasibility of integrating sub‐national governance into global club governance for mitigating CO 2 emissions. Global climate clubs become an argument for having separate bundles of emission targets and incentive mechanisms in the form of opportunities for climate finance and technology sharing among the club members. An exploratory analysis is important to examine the role of import and export taxes and other channels, such as the clean development mechanism, in meeting the objective of nonmember countries to join the club. The crux, however, is how, after determining national‐level quotas, the mitigation responsibilities are shared with subnational entities. We propose a design of a carbon entry tax at the subnational level, namely states, districts, and municipalities. The carbon entry tax uses the nighttime luminosity data published by NASA as a measure of carbon, which constitutes the tax base. The carbon entry tax serves as a fiscal instrument of decarbonization in a decentralized framework.

Marco Schletz, Axel Constant, Angel Hsu, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx · 6 authors

The Regenerative Finance (ReFi) movement aims to fundamentally transform the governance of global common pool resources (CPRs), such as the atmosphere, which are being degraded despite international efforts. The ReFi movement seeks to achieve this by utilizing digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (D-MRV); tokenization of assets; and decentralized governance approaches. However, there is currently a lack of a clear path forward to create and implement models that actually drive the “Re-” in ReFi beyond perpetuating the existing extractive economics and toward actual regeneration. In addition, ReFi suffers from growing pains, lacking a common interoperability framework and definition for determining what a ReFi project is and how the individual components align toward the grand ambition. This paper provides a definition of the ReFi stack of interconnected components and examines how it can address limitations in climate change accounting, finance and markets, and governance. The authors also examine the theory of regenerative economics and CPRs to encourage further discussions and advancements in the ReFi space. The crucial question remains if and how ReFi can drive a change in paradigm toward the effective regeneration of global CPRs.

Gill Allwood

In November 2019 the European Parliament (2019/2930(RSP)) declared a climate and environmental emergency, calling for urgent and concrete action. The year 2019 was Europe's hottest year on record (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2019), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018, p. v) reported that ‘emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities, the root cause of global warming, continue to increase, year after year’. Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg inspired and led a worldwide school strike movement, and mass protests dominated by young women took place around the world (Wahlström et al., 2019). The European Parliament resolution of 14 March 2019 (2019/2582(RSP)) ‘welcomes the fact that people across Europe, in particular younger generations, are becoming increasingly active in demonstrating for climate justice’. At the institutional level 2019 was a year of renewal, with the European Parliament elections in May, the adoption of a new Council strategy in June and the appointment of a new Commission in December. Climate change was a priority for all these institutional actors. The Council strategy 2019–24, for example, insists on the urgent need to build a ‘climate-neutral, green, fair and social Europe’. The new President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced her intention to see Europe become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Climate change arrived on the EU agenda in the 1980s, emerging out of environmental policy, which was already established as an area that required transnational action. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s the climate ambition of the EU exceeded its ability to agree on, and implement, effective actions (Dupont and Oberthür, 2015). When the USA withdrew from the Kyoto protocol in 2001 the EU took on a global leadership role and has continued to construct an identity as a global actor around the issue of climate change (Jordan et al., 2010). This had economic motivations (to avoid being undercut by exporters with lower environmental standards) but was also part of the post-Maastricht efforts to increase the EU's global actorness. The past decade has seen climate change gain prominence and take centre stage. In 2009 the landmark climate and energy framework (COM(2014)15 final) introduced targets for greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Within the European Commission climate action gained its own Directorate General, DG CLIMA. This was an important part of the process of institutionalizing climate change. The issue of climate change continued to rise up the EU and the global agenda, and there was a strong dynamic between the two. The Lisbon Treaty (2007) gave the EU competence to conclude international environmental agreements. The EU, along with its member states, is a party to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and plays a key role in trying to reach agreement on global targets (Biedenkopf and Dupont, 2013; Oberthür and Groen, 2018). It is in this context that the EU emerged as an influential player in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first climate agreement to be universal and legally binding. International targets and monitoring and reporting have acted as an impetus for action on the part of the EU and many, although not all, its member states (Dupont, 2019). The European Green Deal (2019), drafted against the background of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018) report on the predicted impact of a global temperature rise of 1.5°C, further highlights the way that the issue of climate change has become part of the institutional fabric of the EU. Reinforcing the EU's commitments under the Paris agreement, as well as the UN's 2030 Agenda, with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015), it provides a framework in which the EU can try to assert leadership and mould its own efforts towards a sustainability that ‘leaves no-one behind’. The Council's conclusions on climate diplomacy of 18 February 2019 describe 2019 as the year of pushing further convergence between the SDGs and the climate agenda. The initial focus of EU climate policy was climate change mitigation. This refers to strategies for reducing climate change, largely through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Key policy frameworks are the Climate and energy package and the Environmental Action Programme, which provides an overarching framework for all environmental and climate policy. The European Green Deal (COM(2019)640 final), proposed by the new Commission in 2019, sets out a strategy to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 while sustaining economic growth, and promises to enshrine this in legislation, with the first climate laws due to be proposed in 2020. Since 2013, internal EU climate policy has also included an adaptation strategy, in recognition of the fact that climate change is having an impact within the EU, as well as, more obviously, elsewhere. While climate change mitigation is more readily framed as an issue to be dealt with at the EU level, adaptation to the effects of climate change appeared, until recently, to require local responses or to be of concern only in the countries that are most severely hit by the impact of climate change, and are concentrated in the global south. The floods and heat waves of the early 2000s raised awareness of the impact of climate change within the EU and of its cross-border nature (Rayner and Jordan, 2010), prompting the adoption of an EU adaptation strategy (COM(2013)216). Member states are encouraged to produce national adaptation strategies, setting out, for example, how they will climate-proof their transport, energy and agriculture sectors, and protect their populations from flooding, droughts and heat waves. Adaptation has a longer history as part of EU external relations. The visible impact of climate change in developing countries, and the use of development aid for adaptation purposes, mean that climate change has been prominent in EU development policy. A Commission communication in 2003 (COM(2003)85 final) declared that climate change was a problem for development, as well as an environmental problem. Since the Lisbon treaty (2007), however, climate change has been substantially reframed on the external agenda, replacing a development frame with one much more closely related to migration and security (Youngs, 2014). Development policy is expected to align with the Union's strategic priorities, set out in the Global Strategy (2016), which is the overarching statement of EU foreign policy and that frames climate change as a security threat and a root cause of migration (Global Strategy, 2016, p. 27). This article will focus on two aspects of recent EU climate policy. The first is not new, but is important. It is the recognition that climate change, like other cross-cutting issues, cannot be addressed in isolation. It is inextricably connected to key areas of EU activity, including energy, transport and agriculture. Climate objectives need to be integrated into all areas of policymaking. This is referred to as climate mainstreaming and has been embraced by EU policymakers as a desirable practice. It has obvious parallels with gender mainstreaming, but, as this article shows, is itself gender blind, and this is problematic. The second aspect of recent EU climate policy on which this article focuses is new. It is the growing presence of statements about the need for a ‘just transition’ to a climate-neutral economy, one which ‘puts people first’ and ensures that ‘no-one is left behind’. I argue that embedding a gender lens in these two aspects of EU climate policy makes a valuable contribution to efforts to create a sustainable and just future. On the surface, it may seem that climate change affects everyone equally. As British Conservative MEP and member of the European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, Marina Yannakoudakis, said, ‘The climate is the same for males and females, so far as I know. When it rains we all get wet’ (BBC News, 2012). However, gender, development and environment scholars have produced a large volume of literature demonstrating that climate change is, indeed, gendered. The early contributions to this literature argued that structural inequalities in the global political economy and within societies increase women's vulnerability to the impact of climate change (Agrawala and Crick, 2009; Alston, 2013; Brody et al., 2008; Skinner, 2011). They argued that climate change has a particularly detrimental effect on the poorest countries and, within them, on the poorest parts of the population. As women constitute a large proportion of the poorest in society, they will be amongst the hardest hit and the least well positioned socially, legally and economically, to respond (Morrow, 2017). There is evidence to support the argument that women's vulnerability to the effects of climate change is increased in relation to men's by their relative disadvantage in terms of access to resources, land ownership, education and caring responsibilities (Dankelman, 2010). However, there is also a crucial insistence in the literature that women cannot be perceived as helpless victims of climate change (MacGregor, 2017). A second strand of the early gender and climate change literature emphasized women's agency and specific skills and knowledge which, it was argued, made them potentially useful actors in climate change adaptation. As food producers, for example, they were well placed to adapt agricultural techniques to changing environmental conditions. It was also argued that, as energy users in the home, they could play a role in climate change mitigation by adopting new forms of cooking stoves, for example. The gendered impact of climate change and women's role as climate actors are not confined to the global south, and researchers have demonstrated these links in rich industrialized countries, including EU member states (Tschakert and Machado, p. They have that there are gendered in the of climate change, including transport and energy They have gendered in vulnerability to the effects of climate as heat waves and and they have gendered in towards climate change and towards the need to mitigation and adaptation on and gender is to between women and and between and of women and not to between of and which can be by and women and Gender inequalities with other structural inequalities including and and Gender is one of of that have an impact on the of and as a of and makes it of in its with other structural lens has been by scholars to important contributions to of the impact of climate change and responses to it et al., and and Machado, 2012). can and in relation to climate change. women as victims of climate change, an that social on as gender, and place the vulnerability and of and example, on and the EU and 2013; and that there are gendered in energy and but that gender is not the only more women are not a and there are within the global and the global south. and p. for example, argue that, climate most have in with women across Europe with their at the Commission and this to their climate impact as well as climate to which inequalities in and p. and have out that women's presence in climate is and have for this to be and Development 2018). There is evidence that women in climate a example, and that emissions are lower in countries women have political support the argument that women be included in climate they knowledge and which to policy However, not all agree that there is a between the presence of women in climate and policy In a and that a mass of women policymakers not in climate policy. that, in the most European countries, gender in and in towards climate were and from climate policy were largely of the of gender and how to them in relation to climate of the gender of the climate policy is made p. This is not to that women and not be in all of but this be on of and policy change. This is part of a much on the to which women in a to gendered et al., 2012). In climate change is as a of the gender inequalities that in all that gender inequalities or international to to the gender p. This not mean at It which women which a need to and gender inequalities in relation to climate change that can women more to its impact that this vulnerability is or the same for all a gender lens to climate change to and how gender This is a first to gender in relation to climate change. There is a and recognition in EU that objectives cannot be by them as but that they need to be into all and at all of Gender mainstreaming and environmental policy are two of this and are This that gender and environmental objectives be or into all areas of EU including they are not In the of gender for example, this foreign and agriculture or also that the cross-cutting issue or be at all of the from of the issue and problem to monitoring and for climate mainstreaming are increasingly in EU policy (Dupont, There is an of literature on gender mainstreaming, and much of it focuses on mainstreaming has to its 2013; and et al., to the between gender mainstreaming as a with and gender mainstreaming as an policy and and p. and In its gender mainstreaming is as a policy into and that in this of gender mainstreaming the it in and gender in particular its of and inequalities 2010). it refers to of and and is for at women or is an to The of a set of and along with for their and for the of their and the that gender mainstreaming has become a of et al., 2016, The in has its in of gender and was proposed as a way of policy to gender of gender as a policy gender mainstreaming a to gender in all policy including perceived to be gender It to gender at all of so that be with the of gender already within them, action being they had already been or of gender mainstreaming and other forms of policy including climate mainstreaming, have to their et al., 2018). and (2007) of climate change mainstreaming, for example, that were not for and on There are Commission of the Council of and the the European Parliament and the The European and in particular its on the development and gender have been increasingly active in the mainstreaming of these all European Parliament but the Parliament can be out of forms of dominated by and this to most of the Union's climate change and it for as environmental to on up by economic as and agriculture. and der institutional on economic as the to mainstreaming climate change. mainstreaming this cross-cutting issue is seen as the and the of and the energy is policy or for will these and to mainstreaming may particularly in of economic is embraced in EU policy and has to a of new from climate change to migration and There are also for these cross-cutting to be in and not just EU policy increasingly use the to describe the between two or more policy areas 2013; et al., and and Climate change is placed in a of including climate security and climate The Council conclusions on climate diplomacy of February to further the between climate change and security in political development and action and While this statement is an important recognition that policy are and cannot be addressed in from it about how gender can be other cross-cutting only are climate change, migration and other cross-cutting to be but so be the between This about the of of issues, of them are priority It also a context in which the mainstreaming of gender more 2019). The literature on policy and policy that policy a that as a strategic and focus on the and not on the and The literature that, commitments by EU gender mainstreaming is from key policy areas and is as and 2011). the literature on and policy environmental policy and gender mainstreaming, we that institutional and the more actors can that mainstreaming or policy in their between the to policy economic or As policymakers increasingly to cross-cutting and to policy we need a way to and how they a gender lens to EU climate policy that much of it gender The European Green Deal (COM(2019)640 final) makes of it states that the SDGs will be at the of the EU's the climate and energy framework (COM(2014)15 final) makes of A for final) makes of the Environmental Action makes one of women as a This is the fact that gender mainstreaming is a treaty that a framework for EU gender policy and gender mainstreaming is set out in the Gender Strategy final) and a framework for gender into all external action is set out in the Gender Action and that the EU is to the SDGs and to the Gender Action are a to the impact of proposed actions and are a key of the EU's gender mainstreaming The impact the social and environmental of the proposed are addressed under social to the on social impact the have to be the have a impact on women and the between women and 2017). However, impact are not out, and they are gender is example, the impact the Environmental Action not a to gender, the (2018) the Commission communication for or the impact final) the climate and energy framework of gender awareness in relation to climate change in of EU policy, but they The Gender Strategy has a on climate change that out of the in which climate change is gendered and states that, the gender can have a key role in the of these but it about how this will be refers to climate in relation to women's in climate However, the by women to in and on climate and environmental is the one least included in the to the European Commission by the EU member and the European external action EU to frame gender as between and the of these two the as well as them, and the of other structural inequalities with There are institutional in which a more gender The Gender Strategy makes from a focus on between women and It states that the Gender Strategy will to achieve Europe women and and in all their are The Commission will gender mainstreaming by including a gender in all of policy in all EU policy internal and The Strategy will be as a cross-cutting there is about how this will be the recognition of is an important from gender with a The only EU that has to the relation between gender and climate change is the European which has produced a of and focus on women and adaptation in the global but gender of climate and responses example, the European Parliament resolution of on a report by the Green states that will not be climate gender This is a of the nature of gender and climate It the but with them the insistence that a sustainable inequalities to be addressed in The resolution not for the presence of women in climate but for the at all of of and gender objectives in action and other for gender and for the of gender at all of climate change The European Parliament for a resolution on the European Green Deal by on of the the of gender actions and in the European Green Deal and the European Commission to gender mainstreaming and climate and environmental action at all on the Commission to on the made by President von der Leyen to gender in all policy and on the made by to a on gender and climate and to gender and climate into all aspects of European development It also on the European Commission to gender impact and specific for gender in climate actions and of the European Green The that was by the European Parliament as its resolution of on the European Green Deal of this but the need for a gender on actions and in the Green including gender mainstreaming and The also included the from the on the Commission in its efforts to the EU as of international climate and to a concrete action to on the commitments of the Gender Action at to gender in the and to a EU gender and climate change with resources, to and climate action in the EU and and der argument that gender is it the EU. In there is evidence of gender mainstreaming of EU climate change policy. Climate change is framed as a and or as one that is with foreign and security strategic frames not obvious links to which could a gendered p. The European efforts to gender into climate change an important contribution to policy but climate has largely within the of the which a to climate change only on the a or Swedish is to important to the mainstreaming of gender climate policy is that climate change is as a cross-cutting issue in itself and is in a of with strategic priorities, as migration and This to the of gender from climate policy. The gender mainstreaming and policy literature that this on the of gender the process of gender mainstreaming, and that the of gender and climate are EU have the of a ‘just transition’ which ‘leaves no-one behind’. The European Green Deal states that the to a climate-neutral be just and It people The of a just from with in and environmental to a to the just in the Paris Agreement, which of a just of the and the of and in with The European Parliament resolution on a climate and environmental states that be by strong social and to a fair and to a just not about this however, and in EU climate policy the refers to for example, between areas that produce and that with the of no-one the of a just is being by actors and by the European Parliament to build an to the of a sustainable future. This a change from the to climate action which on and to one that also of the social of climate change and of climate action. EU policy for climate change to be all EU The European Parliament resolution of 14 March 2019 the need to climate ambition into all EU including The Council conclusions of 2019 the nature of Europe's climate and environmental and need to actions for the that is just and is environment and climate aspects into the of the EU's and This growing for climate mainstreaming to the increase in to cross-cutting issues, and policy and in EU policy is at the of the which the important between policy and 2030 states that gender is a for sustainable The SDGs have an overarching to the mainstreaming of a gender in the of the However, at the same the SDGs gender and climate change EU on this with the on on gender The for the of climate change and gender has not been can a gender to the of EU climate The effects of climate change are not the same for inequalities the impact of climate change and the ability to respond to introduced to climate change or to adapt to it also have effects on to their gender, ability and other structural There are gender in the of climate change, in towards and in access to climate of gender mainstreaming have the between and They have how gender it the and have argued that a to gender is more In a gender are to the of the agenda et al., gender and more cannot be left until after the is It is not an or an but to a sustainable for all and EU climate policy is from an focus on towards a recognition that climate change affects and that people are part of the However, and into the of climate change and proposed responses to it is a to gender and efforts to climate change continue to in being integrated into Gender is not integrated into all aspects of and at all it is on or in and in et p. to as a of set of of in and around gender mainstreaming The Council conclusions on climate diplomacy describe 2019 as the year of pushing further convergence between the SDGs and climate A of these two a contribution to a but this strong political will and effective policy

Andrew Lockley, Zhifu Mi, D’Maris Coffman

Geoengineering is a proposed response to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Conventionally it consists of two strands: Solar Radiation Management (SRM), which is fast-acting, incomplete but inexpensive, and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), which is slower acting, more expensive, and comprehensive. Pairing SRM and CDR offers a contractually complete solution for future emissions if effectively-scaled and coordinated. SRM offsets warming, while CDR takes effect.We suggest coordination using a blockchain, i.e. smart contracts and a distributed ledger. Specifically, we integrate CDR futures with time and volume-matched SRM orders, to address emissions contractually before release. This provides an economically and environmentally proportionate solution to CO2 emissions at the wellhead, with robust contractual transparency, and minimal overhead cost. Our proposal offers a ‘polluter pays’ implementation of Long & Shepherds SRM ‘bridge’ concept. This ‘polluter geoengineers’ approach mandates and verifies emissions-linked payments with minimal friction, delay, or cost. Finally, we compare alternative market designs against this proposal, finding that this proposal offers several advantages. We conclude that blockchain implementation of the ‘polluter geoengineers’ approach is attractive and feasible for larger wellhead contracts. We also identify a handful of advantages and disadvantages that merit further study.

Kenneth W. Abbott

In climate change, as in other areas, recent years have produced a ‘Cambrian explosion’ of transnational institutions, standards, financing arrangements, and programs. As a result, climate governance has become complex, fragmented, and decentralized, operating without central coordination. Most studies of climate governance focus on inter state institutions. In contrast, I map a different realm of climate change governance: the diverse array of transnational schemes. I analyze this emerging system in terms of two theoretical frameworks developed to describe, explain, and evaluate complex governance arrangements—regime complex theory and polycentric governance theory—revealing fruitful avenues for positive and normative research. I conclude by arguing that the benefits of institutional complexity could be increased, and the costs reduced, through nonhierarchical ‘orchestration’ of climate change governance, in which international organizations or other appropriate authorities support and steer transnational schemes that further global public interests.