*Originally published in 2024 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

The Conference of the Parties (COPs) is the key decision-making forum under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which lays the foundation for the international climate regime and drives global efforts to address the climate challenge. As a dynamic platform for action, COP convenes high-level negotiators alongside non-state actors, fostering collaboration across sectors. Subnational governments play a crucial role through paradiplomacy, leveraging side events and partnerships to advocate for ambitious climate policies and shape meaningful policy outcomes.

The Conference of the Parties serves as a global platform under the UNFCCC, uniting nearly 200 states to engage in formal negotiations and advance collective efforts to address climate change. Since its inception in 1995, COP has served as an international stage for countries to assess progress, share strategies, and negotiate commitments to reduce emissions and combat climate change. The forum functions through a combination of high-level plenaries, where overarching decisions are debated and adopted, and technical negotiations in smaller working groups, where delegates craft detailed final agreements.

As the climate crisis deepens, COPs have become a governance stage, also serving as a hub for non-state actors participating in side events, exhibitions, and informal consultations. Increasingly, the international activities of subnational governments (i.e., regional and local governments) – conceptualized as paradiplomacy – have emerged as vital to these discussions. Through informal participation in COPs, they put forward concrete paradiplomacy strategies and interactions to influence global (climate) policy outcomes.

A Conceptual Framework of Analysis

Although subnational actors are not part of formal COP negotiations, they still play an important role in influencing global climate policies by promoting and demanding stronger climate commitments (i.e., advocacy). To explain how such reality takes place, we start by highlighting the specific paradiplomacy instruments (i.e., public policy tools to engage in international activities) through which regions and cities participate in global forums, followed by the modes of interaction (i.e., how engagement with others takes place) they endorse during climate COPs.

First, subnational actors may represent themselves in such international gatherings via intra-state and/ or extra-state routes. To clarify, intra-state routes involve being represented within the federal or central government’s delegation at the COP. In contrast, extra-state routes refer to subnational governments autonomously sending their own delegation to participate in non-official side events and strategic meetings, as will be further explained.

Second, the mentioned paradiplomacy strategies are intended to raise awareness of climate issues and showcase their local initiatives via non-official interactions with other participating entities throughout the COP to increase their influence. These paradiplomacy interactions take place in two main ways: (1) collectively, by engaging in networks with other regions, cities, and organizations, which helps amplify their voices and advocate for stronger climate commitments, and (2) individually, by (2.1.) engaging within their central government’s delegation or by (2.2.) autonomously engaging with other stakeholders in the COP process to highlighting their own interests either.

Collectively, subnational governments participate in networks’ side events such as workshops, panels, and gatherings to emphasize their collective efforts. Individually, they collaborate with their national state to align policies and influence the national positioning during negotiation or autonomously engage in strategic meetings with counterparts like international organizations, civil society groups, and NGOs, as well as dialogues with other cities and regions to develop shared climate strategies and future partnerships.

By bridging the paradiplomacy strategies with........

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