One of Donald Trump’s first acts in his second US presidency was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement. The US has historically played the role of ‘rulemaker’ yet is notoriously fickle in its ratification and participation. This paper highlights this history of (non-)cooperation, how this second withdrawal differs from the first, and what the potential consequences, both good and bad, are for global climate governance. It shows how US withdrawal may not lead to a crippled regime but can rather pave the way to a more robust and engaged Paris Agreement.

Using spatial regression analysis, this paper analyses whether countries’ climate ambition levels are related to those of their peers. It finds that countries’ ambition levels converge with that of countries with similar levels of democracy, geopolitical affinity, and region, whereas ambition levels diverge between peer groups based on level of development.

Since 2019, EU trade agreements have included a commitment to ’effectively implement the Paris Agreement’ in their trade and sustainability chapter. This article unpacks what this actually entails, highlighting how the commitment within the trade agreements has evolved over time from a non-binding statement of shared intent, into a legally binding obligation. The article shows that, with sufficient political backing, the commitment can significantly strengthen the climate regime.

2020 and 2021 saw a veritable boom in net zero targets. This article explores this phenomenon, using the norm life cycle theory of Finnemore and Sikkink to investigate the emergence and diffusion of net zero as a global climate norm.