We will hear two talks on goal-setting:
- The Hologram Regime by Ole Jacob Sending and Kacper Szulecki
- Navigating the Era of Indicators by Paul Beaumont
Registration
The event is open to all, in person or online (a link will be sent to those registered before the event). Please register here
The Hologram Regime: Is the UNFCCC’s Global Stocktake an ambition facilitator or a status game?
While the Paris Agreement has been lauded for its innovative design—replacing binding climate change mitigation targets with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—it also introduces a regime where symbolic performance and status-seeking behavior may be rewarded over substantive climate action. We argue that the Paris Agreement’s cyclical Global Stocktake (GST), as currently structured and practiced, risks evolving into what we call a “hologram regime”: an institutional context in which the appearance of ambition and commitment is decoupled from tangible outcomes and policy effectiveness.
Drawing on institutional theory and literature on status-seeking in international politics, we suggest that the GST incentivizes states to engage in performative diplomacy, foregrounding rhetorical ambition and moral claims without necessarily delivering on mitigation goals. The GST lacks unified evaluation criteria, binding consequences, or authoritative review mechanisms, enabling states to construct status-enhancing narratives regardless of actual climate performance. Empirically, we analyze GST-related documents and plenary statements from 2020 to 2025, alongside case studies of NDC development in 23 countries.
Navigating the Era of Indicators: A Framework for Analysis
States are now measured and ranked on a dizzying array of cross-cutting metrics. The era of indicators generates a problem and a paradox: while each individual country performance indicator(CPI) strives to simplify complexity, an abundance of CPIs on the same issue multiplies complexity and thus generates ambiguity. Moreover, while it would be reassuring if we could assume only the soundest CPIs would thrive, many high-profile CPIs remain in widespread use despite well-known shortcomings. How do private and public bodies navigate policy fields populated with multiple, often dubious indicators, each portending to measure the same phenomenon?
To address this question, Navigator develops a new theoretical framework—inspired by the classic liberal theory of the marketplace of ideas—that enables the systemic, longitudinal analysis of how users’ and producers adapt their practices over time. In this way, Navigator conducts a systematic problem shift: from investigating a single CPI’s influence or limitations, to examining how users and producers adapt in the face of growing CPI competition and CPI critique.
About the speakers
Paul Beaumont is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and leads the ERC Starting Grant funded project “Navigating the Era of Indicators” (2025-2030). His research interests include IR theory, the (dis)functioning of international institutions, dubious quantified performance indicators, global environmental politics, nuclear weapons and hierarchies in world politics.
Ole Jacob Sending is Research Professor at NUPI and leads the Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics. His research focuses on the evolving features of global governance in light of geopolitical changes, private actors' political roles, and how expert regimes shape international policy.
Kacper Szulecki is a Research Professor in the Climate and Energy Research Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). For several years he was also a Professor II and fellow in the Include research centre for socially inclusive energy transitions at CGS, UiO. His research focuses on international climate governance and on the politics of decarbonization, including the problem of climate obstruction, populism, and securitization.
Organizer
The seminar is organised by the Centre for Global Sustainability’s thematic area on ‘Knowledge, technology, and trust’, in cooperation with the research groups Sustainability Law and KNOWIT.