Vegard Heggelund Tørstad

• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund; Nahm, Jonas; Hovi, Jon; Skodvin, Tora & Dietrichson, Gard Olav (2023). Economic recessions and decarbonisation: analysing green stimulus spending in Canada and the US. New Political Economy. ISSN 1356-3467. p. 1–19. doi: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2294744. Full text in Research Archive
• Kuyper, Jonathan William & Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Mobilizing non-state actors for climate action through the global stocktake. Nature Climate Change. ISSN 1758-678X. doi: 10.1038/s41558-023-01811-4. Full text in Research Archive
• Tveit, Andreas Kokkvoll & Tørstad, Vegard (2023). The relative effectiveness of overlapping international institutions: European Union versus United Nations regulations of air pollution. International Political Science Review. ISSN 0192-5121. p. 1–14. doi: 10.1177/01925121221145496. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Which types of international institutions display higher ability to change states’ behaviour? This article assesses the relative environmental effectiveness of a management-based (‘soft’) and an enforcement-based (‘hard’) international agreement: the United Nations Sofia Protocol and a European Union directive. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the European Union directive is more effective in inducing emissions reductions than the United Nation’s Sofia Protocol. We propose that the European Union’s enforcement capacity is a likely driver of the directive’s effectiveness. The article makes two contributions to existing literature. First, we provide causal evidence on the relative importance of overlapping international institutions in regulating environmental policy outcomes, elucidating how an apparent emissions-reducing effect of a ‘soft’ United Nations Protocol is in fact driven by the existence of overlapping ‘hard’ European Union regulation. Second, we demonstrate how states’ enthusiasm for emissions regulations can explain the relative effectiveness of soft and hard law institutions.

• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Can transparency strengthen the legitimacy of international institutions? Evidence from the UN Security Council. Journal of Peace Research. ISSN 0022-3433. doi: 10.1177/00223433221123996. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Can transparency enhance the legitimacy of international institutions? As transparency has become a widely applied procedural standard in international politics, a range of institutions have implemented transparency reforms under the presumption that increased transparency can elicit support among relevant audiences. This article evaluates whether increased transparency in the UN Security Council leads to enhanced legitimacy perceptions among UN member-states. The article first traces the history of Security Council reform since 1990 and draws on interviews with diplomats and observers to describe a transparency reform the Council enacted in 2006. Next, the article uses longitudinal content analysis to empirically probe the legitimation effects of that transparency reform. The empirical analysis is based on an original dataset of 4,303 legitimacy statements made by UN member-states in annual UN General Assembly debates over the periods 1990–2006 and 2006–18. The findings cast doubt over the potential of transparency reform to improve the Council’s legitimacy; instead they suggest that increasing the direct participation of the wider UN membership may be a more viable legitimation strategy. This article contributes to existing international legitimacy literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between transparency and legitimacy, and by demonstrating which institutional features that affect the perceived legitimacy of the Security Council.

• Tørstad, Vegard (2020). Participation, ambition and compliance: can the Paris Agreement solve the effectiveness trilemma? Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016. 29(5), p. 761–780. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2019.1710322.
• Tørstad, Vegard; Sælen, Håkon & Bøyum, Live Standal (2020). The domestic politics of international climate commitments: which factors explain cross-country variation in NDC ambition? Environmental Research Letters. ISSN 1748-9326. 15(2). doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab63e0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Under the Paris Agreement, parties self-determine their mitigation ambition level by submitting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Extant assessments find that the collective ambition of current pledges is not line with the Agreement's goals and that individual ambition varies greatly across countries, but there have not been attempts at explaining this variation. This paper identifies several potential drivers of national climate ambition, and tests whether these can account for differences in the ambition level of countries' mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement. After outlining theorized relationships between a set of domestic political characteristics and climate policy ambition, regression analysis is used to assess the effects of different potential drivers across a dataset of 170 countries. We find that a country's level of democracy and vulnerability to climate change have positive effects on NDC ambition, while coal rent and GDP have negative effects. Our findings suggest that these objective factors are more important than subjective factors, while the most influential subjective factor is the cosmopolitanism-nativism value dimension.

• Sælen, Håkon; Tørstad, Vegard; Holz, Christian & Nielsen, Tobias Dan (2019). Fairness conceptions and self-determined mitigation ambition under the Paris Agreement: Is there a relationship? Environmental Science and Policy. ISSN 1462-9011. 101, p. 245–254. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2019.08.018. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper investigates the empirical relationship between countries’ expressed concerns with fairness and the ambition levels in their pledged contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, asking the following questions: 1) Are the NDCs of countries who express the most concern with fairness more or less ambitious than those of other countries? 2) Does the relationship between fairness and ambition vary across the three fairness principles: Responsibility, Capability, and Rights (needs)? and 3) Is there a tendency for countries to support the fairness principle that implies the largest emissions share for themselves if that principle were used to allocate emissions across countries? The analysis reveals considerable variation in both fairness concerns and assessed NDC ambitions, but no clear relationship between the two. Countries’ expressed support for fairness principles does not correlate with the ambition levels of their NDCs, whether principles are aggregated or disaggregated. The analysis also finds no evidence that countries strategically advocate the fairness principle that allocates them the largest “fair” emissions share

• Tørstad, Vegard (2018). Håndhevelse og Legitimitet: En Integrativ Vurdering av Parisavtalens Effektivitet. Internasjonal Politikk. ISSN 0020-577X. 76(1), p. 47–72. doi: 10.23865/intpol.v76.660. Show summary

  Denne artikkelen drøfter hvilke kriterier som er relevante for å måle klimaavtalers effektivitet, og evaluerer Parisavtalen i lys av disse. Tilnærmingsmåten er både deduktiv og induktiv, i den forstand at artikkelen både drøfter hva eksisterende teori kan fortelle om effektiviteten til Parisavtalen – og samtidig bruker Parisavtalen som et referansepunkt for å utvide det eksisterende analyseapparatet på klimaavtalers effektivitet. I motsetning til mye av det som så langt har blitt hevdet om prospektene til Parisavtalen, argumenterer denne artikkelen for at utsiktene for avtalens effektivitet er lovende på nåværende tidspunkt. Det er hovedsakelig tre grunner til det. For det første nyter avtalen bred støtte og deltakelse. For det andre er avtalen relativt ambisiøs. For det tredje sender avtalen tydelige signaler om universalitet, endrede økonomiske incentiver og viktigheten av ikke-statlige aktører, noe som kan bidra til at dens implementering fasiliteres.

• Tørstad, Vegard & Sælen, Håkon (2017). Fairness in the climate negotiations: what explains variation in parties’ expressed conceptions? Climate Policy. ISSN 1469-3062. 18(5), p. 642–654. doi: 10.1080/14693062.2017.1341372. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How to differentiate efforts and obligations fairly between countries has been among the most central and controversial issues in climate negotiations. This article analyses countries’ fairness conceptions as expressed in position documents submitted during negotiations leading to the Paris Agreement. A regression analysis investigates which country characteristics predict relative support for three fundamental fairness principles – Responsibility, Capability and Rights (needs). The most consistent and important explanatory variable turns out to be whether a country is included in Annex I to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which lists developed countries. This finding is compatible with the hypothesis that parties invoke fairness principles with the goal of advancing their own interests: non-Annex I parties wanted this particular scheme of differentiation to be upheld in the Paris Agreement, whereas Annex I parties advocated its removal. Notably, the outcome in Paris omits references to Annex I. However, the Agreement does contain multiple references to ‘developed’ versus ‘developing’ countries, hence introducing a more subtle and ambiguous differentiation than before. Post-Paris, seemingly technical discussions have encountered ‘roadblocks’ that partially derive from how the Agreement resolved the issue of differentiation between developed and developing countries. It therefore appears that negotiators will have to continue to deal with this issue, even though it may take on a new dynamic now that the Annex I division has less force. Looking for pragmatic solutions tailored to each substantive agenda point will be likely more fruitful than discussions at the level of fairness principles aiming for one overarching solution.

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• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund & Hovi, Jon (2024). Kommer ingen vei om alle som taper får vetorett på klimatiltak. Dagens næringsliv. ISSN 0803-9372.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund & Hovi, Jon (2024). Trepartssamarbeidet bremser det grønne skiftet. Dagens næringsliv. ISSN 0803-9372.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Green Stimulus Spending during the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 Crisis.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Impartiality and legitimacy in international courts: A comparative analysis of GATT and WTO dispute settlement.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Climate Politics During Recessions: Examining Drivers of a Green Economic Recovery.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2023). Forskernatt.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund & Wiborg, Vegard Sjurseike (2023). Commitment Ambiguity and Ambition in Climate Pledges.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2022). Impartiality and legitimacy in the international judiciary: The case of GATT/WTO dispute settlement reform.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2022). Commitment Ambiguity and Ambition in Climate Pledges.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2022). Green Spending During Economic Recessions: Recovery Packages in Canada and the US.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2022). Commitment Ambiguity and Prudence in Climate Pledges.
• Tørstad, Vegard Heggelund (2022). Frokostseminar: Har Norge et historisk ansvar for klimaødeleggelser?
• Tørstad, Vegard (2021). The Importance of Climate Thresholds in Domestic Politics.
• Ursin, Lars & Tørstad, Vegard (2021). Ekspertintervjuet: Dette står på spill i Glasgow. [Internet]. Energi og Klima.
• Wiborg, Vegard Sjurseike & Tørstad, Vegard (2021). The Effects of Mitigation Uncertainty under Pledge-and-Review: Evidence from the Lab.
• Tørstad, Vegard & Wiborg, Vegard Sjurseike (2021). Mitigation Ambiguity and Prudence in Climate Pledges.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2021). Judicialization and legitimacy: The effects of GATT/WTO dispute settlement reform on states’ legitimacy perceptions .
• Tørstad, Vegard (2021). Managing Multilateral Climate Negotiations.
• Wiborg, Vegard Sjurseike & Tørstad, Vegard (2021). The Effects of Mitigation Uncertainty under Pledge-and-Review: Evidence from the Lab.
• Tørstad, Vegard & Wiborg, Vegard Sjurseike (2021). Mitigation Ambiguity and Prudence in Climate Pledges.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2021). Can Transparency Strengthen the Legitimacy of International Institutions? Evidence from the UN Security Council.
• Sælen, Håkon; Tørstad, Vegard & Bøyum, Live Standal (2019). Domestic drivers of international climate ambition - Which factors explain cross-country variation NDC ambition? .
• Tørstad, Vegard (2018). Nå skal regelboka skrives. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2017). I en kano i Bonn. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839.
• Sælen, Håkon & Tørstad, Vegard (2017). Fairness and ambition in international climate negotiations – is there a tradeoff?
• Tørstad, Vegard (2016). En global klimaavtale – hvorfor nå? Dagsavisen. ISSN 1503-2892.
• Bøyum, Live Standal & Tørstad, Vegard (2016). Eit klima for endring. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2016). Obama-doktrinen. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2015). Klimabløff. Dagsavisen. ISSN 1503-2892.
• Tørstad, Vegard (2016). What’s Fair – and Why? An Empirical Analysis of Distributive Fairness in the Climate Negotiations. CICERO Senter for Klimaforskning.

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