New source of global governance supported by technology: Comparative analysis of the adoption process of the “Sectoral Approach” in the global iron and steel industry and cement industry

The so-called Sectoral Approach, tackling to prevent global warming by using each technology of each industry, has attracted attention as a major method of CO2 reduction. The adoption processes of steel and cement industry participating in Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP) that converted to Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership (GSEP) are compared. In the diffusion process of Sectoral Approach through the steel industry, the companies, located in developing countries being considered not to agree to form the regime which would impede their economic development, joined the agreement, with even the government endorsement. A similar phenomenon was also found in the cement industry. The reason of Sectoral Approach being taking root as a new international regime is the existence of multi-national companies in the developing countries. The understanding by traditional model implies importance of the government´s role of developing and supporting market competition among private actors for making new global governance. However the phenomenon observed in the Sectoral Approach diffusion process, that accumulation of efforts by multi-national companies can influence government policies, suggests the possibilities of new mechanism of solving international problems, which is an opposite view with respect to the conventional understandings. In other words, the `globalized companies´ could develop a new system of global governance, instead of each nation´s `government´. The above mechanism is a strong candidate as a source of future global governance.