scholarly journals Climate Change Litigation in Ghana: An Analysis of the Role of Courts in Enforcing Climate Change Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 51-55
Author(s):  
Bolanle Erinosho

Jacqueline Peel and Jolene Lin note that a “transnational understanding of the nature, significance and effects of climate litigation is incomplete if it fails to encompass the Global South experience.” This is especially important because the broader aim of climate litigation—namely, to provide redress to victims for climate harms—requires a collective global effort. Peel and Lin thus call for a broadening of our understanding of climate change litigation to include the experiences of the Global South. The term “Global South” has been used to refer to the collection of mostly developing countries with similar agendas that have often collaborated in environmental negotiations. These countries form a significant bloc in climate change negotiations. However, the experiences and views of many of the countries of the Global South differ in the way climate change matters are conceived and tackled. This essay demonstrates as much by examining climate change litigation in Ghana.

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-61
Author(s):  
Lesley Masters

The G77 + China represents a multilateral group, engaged in multilateral diplomacy, across multiple fora. While the group has negotiated positive outcomes in terms of trade through its role in the UNCTAD, environmental negotiations have demonstrated the challenges facing the group in maintaining unity, and in turn, raised questions concerning its relevance. This review article considers the divisions that have emerged within the group, as well as those that have emerged between the G77 + China and developed countries within the context of the climate change negotiations. What is significant is that multilateral diplomacy within the group has seen the continuance of unity, despite considerable difference, yet there has been less success in bridging the divide between developed and developing countries as talks move towards the twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP) in 2015.


Author(s):  
Sarah Blodgett Bermeo

This chapter introduces the role of development as a self-interested policy pursued by industrialized states in an increasingly connected world. As such, it is differentiated from traditional geopolitical accounts of interactions between industrialized and developing states as well as from assertions that the increased focus on development stems from altruistic motivations. The concept of targeted development—pursuing development abroad when and where it serves the interests of the policymaking states—is introduced and defined. The issue areas covered in the book—foreign aid, trade agreements between industrialized and developing countries, and finance for climate change adaptation and mitigation—are introduced. The preference for bilateral, rather than multilateral, action is discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-210
Author(s):  
Simone Borghesi

AbstractThe present article describes the main insights deriving from the papers collected in this special issue which jointly provide a ‘room with a view’ on some of the most relevant issues in climate policy such as: the role of uncertainty, the distributional implications of climate change, the drivers and applications of decarbonizing innovation, the role of emissions trading and its interactions with companion policies. While looking at different issues and from different angles, all papers share a similar attention to policy aspects and implications, especially in developing countries. This is particularly important to evaluate whether and to what extent the climate policies adopted thus far in developed countries can be replicated in emerging economies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-395
Author(s):  
Marcela Cardoso Guilles Da Conceição ◽  
Renato de Aragão Ribeiro Rodrigues ◽  
Fernanda Reis Cordeiro ◽  
Fernando Vieira Cesário ◽  
Gracie Verde Selva ◽  
...  

The increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere raises the average temperature of the planet, triggering problems that threaten the survival of humans. Protecting the global climate from the effects of climate change is an essential condition for sustaining life. For this reason, governments, scientists, and society are joining forces to propose better solutions that could well-rounded environmentally, social and economic development relationships. International climate change negotiations involve many countries in establishing strategies to mitigate the problem. Therefore, understanding international negotiation processes and how ratified agreements impact a country is of fundamental importance. The purpose of this paper is to systematize information about how climate negotiations have progressed, detailing key moments and results, analyzing the role that Brazil played in the course of these negotiations and the country’s future perspectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jewel Andoh ◽  
Yohan Lee

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) in developing countries requires a National REDD+ Strategy (NRS) to ensure effectiveness, efficiency and equity. So far, only a few countries have submitted their NRS to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to progress to the implementation phase of REDD+. To compare the NRS of eight countries from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, we used content analysis to assess whether these countries have paid attention to the REDD+ design components and adhered to the UNFCCC REDD+ rules. Our results demonstrate that all eight countries have paid considerable attention to REDD+ activities, finance, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), and safeguard systems, and most countries have not adhered to the UNFCCC REDD+ rules on scale including the definition of national and subnational forests, subnational projects to be nested into national systems, and subnational activities to be verified by experts. REDD+ countries must develop definitions for national and subnational forests to enhance forest monitoring and they must develop technical and institutional infrastructure for MRV and safeguard systems, to receive results-based payments, and for the sustainability of REDD+ projects.


Climate Law ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Kulovesi

This article discusses recent developments in the UN climate change negotiations in light of the Bonn Climate Change Conference in May 2012. It highlights the Bonn meeting as the first opportunity to assess the influence on the UNFCCC process of the Durban Package and the new Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. It argues that the main impression from the Bonn meeting is that the Durban outcome has indeed affected the dynamics of the UNFCCC negotiations and holds potential for far-reaching changes. Provided that all goes well, the combination of new bodies and processes created in Cancun and Durban, the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report by the IPCC, and the likely public pressure following its release could open a new chapter in the UNFCCC process and lead to a more effective multilateral response to the climate change challenge. Still, the combination of a palpable rift within G-77/China and traditional divides between developed and developing countries on issues such as finance and technology means that the road ahead is likely to be a difficult one.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 699-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyeeta Gupta ◽  
King Yip Wong

This paper examines China’s policy and position in relation to the evolving climate change negotiations in order to explain how China is dealing with the dilemma of meeting its growing development needs while reducing ghg emissions. It argues that global climate governance requires steering and leadership to deal with the interlocked political process; that the developing countries (dcs) right to develop is challenged by the need for ecosystemic standards especially as climate change is seen as a zero-sum game as the more one country emits the less another one can. This is especially problematic as Industrialized countries (ics) appear to be both unwilling and unable to increase growth without increasing emissions. This explains China’s policy of insisting on its right to develop, of demanding that ics reduce their emissions and that they fulfil their obligations under the fccc, while expressing its willingness to take on a voluntary target. The paper argues that China’s state-led transition has eight unique characteristics that may allow it to lead as it moves beyond a no-regrets policy to a circular and green economy, cooperating with other dcs and mobilizing conscious green values in citizens. The question remains—will the initial success and scale of state-led transition lead the global green transition to a sustainable world?


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 67-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandra Lal Pandey ◽  
Priya A. Kurian

News media outlets are crucial for the dissemination of information on climate change issues, but the nature of the coverage varies across the world, depending on local geopolitical and economic contexts. Despite extensive scholarship on media and climate change, less attention has been paid to comparing how climate change is reported by news media in developed and developing countries. This article undertakes a cross-national study of how elite newspapers in four major greenhouse gas emitting countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, China and India—frame coverage of climate change negotiations. We show that framing is similar by these newspapers in developing countries, but there are clear differences in framing in the developed world, and between the developed and developing countries. While an overwhelming majority of these news stories and the frames they deploy are pegged to the stance of domestic institutions in the developing countries, news frames from developed countries are more varied.


2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward A Page ◽  
Clare Heyward

With the adoption of the Warsaw International Mechanism in 2013, the international community recognised that anthropogenic climate change will result in a range of adverse effects despite policies of mitigation and adaptation. Addressing these climatic ‘losses and damages’ is now a key dimension of international climate change negotiations. This article presents a normative framework for thinking about loss and damage designed to inform, and give meaning to, these negotiations. It argues that policies addressing loss and damage, particularly those targeting developing countries, should respect norms of compensatory justice which aim to make victims of unwarranted climatic disruptions ‘whole again’. The article develops a typology of different kinds of climate change disruption and uses it to (1) explain the differences between ‘losses’ and ‘damages’, (2) assign priorities among compensatory measures seeking to address loss and damage and (3) explore a range of equitable responses to loss and damage.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Williams

Marian Miller provided an engaging and persuasive analysis of the role of Third World states in global environmental negotiations. While Miller focused on the strategies of individual states, this article examines the collective agency of the Third World in global environmental negotiations. The first part of the article explores the debates on the continuing relevance of the Third World as a concept, and contends that the Third World retains relevance in the context of global bargaining processes. The second part of the article highlights the role of ideas and institutions in the continued reproduction of the Third World as an actor in global environmental politics. The final part of the article explores the ways in which the negotiations on climate change have tended to reproduce a distinctive Southern perspective.


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