Trends in Global Environmental Governance: The Emergence of a Mutual Supportiveness Approach to Achieve Sustainable Development

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukul Sanwal
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Environmental Negotiations ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Development Objectives

The experience of the last ten years of global environmental negotiations suggests that a new and different approach to international cooperation is required if we are to achieve sustainable development. While multilateral environmental agreements have provided a valuable framework for building a consensus on broad objectives, their implementation requires a focus on the underlying activities that cause environmental degradation. Moreover, globalization encourages the development and use of innovative technologies, leading to a large degree of overlap between global environmental concerns and national sustainable development objectives. These shifts require wholly new perspectives that are based less on determining responsibilities and more on supporting mutually reinforcing transformations. The new approach also looks beyond the state to other stakeholders as contributors to achieving sustainable development.

Measuring the Negotiation Burden of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miquel Muñoz ◽  
Rachel Thrasher ◽  
Adil Najam
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Environment And Development ◽  
Quantitative Indicators ◽  
Over Time

The Global Environmental Governance (GEG) system has grown significantly since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. In this paper we analyze ten leading Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), reviewing various quantitative indicators (related to time, resources and commitment) to chart their evolution and to measure the “negotiation burden” that the burgeoning GEG system is imposing on states and secretariats. We find that these representative MEAs have not only grown in size but also have become busier over time, although there are indications that as the GEG system “matures,” it may also be stabilizing. Among other things, we find that the reported budget for these ten MEA secretariats has grown nine-fold in sixteen years, from US$ 8.18 million in 1992 to US$ 75.83 million in 2007. Counting only the most important of meetings, and using the number of meeting days as an indicator of the “negotiation load,” we find that the negotiation load for the leading MEAs has stabilized, averaging around 115 meeting days per year. Decisions also seem to plateau at about 185 per year.

Environment and Sustainable Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 200-228
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger ◽  
Alexandra Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
System P ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Development Goals

This chapter considers the UN contributions to treaty-making in practice on the environment and sustainable development. It begins with a brief survey of the crafting and “clustering” of multilateral environmental agreements as international responses to emerging global environmental problems. Specifically, this chapter considers the role of the UN in this process, focusing on successive waves of treaty-making over recent decades. It suggests that the UN has played a very important role in negotiations in this field, and continues to serve as a crucial and valuable actor in the implementation and refinement of these treaties and the broader problem-based clusters, in spite of very limited resources. This chapter identifies several key treaties that address a selection of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs,) leading to a concluding consideration of how international accords in this field are, in turn, contributing to the UN Charter. It suggests that, without the UN-facilitated treaties, many SDGs could be considered “hollow,” dependent on voluntary collaborations, and devoid of reliable regimes to achieve their targets. Not all relationships are equally integrated. Fragmentation, duplication, unintended overlapping of obligations or even conflicts may exist. As international governance becomes more sophisticated and complex, these interrelated instruments can be negotiated, implemented, and interactionally refined across multiple nested levels. To this end, this chapter argues that adoption of the SDGs may support greater coherence across the UN system.

Capturing the Personal in Politics: Ethnographies of Global Environmental Governance

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Corson ◽  
Lisa M. Campbell ◽  
Kenneth I. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Collaborative Ethnography ◽  
Relations Of Power

In this article we elaborate on how we use collaborative event ethnography to study global environmental governance. We discuss how it builds on traditional forms of ethnography, as well as on approaches that use ethnography to study policy-making in multiple institutional and geographical sites. We argue that global environmental meetings and negotiations offer opportunities to study critical historical moments in the making of emergent regimes of global environmental governance, and that collaborative ethnography can capture the day-to-day practices that constitute policy paradigm shifts. In this method, the negotiations themselves are not the object of study, but rather how they reflect and transform relations of power in environmental governance. Finally, we propose a new approach to understanding and examining global environmental governance—one that views the ethnographic field as constituted by relationships across time and space that come together at sites such as meetings.

Accountability of Environmental Impact Bonds: The Future of Global Environmental Governance?

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina M. Balboa
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Perverse Incentives ◽  
Areas Of Concern ◽  
New Instruments

As the latest iteration of leveraging private resources to protect and sustain our natural resources, the environmental impact bond (EIB) reflects the growing trend in sustainable development that makes financing available to projects based on the verifiable results of an intervention. These new instruments in global environmental governance are not actually bonds but pay-for-success contracts, in which the risk of success is shouldered by the investor, and financial savings, pegged to the intervention outcome, are prioritized. This examination of EIBs through the lens of accountability aims to elicit debate on some areas of concern and consideration for the design and implementation of outcome-based financing for global environmental governance, including the prioritizing of private over public accountabilities and potential perverse incentives these instruments create. As both public and private accountability goals are evident in EIB, this governance tool runs the risk of exacerbating the paradox of increased accountability but decreased environmental gains.

State Sovereignty in the Planetary Management of Natural Resources

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico J. Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Values

Protagonists of global environmental governance often view the sovereign State as well as the principle of sovereignty as major stumbling blocks for effective environmental conservation and sustainable development. Some even herald the demise of the idea of the sovereign State. However, reality has it differently. Sovereignty is no longer an unqualified concept. Manifold new duties have been imposed upon the sovereign State as a result of the progressive development of international law. Much of the modern international law movement vests States with the responsibility to adopt regulations, to monitor and secure compliance and exercise justice in order to achieve its implementation, whereas supranational global environmental governance has remained notoriously weak. This article examines this proposition by reference to the environmental and developmental role of states in three landmark multilateral treaties: The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (1982), the Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity (1992) and the Paris Agreement on climate change (2015). They demonstrate that sovereignty serves as a key organisational principle for the realization of global values, such as environmental conservation and sustainable development.

State Sovereignty in the Planetary Management of Natural Resources

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nico J. Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Values

Protagonists of global environmental governance often view the sovereign State as well as the principle of sovereignty as major stumbling blocks for effective environmental conservation and sustainable development. Some even herald the demise of the idea of the sovereign State. However, reality has it differently. Sovereignty is no longer an unqualified concept. Manifold new duties have been imposed upon the sovereign State as a result of the progressive development of international law. Much of the modern international law movement vests States with the responsibility to adopt regulations, to monitor and secure compliance and exercise justice in order to achieve its implementation, whereas supranational global environmental governance has remained notoriously weak. This article examines this proposition by reference to the environmental and developmental role of states in three landmark multilateral treaties: The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (1982), the Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity (1992) and the Paris Agreement on climate change (2015). They demonstrate that sovereignty serves as a key organisational principle for the realization of global values, such as environmental conservation and sustainable development.

scholarly journals China’s National Plan on Implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals: from the Perspective of National Performance of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Qin Tianbao ◽  
Hou Fang
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
National Level ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Coordination Mechanism ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Governance ◽  
Development Goals

In terms of the implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, the implementation of the agreements has gradually shifted from the institutional construction of the international level to the implementation of the national level. Since the Millennium Development Goals did not reach the goal of sustainable development in the year of 2015, 2030 Sustainable Development Goals had drew the lessons, put forward the goals of economic, social and environmental, and required all countries to provide their own country’s plan. As the largest developing country, China plays a decisive role in the international environmental governance. At home, China has formulated the domestic environmental governance norms for the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and established an inter ministerial coordination mechanism for implementing the Sustainable Development Agenda composed of 43 government departments. China is also actively participating in international environmental governance, participating and promoting the conclusion and effectiveness of treaties on environmental protection at the international and regional levels, earnestly implementing and helping other countries to implement treaties, and expanding the global partnership through various formal and informal meetings and other channels.

scholarly journals From Stockholm to Rio: Critical Reading of Global Environmental Governance

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Verdinand Robertua ◽  
Arry Bainus
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
English School ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Driver ◽  
Rio Conference ◽  
Stockholm Conference

<p>Global environmental governance is deeply undermined due to the problem of overlapping function and lack of funding. It is then important to trace the history of the construction of global environmental governance as an institution. This article would like to understand the dynamics of global environmental governance from Stockholm Conference in 1972 to Rio Conference in 1992. The changes between Stockholm Conference and Rio Conference will be analyzed using English School theory. English School theory has the potential to critically engage with the taken-for-granted norms and institutions. Pluralism and solidarism as the normative wings of English School can elaborate the key driver of global environmental governance. It is expected that this article can contribute to development of environmental studies of English School theory and the formulation of global environmental governance.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: <em>global environmental governance, English School theory, Rio Conference, Stockholm Conference, sustainable development</em></p>

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