scholarly journals India in international climate governance: Through soft power from REDD to REDD+ policy in favor of relative gains

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swati Negi ◽  
Lukas Giessen

This paper seeks to examine India’s role in the politics of a specific climate change mitigation policy called “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and enhancing forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+)”. It explores India’s strategic behaviour towards the development of REDD policy. The paper argues that India had pushed for the remodelling of the global REDD negotiations by expanding its scope to conservation activities, which entails more direct benefits for India. This is largely due to differences in India’s rates of forest cover and deforestation as compared to high forest - high deforestation countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. To substantiate its argument, the paper uses the main underpinnings of relative gains theory in international relations and applies them toward interpreting India’s behaviour in negotiating REDD+ at global level. Further, the paper analyses the Indian strategies used to remodel the REDD mechanism using insights from soft power theory and its more recent amendments. Thematic analysis of the REDD-relevant documents as well as exploratory expert interviews have been employed for showing India’s proactive role in the politics of REDD+. It is concluded that India indeed played a central role in critical past decisions, which lead to re-shaping REDD due to relative gains concerns and mainly by means of soft power strategies.

Author(s):  
Volodymyr Shatokha

The role of European Union in defining of the international climate change mitigation policy was studied in the historic context of overcoming the differences in the approaches to reaching the sustainable development targets among the EU, the USA, China and some other influential countries. It has been shown that currently the processes of climate policy definition became more polycentric than in 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed. The ability to adjust to a new context, to build coalitions and to reach compromise with the wide range of international actors has been crucial for maintaining the EU’s influence on definition of the international climate change mitigation policy. Despite not always supportive internal and external factors, during a quarter of century the EU has managed to maintain its leadership and many times helped to enhance the ambition of global climatic targets by establishing the high level of own commitments and implementing relevant policy instruments. The EU and its members played a decisive role in ensuring of the non-interruptive international climate action during implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and in setting of the Paris Agreement which will define climate regime after 2020. Mitigation of climate change is a complicated task not only in terms of technology and socio-economic aspects but also with respect to policy implementation. Therefore the EU leadership in this sphere remains very important.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (49) ◽  
pp. 24492-24499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Roopsind ◽  
Brent Sohngen ◽  
Jodi Brandt

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a climate change mitigation policy in which rich countries provide payments to developing countries for protecting their forests. In 2009, the countries of Norway and Guyana entered into one of the first bilateral REDD+ programs, with Norway offering to pay US$250 million to Guyana if annual deforestation rates remained below 0.056% from 2010 to 2015. To quantify the impact of this national REDD+ program, we construct a counterfactual times-series trajectory of annual tree cover loss using synthetic matching. This analytical approach allows us to quantify tree cover loss that would have occurred in the absence of the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program. We found that the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program reduced tree cover loss by 35% during the implementation period (2010 to 2015), equivalent to 12.8 million tons of avoided CO2 emissions. Our analysis indicates that national REDD+ payments attenuated the effect of increases in gold prices, an internationally traded commodity that is the primary deforestation driver in Guyana. Overall, we found strong evidence that the program met the additionality criteria of REDD+. However, we found that tree cover loss increased after the payments ended, and therefore, our results suggest that without continued payments, forest protection is not guaranteed. On the issue of leakage, which is complex and difficult to quantify, a multinational REDD+ program for a region could address leakage that results from differences in forest policies between neighboring countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7539
Author(s):  
Zaw Naing Tun ◽  
Paul Dargusch ◽  
DJ McMoran ◽  
Clive McAlpine ◽  
Genia Hill

Myanmar is one of the most forested countries of mainland Southeast Asia and is a globally important biodiversity hotspot. However, forest cover has declined from 58% in 1990 to 44% in 2015. The aim of this paper was to understand the patterns and drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in Myanmar since 2005, and to identify possible policy interventions for improving Myanmar’s forest management. Remote sensing derived land cover maps of 2005, 2010 and 2015 were accessed from the Forest Department, Myanmar. Post-classification change detection analysis and cross tabulation were completed using spatial analyst and map algebra tools in ArcGIS (10.6) software. The results showed the overall annual rate of forest cover loss was 2.58% between 2005 and 2010, but declined to 0.97% between 2010 and 2015. The change detection analysis showed that deforestation in Myanmar occurred mainly through the degradation of forest canopy associated with logging rather than forest clearing. We propose that strengthening the protected area system in Myanmar, and community participation in forest conservation and management. There needs to be a reduction in centralisation of forestry management by sharing responsibilities with local governments and the movement away from corruption in the timber trading industry through the formation of local-based small and medium enterprises. We also recommend the development of a forest monitoring program using advanced remote sensing and GIS technologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-286
Author(s):  
Agapi E. Matosian

To this day political processes are less and less impacted by military force. States are increasingly resorting to the use of means of latent influence or relying on cultural attraction. Such phenomena have led to the emergence of soft power in international relations. Many countries, including the Republic of Korea, effectively use soft power tools in implementing policies at various levels. This manuscript seeks to analyze the main soft power components and tools of the Republic of Korea in foreign policy. The paper examines the background of the formation and development of soft power strategies. Many factors have predetermined the growing popularity of Korean culture, a phenomenon subsequently called the Korean Wave (Hallyu). This paper identifies the main elements of the Hallyu, including public diplomacy and South Koreas cultural economy exporting pop culture, entertainment, music, TV dramas, and movies, and examines how these elements complement each other.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
Nadiya Mikhno

The article deals with defining the characteristics of the authority discourse development in modern society. The localization of the urban area has been chosen as the field of the authority discursive power strategies development. The author's scheme of authority discourse analysis in the urban area has been suggested basing on the methodological principles of a discourse-analytical strategy and involving the heuristic potential of a socio-cultural and semiotic analysis, as a result of the specific empirical study. The analysis of theoretical frames for the study of the concepts of «discourse» and «authority» has made it possible to determine a variety of communicative actions, which subject can only be the authority – an institutional discourse, namely, a political perspective. It is proposed to define a political discourse as a set of all speech acts in the appropriate institutional atmosphere, which is implemented in both oral and written forms within this study. The consideration of the background, expectations of the author and the audience, hidden motives, plot schemes etc. are provided in this article. It has been noted that it is appropriate to use the categorization approach to the «soft power» concept, which proposes to consider the power as the one which is implemented in the form of a certain communicative action. The behavior dictated by the authorities is perceived by a recipient as a voluntary choice during its relization. Such categories of the investigation as cultural mechanisms of nomination, classification, legitimation and naturalization are stressed analysing a political discourse in an urban area. The author's matrix of the analysis of the authority discourse in the urban area which includes its strategies, grammatology, idioms and the nature of their projection in discursive strategies of main subjects of discourse development has been described.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 699-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoko Hasegawa ◽  
Shinichiro Fujimori ◽  
Petr Havlík ◽  
Hugo Valin ◽  
Benjamin Leon Bodirsky ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-215
Author(s):  
Mohommad Shahid ◽  
◽  
L.K. Rai ◽  

Paris Agreement recognized the role of forests as carbon sink for mitigation of climate change, under Article 5 as REDD+, i.e., reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Forest cover change analysis was done between two time periods 2005 and 2015 to assess the forest degradation. Carbon sequestration potential of the forests of Sikkim for mitigating climate change is also estimated. Benefits of implementing of REDD+ in Sikkim involving local communities as stakeholder to conserve and sustainably manage the forest is assessed. Gaps and challenges faced by the stakeholder in implementing REDD+ at project level are also highlighted.


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