Environmental governance

For broader coverage of this topic, see Environmental, social, and corporate governance.

Environmental governance (EG) consists of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regulatory body which is responsible for ensuring sustainability (sustainable development) and manage all human activities—political, social and economic. Environmental governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management.

In some cases, it views natural resources and the environment as global public goods, belonging to the category of goods that are not diminished when they are shared. This means that everyone benefits from, for example, a breathable atmosphere, stable climate and stable biodiversity.

Governance in an environmental context may refer to:

• a concept in political ecology which promotes environmental policy that advocates for sustainable human activity (i.e. that governance should be based upon environmental principles).
• the processes of decision-making involved in the control and management of the environment and natural resources.

Definitions

Environmental governance refers to the processes of decision-making involved in the control and management of the environment and natural resources. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), define environmental governance as the "multi-level interactions (i.e., local, national, international/global) among, but not limited to, three main actors, i.e., state, market, and civil society, which interact with one another, whether in formal and informal ways; in formulating and implementing policies in response to environment-related demands and inputs from the society; bound by rules, procedures, processes, and widely accepted behavior; possessing characteristics of “good governance”; for the purpose of attaining environmentally-sustainable development" (IUCN 2014).

Key principles of environmental governance include:

• Embedding the environment in all levels of decision-making and action
• Conceptualizing cities and communities, economic and political life as a subset of the environment
• Emphasizing the connection of people to the ecosystems in which they live
• Promoting the transition from open-loop/cradle-to-grave systems (like garbage disposal with no recycling) to closed-loop/cradle-to-cradle systems (like permaculture and zero waste strategies).

Challenges

Challenges facing environmental governance include:

• Inadequate continental and global agreements
• Unresolved tensions between maximum development, sustainable development and maximum protection, limiting funding, damaging links with the economy and limiting application of Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs).
• Environmental funding is not self-sustaining, diverting resources from problem-solving into funding battles.
• Lack of integration of sector policies
• Inadequate institutional capacities
• Ill-defined priorities
• Unclear objectives
• Lack of coordination within the UN, governments, the private sector and civil society
• Lack of shared vision
• Interdependencies among development/sustainable economic growth, trade, agriculture, health, peace and security.
• International imbalance between environmental governance and trade and finance programs, e.g., World Trade Organization (WTO).
• Limited credit for organizations running projects within the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
• Linking UNEP, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank with MEAs
• Lack of government capacity to satisfy MEA obligations
• Absence of the gender perspective and equity in environmental governance
• Inability to influence public opinion
• Time lag between human action and environmental effect, sometimes as long as a generation
• Environmental problems being embedded in very complex systems, of which our understanding is still quite weak

All of these challenges have implications on governance, however international environmental governance is necessary. The IDDRI claims that rejection of multilateralism in the name of efficiency and protection of national interests conflicts with the promotion of international law and the concept of global public goods. Others cite the complex nature of environmental problems.

On the other hand, The Agenda 21 program has been implemented in over 7,000 communities. Environmental problems, including global-scale problems, may not always require global solutions. For example, marine pollution can be tackled regionally, and ecosystem deterioration can be addressed locally. Other global problems such as climate change benefit from local and regional action.

Bäckstrand and Saward wrote, “sustainability and environmental protection is an arena in which innovative experiments with new hybrid, plurilateral forms of governance, along with the incorporation of a transnational civil society spanning the public-private divide, are taking place.”

Issues of scale

Multi-tier governance

The literature on governance scale shows how changes in the understanding of environmental issues have led to the movement from a local view to recognising their larger and more complicated scale. This move brought an increase in the diversity, specificity and complexity of initiatives. Meadowcroft pointed out innovations that were layered on top of existing structures and processes, instead of replacing them.

Lafferty and Meadowcroft give three examples of multi-tiered governance: internationalisation, increasingly comprehensive approaches, and involvement of multiple governmental entities. Lafferty and Meadowcroft described the resulting multi-tiered system as addressing issues on both smaller and wider scales.

Institutional fit

Hans Bruyninckx claimed that a mismatch between the scale of the environmental problem and the level of the policy intervention was problematic. Young claimed that such mismatches reduced the effectiveness of interventions. Most of the literature addresses the level of governance rather than ecological scale.

Elinor Ostrom, amongst others, claimed that the mismatch is often the cause of unsustainable management practices and that simple solutions to the mismatch have not been identified.

Considerable debate has addressed the question of which level(s) should take responsibility for fresh water management. Development workers tend to address the problem at the local level. National governments focus on policy issues. This can create conflicts among states because rivers cross borders, leading to efforts to evolve governance of river basins.

Scales

At the local level

A 1997 report observed a global consensus that sustainable development implementation should be based on local level solutions and initiatives designed with and by the local communities. Community participation and partnership along with the decentralisation of government power to local communities are important aspects of environmental governance at the local level. Initiatives such as these are integral divergence from earlier environmental governance approaches which was “driven by state agendas and resource control” and followed a top-down or trickle down approach rather than the bottom up approach that local level governance encompasses. The adoption of practices or interventions at a local scale can, in part, be explained by diffusion of innovation theory. In Tanzania and in the Pacific, researchers have illustrated that aspects of the intervention, of the adopter, and of the social-ecological context all shape why community-centered conservation interventions spread through space and time. Local level governance shifts decision-making power away from the state and/or governments to the grassroots. Local level governance is extremely important even on a global scale. Environmental governance at the global level is defined as international and as such has resulted in the marginalisation of local voices. Local level governance is important to bring back power to local communities in the global fight against environmental degridation. Pulgar Vidal observed a “new institutional framework, [wherein] decision-making regarding access to and use of natural resources has become increasingly decentralized.” He noted four techniques that can be used to develop these processes:

• formal and informal regulations, procedures and processes, such as consultations and participative democracy;
• social interaction that can arise from participation in development programs or from the reaction to perceived injustice;
• regulating social behaviours to reclassify an individual question as a public matter;
• within-group participation in decision-making and relations with external actors.

He found that the key conditions for developing decentralized environmental governance are:

• access to social capital, including local knowledge, leaders and local shared vision;
• democratic access to information and decision-making;
• local government activity in environmental governance: as facilitator of access to natural resources, or as policy maker;
• an institutional framework that favours decentralized environmental governance and creates forums for social interaction and making widely accepted agreements acceptable.

The legitimacy of decisions depends on the local population's participation rate and on how well participants represent that population. With regard to public authorities, questions linked to biodiversity can be faced by adopting appropriate policies and strategies, through exchange of knowledge and experience, the forming of partnerships, correct management of land use, monitoring of biodiversity and optimal use of resources, or reducing consumption, and promoting environmental certifications, such as EMAS and/or ISO 14001. Local authorities undoubtedly have a central role to play in the protection of biodiversity and this strategy is successful above all when the authorities show strength by involving stakeholders in a credible environmental improvement project and activating a transparent and effective communication policy (Ioppolo et al., 2013).

At state level

States play a crucial role in environmental governance, because "however far and fast international economic integration proceeds, political authority remains vested in national governments". It is for this reason that governments should respect and support the commitment to implementation of international agreements.

At the state level, environmental management has been found to be conducive to the creation of roundtables and committees. In France, the Grenelle de l’environnement process:

• included a variety of actors (e.g. the state, political leaders, unions, businesses, not-for-profit organizations and environmental protection foundations);
• allowed stakeholders to interact with the legislative and executive powers in office as indispensable advisors;
• worked to integrate other institutions, particularly the Economic and Social Council, to form a pressure group that participated in the process for creating an environmental governance model;
• attempted to link with environmental management at regional and local levels.

If environmental issues are excluded from e.g., the economic agenda, this may delegitimize those institutions.

At the global level

This section is an excerpt from Global governance § Global environmental governance.[edit]

The most pressing transboundary environmental challenges include climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation. Solving these problems now warrants coordination across a variety of institutions featuring many actors and encompassing different levels and scales of governance.

Following the growth of international environmental institutions from the 1970s, intergovernmental and transnational environmental governance has rapidly proliferated over the last few decades. As a result of this proliferation, domains of institutional competence increasingly overlap. This compounds the fragmentation and institutional complexity of global environmental governance, but also creates opportunities for productive interactions among institutions.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) coordinates the environmental activity of countries in the UN. For example, UNEP has played a vital role as a coordinator and catalyzer for an array of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). UNEP was envisioned to take up a leading role in more centralized global environmental governance. However, UNEP has been widely considered as a weak international organization, as many institutional arrangements concerned with regulating environmental matters have become increasingly independent of UNEP over the past decades, resembling a very loosely and sometimes poorly coordinated network. Moreover, some opponents have doubted the effectiveness of a centralized overarching institutional framework to govern global environmental governance and law.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development proposed an agenda for global environmental governance. These objectives are:

• leadership;
• positioning science as the authoritative basis of sound environmental policy;
• coherence and reasonable coordination;
• well-managed institutions;
• incorporate environmental concerns and actions within other areas of international policy and action (mainstreaming)

Thematic issues

Main articles: Human impact on the environment and Environmental degradation

Climate change

This section is an excerpt from Climate governance.[edit]

Climate governance is the diplomacy, mechanisms and response measures "aimed at steering social systems towards preventing, mitigating or adapting to the risks posed by climate change". A definitive interpretation is complicated by the wide range of political and social science traditions (including comparative politics, political economy and multilevel governance) that are engaged in conceiving and analysing climate governance at different levels and across different arenas. In academia, climate governance has become the concern of geographers, anthropologists, economists and business studies scholars.

Climate governance – that is, effective management of the global climate system – is thus of vital importance. However, building effective collective mechanisms to govern impacts on the climate system at the planetary level presents particular challenges, e.g. the complexity of the relevant science and the progressive refinement of scientific knowledge about our global climate and planetary systems, and the challenge of communicating this knowledge to the general public and to policy makers. There is also the urgency of addressing this issue; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has underlined that the international community has a narrow window of opportunity to act to keep global temperature rise at safe levels. Modern international climate governance is organized around three pillars: mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation. Under each pillar are many issues and policies, illustrating the many ways climate change affects society.

In the first decade of the 21st century, a paradox had arisen between rising awareness about the causes and consequences of climate change and an increasing concern that the issues that surround it represent an intractable problem. Initially, climate change was approached as a global issue, and climate governance sought to address it on the international stage. This took the form of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), beginning with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. With the exception of the Kyoto Protocol, international agreements between nations had been largely ineffective in achieving legally binding emissions cuts. With the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012, between 2013 and 2015 there was no legally binding global climate regime. This inertia on the international political stage contributed to alternative political narratives that called for more flexible, cost effective and participatory approaches to addressing the multifarious problems of climate change. These narratives relate to the increasing diversity of methods that are being developed and deployed across the field of climate governance.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed, which is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to "well below 2", and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and to achieve this goal, countries agree to peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate-neutral world by mid-century. It commits all nations of the world to achieving a "balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century." The Paris Agreement marked a new era for global energy and climate policies. Under its framework, each country submits its own nationally determined contribution (NDC) based on its particular situation. Though the Paris Agreement is legally binding, as an extension to the UNFCCC, the NDCs are not legally binding. This was because a legally binding treaty would have required ratification by the United States Senate, which was not supportive.

Biodiversity

Environmental governance for protecting the biodiversity has to act in many levels. Biodiversity is fragile because it is threatened by almost all human actions. To promote conservation of biodiversity, agreements and laws have to be created to regulate agricultural activities, urban growth, industrialization of countries, use of natural resources, control of invasive species, the correct use of water and protection of air quality.

To promote environmental governance for biodiversity protection there has to be a clear articulation between values and interests while negotiating environmental management plans.

This section is an excerpt from Biodiversity loss § Convention on Biological Diversity.[edit]

Many governments have conserved portions of their territories under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty signed in 1992–3. The 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets are part of the CBD's Strategic Plan 2011–2020 and were published in 2010. Aichi Target Number 11 aimed to protect 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020 .

Of the 20 biodiversity goals laid out by the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010, only six were partially achieved by 2020. The 2020 CBD report highlighted that if the status quo does not change, biodiversity will continue to decline due to "currently unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, population growth and technological developments". The report also singled out Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) for having had one of its animals lost to extinction in the previous ten years.

Following this, the leaders of 64 nations and the European Union pledged to halt environmental degradation and restore the natural world. The pledge was not signed by leaders from some of the world's biggest polluters, namely China, India, Russia, Brazil and the United States. Some experts contend that the United States' refusal to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity is harming global efforts to halt the extinction crisis.

Scientists say that even if the targets for 2020 had been met, no substantial reduction of extinction rates would likely have resulted. Others have raised concerns that the Convention on Biological Diversity does not go far enough, and argue the goal should be zero extinctions by 2050, along with cutting the impact of unsustainable food production on nature by half. That the targets are not legally binding has also been subject to criticism.

In December 2022, every country except the United States and the Holy See signed onto the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference. This framework calls for protecting 30% of land and oceans by 2030 (30 by 30). It also has 22 other targets intended to reduce biodiversity loss. At the time of signing the agreement, only 17% of land territory and 10% of ocean territory were protected. The agreement includes protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and changing the current subsidy policy to one better for biodiversity protection, but it takes a step backward in protecting species from extinction in comparison to the Aichi Targets. Critics said the agreement does not go far enough to protect biodiversity, and that the process was rushed.

Ozone layer

On 16 September 1987 the United Nations General Assembly signed the Montreal Protocol to address the declining ozone layer. Since that time, the use of chlorofluorocarbons (industrial refrigerants and aerosols) and farming fungicides such as methyl bromide has mostly been eliminated, although other damaging gases are still in use.

Socio-environmental conflicts

Environmental issues such as natural resource management and climate change have security and social considerations. Drinking water scarcity and climate change can cause mass migrations of climate refugees, for example.

Social network analysis has been applied to understand how different actors cooperate and conflict in environmental governance. Existing relationships can influence how stakeholders collaborate during times of conflict: a study of transportation planning and land use in California found that stakeholders choose their collaborative partners by avoiding those with the most dissimilar beliefs, rather than by selecting for those with shared views. The result is known as homophily—actors with similar views are more likely to end up collaborating than those with opposing views.

Agreements

Conventions

The main multilateral conventions, also known as Rio Conventions, are as follows:

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (1992–1993): aims to conserve biodiversity. Related agreements include the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) (1992–1994): aims to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases at a level that would stabilize the climate system without threatening food production, and enabling the pursuit of sustainable economic development; it incorporates the Kyoto Protocol.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) (1994–1996): aims to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought and desertification, in developing countries (Though initially the convention was primarily meant for Africa).

Further conventions:

• Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (1971–1975)
• UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1972–1975)
• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) (1973–1975)
• Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (1979–1983)
• Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) (1992–1996)
• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (1989–1992)
• Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedures for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
• Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (COP) (2001–2004)

The Rio Conventions are characterized by:

• obligatory execution by signatory states
• involvement in a sector of global environmental governance
• focus on the fighting poverty and the development of sustainable living conditions;
• funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for countries with few financial resources;
• inclusion of a for assessing ecosystem status

Environmental conventions are regularly criticized for their:

• rigidity and verticality: they are too descriptive, homogenous and top down, not reflecting the diversity and complexity of environmental issues. Signatory countries struggle to translate objectives into concrete form and incorporate them consistently;
• duplicate structures and aid: the sector-specific format of the conventions produced duplicate structures and procedures. Inadequate cooperation between government ministries;
• contradictions and incompatibility: e.g., “if reforestation projects to reduce CO₂ give preference to monocultures of exotic species, this can have a negative impact on biodiversity (whereas natural regeneration can strengthen both biodiversity and the conditions needed for life).”

Until now, the formulation of environmental policies at the international level has been divided by theme, sector or territory, resulting in treaties that overlap or clash. International attempts to coordinate environment institutions, include the Inter-Agency Coordination Committee and the Commission for Sustainable Development, but these institutions are not powerful enough to effectively incorporate the three aspects of sustainable development.

Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs)

Main article: International environmental agreement

MEAs are agreements between several countries that apply internationally or regionally and concern a variety of environmental questions. As of 2013 over 500 Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), including 45 of global scope involve at least 72 signatory countries. Further agreements cover regional environmental problems, such as deforestation in Borneo or pollution in the Mediterranean. Each agreement has a specific mission and objectives ratified by multiple states.

Many Multilateral Environmental Agreements have been negotiated with the support from the United Nations Environmental Programme and work towards the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as a means to instil sustainable practices for the environment and its people. Multilateral Environmental Agreements are considered to present enormous opportunities for greener societies and economies which can deliver numerous benefits in addressing food, energy and water security and in achieving sustainable development. These agreements can be implemented on a global or regional scale, for example the issues surrounding the disposal of hazardous waste can be implemented on a regional level as per the Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Waste within Africa which applies specifically to Africa, or the global approach to hazardous waste such as the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal which is monitored throughout the world.

Actors

Over 30 UN agencies and programmes support environmental management (as of 2006). This produces a lack of coordination, insufficient exchange of information and dispersion of responsibilities. It also results in proliferation of initiatives and rivalry between them.

According to Bäckstrand and Saward, “broader participation by non-state actors in multilateral environmental decisions (in varied roles such as agenda setting, campaigning, lobbying, consultation, monitoring, and implementation) enhances the democratic legitimacy of environmental governance.”

See also

• Climate governance
• Earth system governance
• Ecological modernization
• Environmental globalization
• Environmental policy
• Environmental politics
• Environmental racism
• Global governance
• List of international environmental agreements
• Political ecology
• Territorialisation of carbon governance