Environmental Policy and Governance: Climate Change - Term Paper Example

Environmental Policy and Governance: Climate Change Essay Introduction The inability of world leaders to develop appropriate framework for environmental governance is a cause for worry. Without such a framework in place, it is not possible to move forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. The biggest problem that faces environmental policy is non-enforcement and failure of national governments to comply with standards and what has been agreed on. A good governance framework has proved elusive because developing nations are unwilling to cut emissions that will slow their economic growth and developed nations on the other hand feel pollution is a global problem that should be borne by all. In addition, environmental pollution is a global problem where local solutions to the problem have global implications and the effects of the pollution are felt at the local level. In order combat environmental pollution, a framework for governance has to be developed that enhances decision making by involving multiple players from the local level, national governments, and internationally. So far, developing the framework has not been successful due to competing interests among nations. I selected this topic because environmental governance is important for survival of human beings. Battling Climate Change through Global Environmental Governance Even though the phenomenon of climate change is incredibly complicated, the reason behind the climate change issue is somewhat easy to explain. The atmosphere of the earth works as a greenhouse through which a variety of gases (e.g. water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, etc.) take in solar emission that would then be redirected from the Earth into space. This greenhouse effect is not at all bad for it sustains the warmth of the Earth and enables life to thrive (Biermann, 2004). Yet, ever since the Industrial Revolution, people across the globe has been giving off a greater amount of greenhouse gases, largely thru the processing of fossil fuels, raising their levels in the atmosphere and hence escalating the level of warming. Possible consequences of higher warming levels involve rising sea levels, upsurges in the seriousness and prevalence of famines and storms, altered patterns of rainfall, changed disease curves and directions, poorer agricultural yield, and so on (Meadowcroft, 2010). However, this straightforward explanation of how global warming occurs denies the tremendous difficulty of formulating ways to alleviate and/or adjust to the outcomes of climate change. Climate is a very complicated system that human beings find very difficult to fully and precisely understand, and although there is general agreement that climate change is occurring due to human activities, there are several ambiguities and confounding aspects that limit the global community’s capacity to develop open and direct policies to deal with the issue. Scientific issues involve understanding and identifying (Hoffmann, 2011, p. 10): The exact relationship between concentrations of greenhouse gasses and temperature increases on the one hand and climactic changes like increased severity and frequency of storms, cycles of droughts and floods, and patterns of precipitation on the other; How natural variability in the climate can mask and/or exacerbate the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; The uncertain magnitude and geographically variable nature of the effects of climate change. Besides scientific issues, and in certain instances immediately associated with the scientific ambiguities, the political and social hindrances to dealing with climate change can barely be exaggerated. First, greenhouse discharges are caused by almost all human activities. Majority of present-day agricultural and industrial practices generate greenhouse gases. The global economy largely depends on fossil fuel. Second, reliance on fossil fuels is unbalanced. Although the world’s economy operates on fossil fuels, there exists a gap among producers and consumers of fossil fuels; in short, several nations generate large amounts of fossil fuels, other countries use up much fossil fuels, and those that consumer fewer quantities would want to consume larger amounts (Paterson, 2013). Third, levels of greenhouse gas discharges differ considerably. Although total discharges from China and India match those identified in the EU and the U.S., the levels of discharges are radically different. As reported by the International Energy Agency, “in 2007 the average person in the United States produced over 19 tons of carbon dioxide, while the average person in India and China produces 1.2 and 4.6 tons, respectively” (Hoffmann, 2011, p. 11). Fourth, safeguarding the climate guarantees widespread gains in the future, while producing rigorous costs today. In other words, it is hard to create political determination, particularly across political dominions, to resolve an issue when recognizable groups should pay right away to deliver gains to the entire globe in the future. Scientific experts share the same opinion that the global community should respond now to alter the nature of the global economy and avoid fossil fuels as much as possible so that in the future, the Earth’s climate stays conducive for future generations (Agrawa & Lemos, 2006). This raises a huge motivation to postpone and considerably impede attempts to implement appropriate measures now. Such problems make the issue of climate change or greenhouse gas emissions a severely ‘wicked’ issue that constantly and persistently creates almost unsolvable problems. Typical of wickedness, identifying the ‘problem’ of greenhouse gas emissions or, generally, climate change, is an innately political concern (Esty, 2009). There are several questions to be answered: is climate change an environmental or an economic problem? Is it an issue of overdevelopment or underdevelopment? Appropriate responses to these questions demand an understanding of how policies are made, and not what climate scientists say. Aggravating this definitional problem is the reality that answers to wicked issues like climate change are very difficult to obtain and eventually unclear (Vig & Axelrod, 1999). It is not possible to take into consideration every answer to the issue or completely assess the solutions that are selected due to the political and scientific ambiguities. Moreover, due to the time periods of climate change, although solutions are made, it is not possible to know immediately if the solutions are correct. The actual dilemma is that wicked issues are innately path dependent. Though faultily, the solutions and definitions eventually chosen limit what is considered likely in the future since carrying out prospective solutions to vastly wicked issues “leaves traces that cannot be undone” (Hoffmann, 2011, p. 12). The global community started to develop and execute a transnational solution to climate change in the 1980s. This early agreement had outcomes, influencing how people view climate change and its possible solutions. The global community’s chosen measure, which is multilateral treaty-making, has established the world’s awareness of the problem humanity confronts (Vig & Axelrod, 1999). In view of the issues, the effort to govern greenhouse gas emissions—to choose the agencies and policies needed for eventually decarbonizing societies and economies on a worldwide scope and handling the consequences of climate change—has been an interesting, if frustrating, decades of preparations. Interesting for it has been an attempt at global collaboration—almost 200 countries have taken part in discussions ever since the 1990s trying to build global treaties to resolve the issue. Frustrating because the global community has failed largely to surpass the hindrances to collaboration and develop a strong and successful multilateral action (Esty, 2009, p. 427). The initial phases of climate government were helped by a prevailing identification of the issue experienced all over the world—climate change was a global environment issue that demanded multilateral agreement thru negotiations that involved all countries in the world. Working with this general awareness strengthened the notion that transnational multilateralism was the means to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. With hardly any exceptions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) directed their operations toward persuading countries to develop and implement measures (Toikka, 2011). People expected their countries to respond and demanded either audacity or control relying on how they interpreted the severity and urgency of the issue. Even though the provisions of global agreements were exposed to major debate, the transnational multilateral framework of governance filled the problem definitions and measures of actors across political stages. Climate change, which is considered a global environmental problem, raises a major challenge to traditional studies of global power, politics, and international relations (Robinson & Lian, 2010). Countries have a core function in global environmental governance, thru the creation of global treaties and their national implementation. Nevertheless, countries are not the sole actor on the international arena, and the customary split between global and local politics is becoming more and more challenging. In view of this, focus has leaned toward the contributions of non-state entities and how they act together across national borders, consequently enabling response by countries and carrying out governance roles themselves. The governance of climate change takes place at multiple stages. Although a great deal of focus has been on the discussion of two multilateral agreements—the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—it becomes more and more evident that carrying out the provisions of these treaties will demand countries to reinforce their local pledges to regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, there is increasing realization that all global solutions to climate change should include local measures, because “the human activities that can lead to climate change are very local” (Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005, p. 32). Ever since the 1980s, the politics of climate change at the international arena has mostly placed emphasis on the formation and growth of a global system, comprising decision-making processes, rules, and principles (Paterson, 2013). The center of this global system was made up of two multilateral agreements—the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC. These treaties have worked to identify climate change as a genuine global issue and to demonstrate that members of the global community have a duty to alleviate this problem by regulating their greenhouse gas discharges. Although the problem of climate change has been talked about in scientific communities for more than a century, it was not until the latter part of the 1980s that it surfaced as a global political issue (Bamidele-Izu & Gemmill, 2011). Non-state and government actors and scientists attended a chain of negotiations between 1988 and 1990 to talk about the problem and to determine means to address the problem on a multilateral manner. One of the initial attempts to enable global political collaboration on climate change was the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security in 1988 (Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005). Subsidized by the Canadian government, this convened industry delegates, scientists, environmentalists, and government authorities to talk about a set of atmospheric problems (e.g. climate change, ozone depletion, etc.). Yet, because of a sequence of occurrences in 1988, climate change moved to the limelight. As stated in the meeting report (Vig & Axelrod, 1999, p. 221): Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to global nuclear war. The Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions. These changes represent a major threat to international security and are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe. Those who participated agreed that in order to alleviate the danger of climate change, nation-states must lessen their emissions of carbon dioxide to 20%. The alleged ‘Toronto target’ became significant at local, national, and global arenas, by determining the need to create timeframes and objectives for lessening greenhouse gas discharges as the correct solution to the problem of climate change (Esty, 2009, p. 427). The meeting encouraged unilateral response on the part of several countries, and revealed the political aspect of the problem. Immediately after the Toronto Conference the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed, with the responsibility of giving updates about the status of climate change science, courses of action, and effects. By the late 1990, political direction was such that “negotiations towards an international convention were virtually unavoidable” (Paterson, 2013, p. 48). Whether the 2009 roundtables in Copenhagen generate ‘success’ or genuine success—namely, simply a basis for more discussions or a full-scale post-Kyoto Protocol climate change treaty—the globe appears approaching a stage of unparalleled global environmental activity with repercussions for all people, communities, and countries on Earth (Vogler, 2014). The magnitude, complicatedness, and possible cost of acting in response to the danger of climate change place this under policy reform of extraordinary scale. And it is turning out to be more and more apparent that the global effort to cut down greenhouse gas discharges and alleviate the danger of global warming and associated issues will not be effective without considerable institutional reinforcement at the international arena. The current system of global environmental governance, largely placed at the UN Environment Program (UNEP), is absolutely limited or ineffective in handling solution to climate change. UNEP is plagued with an unclear directive, serious budget limitations, poor systematic capability, and absence of political backing (Esty, 2009). UNEP has several achievements, especially in steering the effort that resulted in the Montreal Protocol and a sequence of later changes that contributed to the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other substances that endangered the Earth’s ozone later. However, recently, UNEP has ceased to be an important actor on climate change (Paterson, 2013). In fact, division or breakup is one of the core challenges of the present-day global environmental governance system. Several agencies have a certain extent of environment obligation, such as the World Bank, UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Commission on Sustainable Development, and a large number of environmental agreement representatives. Unfortunately, these different bodies usually do not ‘act’ effectively together. There has been hardly any effort to establish sound objectives, attain an organized division of labor, streamline finances, or build synergies across problems (Toikka, 2011). Furthermore, there has been poor policy organization between worldwide economic efforts and comparable attempts at global environmental governance. An effective global solution to climate change will thus demand comprehensive renewal and strengthening of the system of global environment governance. Indeed, the pressing demand for stronger environmental collaboration all over the world in reaction to rising greenhouse gas emissions provide a chance to reconsider global governance more comprehensively. In relation to this, the time could be ripe to establish a Global Environmental Organization, derived from a new global agency framework. Instead of a strengthened UNEP, a GEO that is more motivated and learning, and which includes current environmental agreement representatives and merges in it the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (Esty, 2009). To be successful, the new global agency would require decisive objectives, a convincing cluster of basic philosophies, judiciously stated roles and capabilities, and a firm dedication to ‘good governance’. Any amendment of the regime of global environmental governance has to stress fairness, efficiency, and success. These objectives appear simple, but previous global environmental policy collaboration attempts have failed in all these areas. With some important exceptions, like the Montreal Protocol, the current system has created numerous agreements and conferences, yet hardly any decisive boosts in environmental outcome. Effective global agencies have well-built, decisive guidelines (Robinson & Lian, 2010). For instance, the World Trade Organization (WTO) endorses trade liberalization and open markets through policies focused on the idea of fair treatment between locally manufactured products and imported goods. The notion of a rules-oriented regime is similarly vital in the environmental setting. Even though a great deal of the existing negotiation includes issues of burden distribution, timeframes, and bargaining, the effectiveness of climate change system relies on an institutional regime that can resolve policy issues as they arise, improve inquiries and techniques over time, and keep on creating measures and solutions over time (Meadowcroft, 2010). What is thus crucial is a treaty on a basic group of ideologies to inform future decisions. There are major ideologies for a successful system of global environmental governance. First is sustainability. The awareness that economic growth and environmental enhancement are not conflicted, but instead should be performed together is now broadly recognized. A dedication to sustainability-- wherein poverty reduction is identified as a goal along with attempts to regulate pollution and more effectively handle natural resources— provides means to recognize the interests of the South in a setting where problems like climate change may be seen as mostly an interest of the North (Jordan, 2005). Moreover, it emphasizes the interrelatedness of environmental choices and policy developed in other policy areas, involving agriculture, trade, and economics. The notion of sustainability has additional component of intergenerational fairness implanted in it, indicating that decisions have to be made that maximize social wellbeing on a long-term basis (Vogler, 2014). Second is the ideal that emitters should pay or be held accountable. This ideal and cost internalization are profoundly based on global environmental policy. For instance, Principle 2 of the Rio Declaration of 1992 demands the countries of the globe to “ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction” (Esty, 2009, p. 427). Likewise, Principle 16 openly demands “internalization of environmental costs” and the notion that “the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution” (Esty, 2009, p. 427-8). Third is collective but separated obligation. Effective attempts at coordinating global environmental policy have consistently developed from the ideology of collective but separate obligation for common issues, suggesting that every country has a duty to take part in collaborative attempts equal to national capability and stage of development. In other words, in a context of environmental interconnection, there should be no idlers or freeloaders (Paterson, 2013). Obviously, less privileged nations must and can anticipate, as a matter of fairness, that more affluent countries will take on a greater portion of the burden. Fourth is support. The current global environmental system has poorly performed or failed for numerous reasons, yet a great deal of the present weakness can be attributed to absence of focus and the consequent wealth of projects and distribution of resources. A new global environmental organization thus has to have rigidly identified domains of obligation focused on operations or programs that can carried out merely at the international arena (Hoffmann, 2011). The ‘subsidiarity principle’ of the EU, based on which environmental governance must be placed at the most devolved or regionalized stage that can correctly resolve an issue, provides a valuable field. The stress on focus and on allowing other organizations carry out tasks which they are proficient at must work both vertically and horizontally (Esty, 2009, p. 428). For instance, this implied that a global environmental organization must not carry out program task as UNEP has performed. Capacity development at the local arena in aid of climate change alleviation is vital, yet these tasks are most ideally performed by the World Bank and the UNDP (Paterson, 2013). Fifth is good governance. There is a developing agreement that ideologies of good governance must be used in decision making process in global agencies and government programs at the local, state, and national levels. According to Hoffmann (2011), the task of the global environmental organization hence must be informed by the basic components of global governance—improvement of policy decisions, analytical assessment, accountability, and transparency. Conclusions Creating an effective system of global environmental governance to strengthen the global community’s attempts at cutting down emissions of greenhouse gases, which worsen climate change, will be critical to the effectiveness of any current climate change treaty; a great deal of the effort to alleviate climate change will have to be carried out at the global and national arena, creating a multilevel governance system that runs from national to international scale. However, certain crucial policy areas should be carried out globally if the communal action issue that has troubled previous attempts to act in response to the accumulation of greenhouse gases is to be surpassed. References Agrawa, A., & Lemos, M. (2006). ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE. School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan. Retrieved March 6, 2014 from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~arunagra/papers/publications/2006.%20Maria%20Carmen%20Lemos%20and%20Arun%20Agrawal.%20%20Environmental%20Governance.pdf Bamidele-Izu, A., & Gemmill, B. (2011). The Role of NGOs and Civil Society in Global Environmental Governance. Retrieved 6 March 2014 from http://environment.research.yale.edu/documents/downloads/a-g/gemmill.pdf Biermann, F. (2004). Global Environmental Governance Conceptualization and Examples. Retrieved March 6, 2014 from http://www.glogov.org/images/doc/WP12.pdf Bulkeley, H. & Betsill, M. (2005). Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance. UK: Psychology Press. Esty, D. (2009). Revitalizing Global Environmental Governance for Climate Change. Global Governance, 15(4), 427+ Hoffmann, M. (2011). Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response after Kyoto. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Jordan, A. (2005). The politics of a multi-level environmental governance system: European Union environmental policy at 25. Retrieved March 6, 2014 from http://www.prototype2010.cserge.webapp3.uea.ac.uk/sites/default/files/pa_1998_01.pdf Meadowcroft, J. (2010). Climate Change Governance. Policy Research Working Paper. Retrieved March 6, 2014 from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/4135/WPS4941.pdf?sequence=1 Paterson, M. (2013). Global Warming and Global Politics. London: Routledge. Robinson, N., & Lian, K. (2010). Regional Environmental Governance: Examining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Model. retrieved March 6, 2014 from http://environment.research.yale.edu/documents/downloads/h-n/koh.pdf Toikka, A. (2011). GOVERNANCE THEORY AS A FRAMEWORK FOR EMPIRICAL RESEARCH. Retrieved March 6, 2014 from https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/24938/governan.pdf?sequence=1 Vig, N. & Axelrod, R. (1999). The Global Environment: Institutions, Law and Policy. New York: Earthscan. Vogler, J. The European contribution to global environmental governance. Retrieved 6th March 6, 2014 from http://www.cesruc.org/uploads/soft/130311/1-130311152133.pdf Read More