Transcript International Environmental Governance – where from here?

International Environmental Governance
– where from here?
Joy Hyvarinen
FIELD
• Advocacy for broader access to environmental
justice and fairer international laws and
institutions
• Advice and capacity building for groups ranging
from poor communities to senior government
officials
• Research on international law, policy and
national practice
• Climate Change & Energy
• Biodiversity & Marine Environments
• Trade, Investment and Sustainable
Development (TISD)
• Internship Programme, teaching, ad hoc
advice
• www.field.org.uk
• International environmental governance –
a recurring subject of debate since
founding of UNEP in 1972
• Not much progress
• Consultations at UN HQ
UNEP
• Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum meeting this week in
Nairobi. Eg
Strengthening UNEP’s scientific base
Coordination of MEAs
• UNEP in UN HQ consultations
UNEP
• Subsidiary - programme of the UN
General Assembly
• Reports to the UN General Assembly
• Members of Governing Council (58) are
elected by the UN General Assembly
UNEPs mandate
• Nairobi Declaration
 Analyse state of environment and early warning
 Development of international law
 Implementation of international norms and
compliance
 Coordination of UN environmental activities
 Awareness raising, links with science
What are the problems
• Lack of coordination, duplication
• Lack of early warning and systematic scientific
assessment
• Proliferation of Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs)
 see eg www.tematea.org
 reporting burden
What are the problems? Cont.
• Insufficient assistance to developing countries
• Lack of effectiveness: not solving today’s
environmental problems
• Lack of political will and lack of national
coordination
Recent history
• 1997 Germany, Brazil, South Africa and Singapore
propose ‘global environmental umbrella organisation’
• 1998 outgoing WTO Director-General proposes world
environment organisation to match WTO
• 2003 France proposes new organisation, establishing a
working group to consider transforming UNEP into a
‘UNEO’
• US and other academics interested
http://www.environmentalgovernance.org/
UN Summit 2005
• UN’s 60th anniversary
• Security Council reform, responsibility to
protect
• Momentum for discussions about
international environmental governance
UN Summit 2005
Two strands of inter-governmental consultations:
• ‘System-wide Coherence’ – ‘One UN’ Pilots
• ‘International Environmental Governance
consultations’
World Summit Outcome – Paragraph 169
• ‘Recognizing the need for more efficient environmental activities in
the United Nations system, with enhanced coordination, improved
policy advice and guidance, strengthened scientific knowledge,
assessment and cooperation, better treaty compliance, while
respecting the legal autonomy of the treaties, and better integration
of environmental activities in the broader sustainable development
framework at the operational level, including through capacity
building, we agree to explore the possibility of a more
coherent institutional framework to address this
need, including a more integrated structure, building
on existing institutions and internationally agreed
instruments, as well as the treaty bodies and the
specialized agencies’
UN consultations
• Since 2006 international environmental
governance consultations led by UN
Ambassadors of Mexico and Switzerland
• Note: ‘consultations’ not ‘negotiations
• http://reformtheun.org/
Building blocks
• 2007 ‘options paper’ with building blocks:
Scientific assessment, monitoring and early
warning capacity
Coordination and cooperation at the level of
agencies
MEAs
Regional presence and activities at the
regional level
Building blocks cont.
• Bali Strategic Plan, capacity building technology
support
• IT, partnerships and advocacy
• Financing
 And ‘the broader transformation of the IEG
system’
 ‘Ambitious incrementalism’
UN consultations
• May 2008 draft resolution – ‘speedy
circumspection’
• July draft resolution
• January 2009 draft resolution
Same headings as the building blocks
Latest draft resolution
• Many proposed amendments in
compilation text
• Disagreements on eg environment vs.
sustainable development, UNEP’s
mandate, financing and capacity building.
Consultations stalled
• Latest development - 10 February report
from Co-Chairs accepts consultations
stalled
• Why no progress?
A ‘UNEO’
• ‘UNEO’ - UN Environmental Organisation
• Proposal by France
Based on UNEP
‘Friends of UNEO’
EU position
US opposed
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A ‘UNEO’
Little detail in proposals for UNEO
Specialised UN agency
More independence
Wider mandate
Budget of its own
Lack of progress
• Differing views on UNEO, financing, capacity
building.
• Lack of political enthusiasm
• Now: wait until after Copenhagen Climate
Conference in December 2009
Difference now
• The post-Copenhagen climate change
architecture.
• Role of World Bank and other MDBs
• Prime Minister’s speech: ‘…World Bank a bank
for development and the environment …’
How will this develop?
• A separate climate change architecture?
• Will climate change governance ‘take
over’?
Thank you
www.field.org.uk