UNFCCC negotiations (pre-Kyoto to COP-9): what the process says about the politics of CDM-sinks

One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations aimed at operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol was the treatment of sinks and, particularly, the eligibility of sinks projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This paper attempts to analyse the politics underlying these negotiations, drawing on methods of process tracing, key informant interviews, negotiating texts and secondary literature. Tracing the sinks debate and highlighting key lessons about the nature of global environmental agreements and their institutional arrangements is the first step to recounting the history of the politics of one of the major contemporary international environmental debates. The paper shows that the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on sinks and CDM-sinks were multilaterally supported as a practical solution, but went ‘off track’ due to actors’ interests and tradeoffs. As regards future negotiations on forest sinks in developing countries under the framework of the UNFCCC, the paper argues that these are likely to be influenced by similar constraints, and also by the conservation and development agenda of its supporters; as well as the experience gathered on the CDM and the interests and concerns of developing countries. We broadly frame the paper within the literature on global environmental politics.

Some Aspects of the Principle of " common="" butdifferentiated="" responsibilities""="

The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, one of the key concepts of sustainable development, has dual grounding; the pressures developed countries place on the global environment; and the technologies and financial resources they command. Though the developed countries are reluctant to admit the first grounding, the developing countries have a strong leverage to induce the former to accept differentiated treatment in their favor.Thus, this principle has become to be reflected in some conventions in the field of environment and development. The reflection of this principle takes two forms: one is "double standards" in environmental protection standards as well as their implementation in favor of developing countries; and the other is assistance by developed countries for sustainable development of developing countries. At present, "double standards" seem to be inevitable, but, they must be temporary measures in view of the integral and interdependent nature of global environment. And, in order to overcome these "double standards", the attainment by developing countries of their sustainable development seems to be indispensable. In a substantial number of environmental conventions, developed country parties assume obligations to assist development country parties. However, these obligations are confirmed to "incremental costs" necessary for implementation of the convention concerned, and do not extent to assistance for sustainable development in general. Changing consumption and production patterns seems to be one of the most important aspects of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, since this concept takes issue, for the first time, with the pattern of development pursued by developed countries. However, this concept has much difficulties in translating into international legal terms.Though it may be difficult at present to characterize the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to be a customary norm of international law, it is surely a basic principle of international law, and as such, may operate as a guiding principle for law-making, as well as for the interpretation and application of conventions in the field of environment and development.     

THE EVOLUTION OF POLICY AND LAW FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

This article examines the evolution of politics and laws related to sustainable development in China. Sustainable development has been positioned as an economic development strategy many years ago. However, in earlier times, it bore a heavy tint of national strategy, followed by a kind of soft sustainable development with a technological orientation. The recent decade has seen China on track for strong sustainable development. At the present, China is around the turning point of the ＂Environmental Kuznets Curve,＂ where both domestic and international multiple pressures are forcing the whole country to make new choices for its dimension of sustainable development strategy. Although sustainable development has been recognized by the legal field of environmental resources, it is still not yet fully integrated into other areas of law. The period from weak to strong sustainable transition is accompanied by another transition, more significant in China, from industrial civilization to ecological civilization. Compared to weak sustainable development, the complex and contradictory character of strength has brought more challenges. Sustainable development of dualism and compromise, which corresponds with the actual needs in China, is an important theoretical basis and practical standards for implementing the scientific view of development. Finally, it concludes by noting that ecological civilization is attempting to solve the problems from a more broad perspective, and to pay more attention to public participation, at the same time to cover the shortage of environmental legislation.     

Policy Coherence, Global Environmental Governance, and Poverty Reduction

This paper explores linkages between policy coherence, global environmental governance, and poverty reduction. It begins with a few thoughts on what these terms mean, and how they are linked. It then provides some perspectives on how the linkages might be improved over time. The paper takes the view that the most coherent institutional framework for both poverty reduction and environmental protection is likely to be one that is relatively decentralised, and based on a modular (networking) structure. The implication is that this framework should rely mainly on domestic and regional governance institutions, rather than on global ones. Effective management of environmental problems (both national and international) also implies a judicious mix of strong government institutions, smooth-functioning markets, and well-targeted infrastructure investments. The business and labour communities are therefore crucial. Other elements of civil society, notably the NGOs, also have important roles to play. Global environmental governance will have to overcome significant resistance insofar as the interests of the developing countries are concerned. Developing countries will need to be convinced that it is in their best interest to participate in global environmental institutions. The best way of making this case is to link (local) poverty reduction objectives explicitly to (both local and global) environmental protection goals. Bringing greater coherence to international trade, investment, and development co-operation policies could make an important contribution to strengthening these linkages. Investment is particularly important here – in the future, investment governance will likely prove to be more important for poverty reduction than environmental governance. Focusing on global environmental governance will not be enough.     

Green economy and carbon markets for conservation and development: a critical view

Green economy aims to use economic rationality and market mechanisms to mute the most ecologically damaging effects of globalized capitalism while reviving economic growth in the global North, fostering development in the South, and decoupling economic growth from environmental decline. An archetypal application of green economy is transnational trade in ecosystem services, including reduced emissions for deforestation and degradation (REDD+). By compensating developing countries for maintaining forests as carbon sinks, this approach is meant to transcend politics and circumvent conflicts over the responsibilities of industrialized and ‘less-developed’ countries that have stymied global climate policy. However, carbon-offset trading is unlikely to result in lower greenhouse gas emissions, much less combined conservation and development gains. The troubled record of payment for environmental services and other schemes or commodification of nature illustrates that living ecosocial systems do not fit the requirements of market contracts. Disputes over proto-REDD+ projects point to the dangers that REDD+ will disadvantage or dispossess rural communities and distract attention from underlying causes of forest and livelihood loss. Two decades of all-but-futile climate negotiations have shown that global warming cannot be managed by means of technocratic expertise nor dealt with separately from the politics of inequality and the paradox of economic growth. The deceptive promise of greening with growth can blind us to these realities. Counter-hegemonic discourses to growth-centered green economy under the headings of buen vivir, mainly in the global South, and degrowth, mainly in the global North, therefore merit attention.     

Council of Europe/UNEP,Pan‐European biological and landscape diversity strategy,Invasive Alien Species

Abstract

The notion of sustainable development has become, over the last fifteen years, an integral part of international environmental law and policy. It is recognition that environmental issues do not exist in a vacuum, but rather arc part of much wider structural issues involving both economic and social dimensions. However, does this concern for sustainable development now mean that protecting the natural environment is no longer about ecological conservation per se, but rather is simply abour ensuring an adequate environment to maintain economic development? And if so, what of those environments where the economic value is a secondary consideration? Or where human activity has a disproportionate effect? Can sustainable development be interpreted in a way that reconciles these seemingly opposite demands? This paper examines these issues from the perspective of the 1991 Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. It will suggest that sustainable development is a broader concept than one that simply requires an instrumental approach to environmental protection. In fact, the paper will conclude that sustainable development is a relatively meaningless notion if it docs not also contain a strong element of environmental conservation, and not only in such ecologically important areas as Antarctica.     

发展中国家贸易与环境法律问题对策研究

所谓贸易与环境的法律问题 ,实际上是指制订和实施何种国际贸易规则和环境政策 ,才能使国际贸易既不影响环境 ,又能促进各国经济的发展。就广大发展中国家而言 ,它们既要积极参与贸易全球化和自由化进程 ,冲破发达国家设置的种种市场准入障碍 ,又要注意保护环境。为此 ,包括中国在内的广大发展中国家应当在坚持国家环境权的前提下 ,灵活采取各种环境政策和措施 ,以达到发展经济、保护环境的目的。     

Local causes,regional co-operation and global financing for environmental problems: the case of Southeast Asian Haze pollution

Lack of action on cross-border environmental problems in developing countries is often ascribed to gaps in local capacity and resources, failure of regional cooperation and lack of financial support from rich countries. Using the case of the Southeast Asian Haze pollution from forest and peat fires in Indonesia, we explore the challenges posed by environmental problems whose causes are closely linked to local development and livelihood strategies, and whose impacts are local, regional (haze) as well as global (carbon emissions). We assess whether there are real opportunities to implement effectively the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. To address the deep determinants behind haze pollution, we propose signatories to the Agreement refocus their efforts to controlling peat fires rather than to strive for a zero-burning regime. We also recommend a new approach to financing sustainable development based on rules and incentives, with a regional pool of funds, contributed by rich countries through the Global Environment Facility and countries in Southeast Asia.

Shipping hazardous waste: implications for economically developing countries

Trade in hazardous waste has given rise to great concerns. One source of transboundary trade in hazardous waste is the ship-breaking industry. Though end-of-life vessels provide incentives to developing countries in the form of raw materials, these same developing countries are not only ill equipped to manage hazardous waste in an environmentally sound manner, but they also lack the resources to mitigate health impacts arising out of the handling of hazardous waste. These concerns of weaker economies have been addressed by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. However, the shipping of vessels with hazardous waste for final disposal in developing countries continues. To illustrate the inequity involved in such negotiations, we present a case study of the French aircraft carrier “Le Clemenceau”, which was sent to a shipyard in Alang, India, for disposal. This vessel became the focus of attention given its transport of an unknown amount of toxic waste, including asbestos. Similarly, there are reports that large quantities of toxic waste are still being imported by India from countries that ban the use of this waste. The use, import, and export of these chemicals raise serious environmental and health concerns. This paper assesses the implications of shipping such hazardous waste to developing countries and emphasizes the need for promoting research to plug the gaps and for implementing stringent measures to check the trade in environmental pollutants.

国际贸易中的人权问题——以发展权为视角

发展权是当代人权的核心内容,目前的主要问题是发展中国家的发展问题.国际贸易中劳工标准、产品质量标准、环境保护标准以及药品价格等的确立不仅影响发展中国家许多有关个人的经济、社会和文化权利的实现,而且还影响发展中国家以环境权、可持续发展等为内容的集体人权的发展.国际贸易应坚持非歧视原则,促进发展权的实现.     

可持续发展的国际法保障

可持续发展是国内法与国际法的既定目标。作为法律价值的一部分 ,可持续发展追求代内与代际的公平。尽管现在已经存在一些实现可持续发展的国际法律机制 ,但意图更加有效地实现可持续发展所应有的法律规则、执行与监督以及争端解决制度 ,关键在于立足于现有的组织机构进行发展与强化 ,而不应试图建构一个新的世界环境组织。在国家之间充分合作、严格遵守有关国际法律机制的基础上 ,全球可持续发展是可能实现的。     

The role of the G20 in governing the climate change regime

A wide array of institutions governing climate change has proliferated over the past years, influencing the rule-makings of the regime. One of them is the G20. When G20 leaders around the world convened in London to restore global economies, they stressed the importance of a ‘resilient, sustainable, and green recovery’ and reaffirmed their commitments to address climate change. This was followed by their agreement on phasing out inefficient fossil fuel energy subsidies over the medium term in Pittsburgh. The ‘coexistence of narrow regimes in the same issue-area’ could be described as ‘regime complexes’, which enable countries to adapt more readily, particularly when adaptation requires complex changes in norms and behavior. Given that responses to climate change would require changes in the domestic politics of different countries at different levels, loosely integrated institutions of regime complexes could be more advantageous for countries to adapt and in engaging with developing countries. This paper demonstrates that the G20’s highly informal institutional setup as well as its flexible cooperation tools could enable its members to customize their policies and better engage with third-party countries. In addition, the G20 group could collectively influence other key countries to reach an agreement on some of the key climate change–related issues, thereby facilitating the United Nations process of climate change.     

环境问题的全球化及其法律对策

环境问题的全球化是伴随全球经济一体化进程产生的 ,与人类对自然的传统观念和各国经济开发政策与法律的缺陷有着密切的联系。针对全球环境问题 ,各国和国际社会已经制定了大量的法律和对策 ,但由于各国不同的历史、政治和经济等背景使得法律和对策在实施上存在着问题。作为一个发展中国家的中国在履行全球环境保护义务和国际环境合作中已经起到了积极的作用 ,当然还需要采取切实可行的法律对策措施 ,在全球经济一体化的进程中逐步消除和解决全球环境问题。     

Hybrid governance mechanisms as political instruments: the case of sustainability partnerships

Hybrid governance mechanisms have become one of the most preferred models of governance. Their influence and use have increased slowly but consistently since the end of the Cold War. This article investigates their political dimension, by way of studying United Nations’ partnerships for sustainable development, registered with the commission on sustainable development (CSD). Around 350 sustainability partnerships that promise to solve environmental problems and achieve the MDGs are registered with the CSD. Since their endorsement at the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, various studies assessed their value for environmental governance often finding them ineffective or counter-productive. This article exposes a new set of influences that partnerships have on the practice and discourses of global environmental governance, by following the politics of their emergence, that of partnership building and registration, and their actualization: During their negotiation, various contestations emerged and influenced the resulting partnerships regime; this is studied through in-depth interviews. Secondly, this regime leaves many geographical and participatory lacunas with political effects, which are studied through a large-N database. Finally, the unintended consequences of partnership projects on their issue areas and the discursive changes they cause in environmental governance reveal an otherwise concealed political dimension: The introduction of controversial technologies into the UN platforms.     

Policy adoption,legislative developments,and implementation: the resulting global differences among countries in the management of biological resources

Policy adoption and implementation depend on a wide range of considerations that include the level of stakeholder participation and the choice of top-down or bottom-up approaches. The existence of a stakeholder participation platform is often seen as critical to facilitate both adoption and implementation of international treaties. However, it may not automatically lead to improved policy outcomes or legislative effectiveness. This study compares countries with and without stakeholder participation platforms for policy implementation and assesses whether there are differences in their management of biological resources. The study had two goals: (1) examining the adoption and implementation of public policies and legislation at national and local levels within countries; and (2) analyzing the differences between countries that have developed stakeholder participation platforms for sustainable forest management. Data were obtained from the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report 2015 of the Food and Agricultural Organization. Cross-tabulation and independent sample t test findings show strong relationships at higher levels of government between countries, but weak relationships at local levels. Significant differences are observed at all levels. These results shed light on the severe challenges that governments face in adopting global environmental policies and passing them down to local levels for implementation. The study concludes that although excellent policies and regulations may exist, they often do not lead to significantly better outcomes at all levels of government.

     

Privatizing Environmental Resources: The Need for Supervision of Clean Development Mechanism Contracts?

This article argues that a current trend in global sustainable development governance is actively to engage the private sector in participating in the process of implementing global and national policy goals. This trend is based on the notion that the private sector has the ideas, technologies and resources at its disposal that can be channelled to addressing global environmental challenges. This new trend does not, however, take into account the past and present implications of private sector investment in fields such as mining and forestry. Nor does it closely examine how private sector rules will subsequently infiltrate and govern environmental management. On the basis of an examination of current policy developments and contracts in the area of environmental management and their implications for developing countries, this article argues in favour of establishing an authority that oversees the legitimacy and legality of these new contracts, especially in, but not limited to, the area of climate change.     

Strengthening Green Global Governance in a Disparate World SocietyWould a World Environment Organisation Benefit the South?

The debate on the advantages and disadvantages of upgrading the United Nations Environment Programme to a 'world environment organisation' (WEO) has gained momentum in both academe and politics. This article contends that a WEO would further the interests especially of developing countries, because it would provide them, first, a high-level forum to unite their individual bargaining power against the major industrialised countries. Second, a WEO would assist Southern efforts to garner international support for environmental programmes in regions and sectors that are increasingly bypassed by economic globalisation. Third, a WEO would create a locus to politically institutionalise the influence of non-governmental lobbyists in a way that increases the balance of opinions and perspectives. The article then addresses special challenges and caveats for developing countries in the upcoming negotiation process, in particular whether an upgraded UNEP would address only 'global' issues, thus absolving the international community from assisting developing countries in mitigating the more pressing local environmental issues in the South; whether the new body would have powerful sanctioning mechanisms, which might disproportionally affect developing countries; and what decision-making procedures the new body would have.     

Technology transfer,the environment,and the third world: Having one's cake and eating it

With the end of the Cold War, the major trend of the next century will be the development of competitive export economies in third world countries. In this paper, an on-going experiment in Mexico is reported. The experiment features the transfer of technology with a minimum adverse environmental impact. The goal is to develop sustainable integration into global markets by transferring technology that is both cost and quality competitive and environmentally safe. The target group is Mexican subsistence producers.His most recent book is Volunteerism and World Development: Pathway to a New World (Praeger).     

WTO规则下单边贸易保护措施实施的条件——关贸总协定第二十条第二款之适用

随着全球生态环境问题的兴起和可持续发展战略的提出,经济、社会和生态环境的协调发展逐渐为人们所重视.虽然主张贸易自由化的WTO仍强调,应站在传统贸易优先的立场上,通过国际协作,禁止缔约方采取单边贸易措施的方法以达到全球环境保护的目的,但上诉机构对虾-海龟案的最终裁决表明,单边环境措施可以同贸易规则相调和.本文试图通过WTO上诉机构关于金枪鱼案、汽油案和虾-海龟案裁决,以及对<欧盟捕猎夹法规>的比较分析,讨论关贸总协定第二十条第二款之适用.     

Bringing Political Science to Bear on Tropical Conservation

With the renewed international emphasis on governance for sustainable development, political scientists wishing to have an impact on global environmental problems will find significant opportunities to collaborate with practitioners. These collaborations can be very rewarding, but academics should enter them with their eyes open to the associated challenges. Bridging the worlds of research and practice entails tensions between what is true according to the research, and what is possible given the constraints of specific organizations; between the problems that practitioners need solved and the puzzles that researchers find appealing; and, importantly, between the divergent cultures that shape the expectations and incentives of academics and their counterparts.