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. EgStrengthening UNEP’s scientific baseCoordination 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 2005Two 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

MEAsRegional 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 FranceBased on UNEP‘Friends of UNEO’ EU positionUS opposed

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