Global Environmental Change class content week 10 - 12 (Unit 4) Readings

How many MEA’s have been adopted in the last 30 years

Hundreds

Many of these MEAs have actually been effective at improving the environment by inducing states to

change policies in a manner conducive to a cleaner environment.

Considerable accomplishments of the last 30 years of MEA’s include

1: The reduction of stratospheric ozone pollution

2: The reduction of European Acid rain

3: Oil spills in the ocean are down in number and volume

Nonetheless, there is substantial evidence that the international legal side of law and development has met neither its

purveyors’ expectations nor the planet’s needs.

In the effort to stitch together a web of global environmental governance, one treaty-strand at a time, three problems stand out. First, adding

a sufficient number of strands to the web has proven difficult. As the political climate for environmental diplomacy has steadily worsened, the rate of multilateral accord formation has declined precipitously.

In the effort to stitch together a web of global environmental governance, one treaty-strand at a time, three problems stand out. Second, it has been

difficult to strengthen the individual strands over time; the strategy of progressive legalization, or relying on incremental improvements to initially weak “framework�? accords, has often been impossible to execute.

In the effort to stitch together a web of global environmental governance, one treaty-strand at a time, three problems stand out. Third, and as a result,

the strength of many existing strands in the web is questionable; studies of treaty-regime effectiveness draw at best a mixed picture.

In contrast, there have been only fourteen such agreements reached in the decade-plus since Johannesburg (table 3.1). Most of these accords simply fill in details on existing treaty regimes; only one, the __________________ combines broad scope, a new issue-area, and significant environmental rule making.

2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury

Perhaps the strongest evidence for a loss of momentum is that there are, as of this writing,

no significant, ongoing talks that promise to yield another such accord on a previously unaddressed challenge.

One key finding in research into environmental regime effectiveness is that, while the scope and structure of the problem matter, so do the

characteristics of the agreement reached

Regarding the characteristics of the agreement, Young identifies several critical variables: the specific design features of the accord, the ability to build a broad coalition around the regime, and a widespread perception of fairness in how the regime allocates the costs of compliance.11 None of these key variables can be expected

to sit still for very long during the lifetime of a problem.

Treaty regimes, therefore, will be most effective when they are

dynamic institutions that prove willing and able to adapt key design features to changes in the distribution of costs and benefits, in the rise of new polluters or problems, in technology, or in demand for regulation.

Another problem with weaving a web from so many separate, thin, and at least initially weak strands is that it can produce a

paralyzing set of coordination tasks

The overlap between separate agreements creates a

need for extensive coordination between the regulatory regimes they create.

As an accord that is global in scope, issue-specific in focus, and ambitious in its regulatory aspirations, the Basel Convention is a

prototype of the emergent legal strategy of global environmentalism in the 1980s and 1990s

The Basal convention is also narrowly specific, targeting the waste trade as one specific element of a far larger chemical hazards problem that includes

synthesis of toxic materials, their use in agricultural and industrial processes, their embodiment in the products of modern life, their disposal or release at each of these links in the chain, and their ultimate fate in the environment

Rather than regulating these hazards in “cradle to grave�? fashion, the strategy on toxics regulation has been to create several narrower accords. At its core are three separate UN treaties: the

1: 1989 Basel Convention;

2: The Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, signed at Rotterdam in 1998;

3: and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, signed at Stockholm in 2001.

The Rotterdam Convention flags chemicals that have been

banned in multiple domestic jurisdictions, requires parties to indicate whether they will continue to allow such flagged chemicals to be imported, and obligates parties to recognize and comply with any

Basel has struggled to keep pace with this dynamism, in part because the parties have been locked for more than two decades in a contentious debate on whether to replace the

prior informed consent�? regulations with an outright ban on the North-to-South waste trade. The ban has been embraced by the European Union and many less developed countries, particularly in Africa, but has been opposed by Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and others.

The Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm conventions, which form the heart of global chemicals regulation, fit

together poorly in several important ways. Each targets(P. 88 )a small and specific subset of the larger problem:

Basel focuses on part of the

hazardous waste trade,

Rotterdam addresses

chemicals that have been banned in particular domestic jurisdictions

Stockholm targets

POPs as a particular family of chemicals.

Each convention embraces a different

regulatory philosophy

Basel uses the prior informed

consent of both parties to a transaction to determine whether that transaction is legitimate;

Rotterdam allows individual countries the

freedom of choice to permit or ban chemicals, but requires them to make a public decision that other parties must respect;

Stockholm obligates parties to take

steps to eliminate specific chemicals.

Basel targets a wide array of

hazardous substances, but only as waste and only for North-to-South transactions;

Stockholm mandates action by all parties, but only for a

short list of priority chemicals

Rotterdam uses the independent actions of

individual countries to determine which chemicals are relevant

And the three conventions only partially

fill and define the regulatory space.

while the Basel accord certainly has value, it also reflects the

limited achievements of a strategy of international environmental law that has sought to weave a global fabric from many thin regulatory strands, and then strengthen and adapt those strands over time

Humanity has not progressed on the road to sustainability as far as hoped in

1992

TNC’s mean

transnational companies

TNCs have become a defining feature of the interconnected

planet of

people and nature, with humans as a hyper-dominant

species in the biosphere affecting global patterns of ecological change

Voluntary TNC sustainability commitments are essential and

can translate into improvements, but so far, many private-sector supply chain initiatives for sustainability

fall short on several fronts

Overall, the past two decades of efforts to leverage supply chain power of major TNCs have

failed to meet the expectations for improved sustainability

Transnational corporations have become a major force shaping the world’s

ocean, atmosphere and terrestrial biomes

About 70% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to

100 companies, including both TNCs and state-

owned monopolies producing coal, oil and gas

TNCs and state- owned monopolies disproportionally influence

climate change and ocean acidification

TNCs have also become central in the development of the global

food system, a major driver of environmental change, through simplification of landscapes, loss of biodiversity, release of greenhouse gas emissions, and alteration of biogeochemical and freshwater cycles

Transformative change towards biosphere

stewardship can be facilitated by clarifications of a

corporate global license to operate in a democratic, ethical and sustainable manner.

Moreover, as activists and scholars have shown, sociopolitical problems are not necessarily separate from

environmental problems, and in fact often compound one another

The U.S. Senate—noticeably late to climate action in general, compared to its counterparts elsewhere in the world—approved a resolution in early 2015 declaring that

“climate change is real and not a hoax”; fifteen minutes later, they rejected a second resolution stating that “climate change is real and caused by humans”

Meanwhile, scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change is

anthropogenic, and historic heat waves, storms, and blizzards continuously plague regions across the planet.

sociologists such as Kari Norgaard (2011) have recently found that information overload on such topics leads to emotional paralysis—thus, in many cases,

the more one knows about climate change, the less likely one is to act.

A study from the University of Toronto, titled “The Ironic Impact of Activists: Negative Stereotypes Reduce Social Change Influence,” observed the following:

Researchers have previously attempted to understand . . . resistance to social change by examining individuals’ perceptions ofsocial issues and socialchange. We instead examined the possibility that individuals resist social change because they have negative stereotypes of activists, the agents ofsocial change. Participants had negative stereotypes of activists (feminists and environmentalists), regardless of the domain of activism, viewing them as eccentric and militant. (Bashir et al. 2013, 614, emphasis added)

The cultural revulsion toward environmentalists is ironic in and of itself, in at least two ways:

the public hates the very people poised to address the problems we fear,4 and, as the Toronto study’s title suggests, people’s very efforts to make a difference may actually prevent them from doing so

Glenn Albrecht and his coauthors found that “in both cases, people exposed to environmental change experienced negative affect that is exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process” (2007, 95). Albrecht’s team subsequently coined the neologism

“solastalgia” to describe this type of distress

“Affect” and “queerness” are two of the major concepts that guide

Bad Environmentalism

Bad Environmentalism is affined with scholarship that seeks to diversify the scope of environmental humanities research in terms of

both demographics and affect/sensibility.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) introduced in 2015 as part of the UN 2030 Agenda provide a

useful normative framework to understand sustainability, encompassing the vision of a Sustainable Society which is inclusive and takes into account social, environmental and economic capital

SDG’ stand for

Sustainable Development Goals

In the first ever global assessment of environmental rule of law

failure to fully implement and enforce these laws was shown to be one of the greatest challenges to mitigating climate change, reducing pollution and preventing widespread species and habitat loss.

Research reveals that, currently, education does not

adequately develop systems thinking competence in learners

Systems thinking performance, even among highly educated people, can be poor

This has led some to refer to a ‘learning crisis

Competence in systems thinking is implicitly assumed among the population of engineers, policy makers and managers and in fact, most technical people will self-identify as systems thinkers. But systems thinking competencies are not as

prevalent as these assertions might lead one to assume

This means that policy makers, not necessarily trained to look at sustainability challenges holistically or from a systems perspective, may perceive them through their

own disciplinary lens, consequently employing strategies that are isolated and narrowly focused. (This alighnes with the current environmental policy’ paradigm with its inherent focus on narrow problem-solving that seems to deemphasise questions of planetary justice and global democracy)

Paradigm shift, according to both Kuhn and Hall, happens when the

anomalies and shortcomings of the current paradigm are repeatedly pointed out; proponents of the new paradigm speak loudly and with assurance about it and are placed into positions of visibility and power; and energy is focused on converting those people who are likely to be open-minded to the change

Sustainability challenges can be conceptualised as the

gap between the current situation (unsustainable state A), and the desired state (sustainable state D)

Transformation is the process of transition from the

current unsustainable state (A) to the desired state (D) as collectively envisioned future state of the system becoming sustainable

There can be several means to close the gap or pathways to reach the desired state, but social difficulties arise where such means are not

obvious, are not immediately available, or when there is disagreement over the preferred solutions.

Vision without action is useless. But action without vision does not know where to go or why to go there. Vision is absolutely necessary to guide and motivate action. More than that, vision, when widely shared and firmly kept in sight, brings into being

New systems

A clear, widely shared vision attracts

partners and resources, and aligns action

Sustainability transition is the pathway, the

“radical transformation towards a sustainable society”

System transitions can take several decades, as they involve

Interconnected changes to technologies, social practices, business models, regulations and societal norms and inevitably involve struggles over the direction and pace of change

Understanding the many factors that cause the system to function the way it does and having a clear vision and commitment to the direction and pace of change required, is a

prerequisite for sustainability transformation

Openness and transparency and diversity and equity for example, have the potential to transform

Government and businesses, strengthen people's trust in institutions and encourage greater public participation in decision-making, and are considered enabling factors for sustainability transformations

Social equity, justice and equality also play a key role in providing a

just operating space for humanity, and can facilitate transformations in that direction

Governments, politics, and policy are central to sustainability

transformations

Effective leverage occurs where the mechanisms for change are

feasible and, when enacted, will shift the system in a desirable direction - one in which a target outcome is achieved while minimizing other non-target effects

Systems thinking helps people see the bigger picture and envision a

sustainable human society, enabling interventions beyond ‘end of pipe’ solutions and towards addressing the deeper structures and mental models at the root of unsustainability, creating the enabling conditions for sustainability to emerge.

While systems thinking as a concept has seen its popularity increase over the years, interventions have not been truly systemic, in some cases due to an overemphasis on systems engineering and computational efforts focusing more on infrastructure than

People

Systems thinking means understanding the

web of interrelations that create complex problems, a different way of thinking about our relationship with the world and about how change happens

It is about understanding what causes the problems we face, the conditions that support unsustainable behaviour, the root causes of unsustainability

This is talking about Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is about understanding the

underlying drivers, the interactions and conditions that influence our decisions, helping us articulate problems in new and different ways and expand our boundaries of time and space to avoid or reduce potential unintended consequences.

Systems thinking is the intentional process of

understanding how to alter the components and structures that cause a system to behave in a certain way, and identifying places where relatively small actions can lead to potentially transformative systemic changes.

Systems thinking can empower people to realise the

power they have, learn for themselves how to be self-determined, engaged and informed citizens with a clear vision of a sustainability future they desire