Environmental diplomacy: comparing the influence of business and environmental NGOs in negotiations on reform of the clean development mechanism

Abstract

Although case studies exist of the influence of non-governmental organisations in international environmental negotiations, theoretical conclusions remain scattered, and the separation in previous literature between the study of environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) and business and industry non-governmental organisations (BINGOs) reduces the generalisability of conclusions. The conclusions drawn in both fields are brought together and the resulting explanatory framework is applied to empirical material from the negotiations on reform of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, comparing the influence of environmental non-governmental organisations and business and industry non-governmental organisations. The explanatory factors identified in previous research generally play out in favour of BINGOs as compared to ENGOs. The structural influence of business and industry non-governmental organisations seems to have resulted in a larger influence on the outcome of the negotiations, which may be problematic from a democratic point of view as private economic interests and public interests frequently diverge.