Global Environmental Diplomacy: Comparing and Sharing

Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of global environmental diplomacy (GED) and highlights comparisons and connections that could be utilized in the field of global health diplomacy. It identifies the significant similarities and differences between the two fields and shows why a comparison is useful. It also highlights why health diplomats have to be cautious when making comparisons. It defines and examines the dominant ideas, principles, foreign policy linkage, actors, instruments and processes in GED. It analyses the approaches that have been taken in the field and explores whether or not they can or should be transferred to global health. Lessons that health diplomats might learn from their environmental counterparts are emphasized. The chapter concludes by proposing additional approaches, mechanisms, processes and policies from other fields such as the economy, trade and food and agriculture, which should also be explored for the benefit of global health diplomacy.