Global Environmental Governance: The State and Institutional Design

Abstract

The globalization of environmental problems described in the first three chapters of this book demands international agreements that can respond to incomplete but changing scientific information and that establish environmental standards and compliance mechanisms by which those standards can be verified and, if necessary, enforced. Environmental governance needs to be cooperative and collective because unilateral action by states is ultimately ineffective in the face of transboundary and global problems and inefficient in the face of shared or common problems. Environmental agreements and the procedures by which they are negotiated also need to account for the interests of a range of stakeholders including environmental non-governmental organizations, grassroots movements, indigenous peoples, industry, financial institutions, scientific bodies and intergovernmental organizations as well as states and governments.