Environmental Negotiations Research Articles

Investigating the Influence of Non-state Actors on Amendments to the CITES Appendices

Non-state actors are playing an increasing role in global environmental governance. Elucidating the modalities and implications of this engagement is important to understanding international policy-making processes. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is the primary mechanism for regulating international wildlife trade. It functions by listing species in its Appendices with corresponding trade controls. Accurately listing species in the Appendices is therefore fundamental to the Convention’s effectiveness. We investigate the influence of non-state actors on amending the CITES Appendices using an established framework for assessing NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. We find that non-state actors have been successful in issue framing and agenda setting, and in influencing the position of other actors and final decisions. We also find evidence that NGOs have sought to abuse CITES in pursuit of “campaign” victories, including claiming unwarranted victories, thus undermining NGO legitimacy and accountability. We recommend that the CITES parties seek the most robust science to inform decision-making on proposed amendments to the appendices, which should be broadened to include socioeconomic and economic considerations in order that proposals are evaluated in their real-world context. We further recommend that NGOs should seek to fully understand decision-making in the Convention in order to maximise their legitimate contribution to CITES. Further research is needed to fully elucidate the influence of non-state actors in CITES.

Journalistic construction of congruence: Chinese media’s representation of common but differentiated responsibilities in environmental protection

This research clarifies China’s mediated international communication of its responsibility in environmental protection under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. The topic is explored within the context of China’s media ‘going global’ project, a key initiative of its soft power projection. Gauged by the notion of cultural and political congruence, this study also compares China’s journalistic discourse with those in the United States and the United Kingdom. This study found that Chinese mainstream media achieved a certain degree of congruence in media representations of China’s responsibility with its Western counterparts. Chinese media constructed the notion of responsibility in a mixed manner: they differentiated the target of blame and existing treatment measures between China and other countries or institutions but gave more exposure to China’s future obligations and duties. American and British media applied nearly identical coverage patterns in reporting China’s and others’ existing and future treatment but showed opposite patterns in covering the target of blame in environmental and climate issues. This article contributes to the study of China’s journalism practice in international communication. It also offers suggestions to the resolution of the stalemate in global environmental negotiations and China’s media ‘going global’ initiative.

한‧중 배출권거래제 연계를 위한 설계요소 및 장애요인 분석

The Republic of Korea (ROK) has made many efforts to reduce greenhouse gases through a legal framework, making obligations to reach domestic and overseas targets via the Paris Convention in 2015. China recently launched a nation‐wide emission trading system (ETS) and has considered extending this ETS to include the ROK. This study examines the possibility of linking the ETS between ROK and China by considering the institutional design elements of the ETS. Additionally, this study provides policy implications to reach Koreaʹs overseas reduction target. For the research methodology, the design elements of both the ROK and China policies were analyzed by categorizing their standard design elements based on the International Carbon Action Partnership. This paper focuses on four main barriers (cap type, borrowing, offset and price ceiling) based on their environmental benefits and analyzes the challenges to combining the design elements between the ROK and China systems. The two ETS commonly share the same cap types, and there is similar institutional progress regarding the offset and price ceiling. In addition to this, note that China has a borrowing system that is opposite to the borrowing system in ROK. According to these findings, there are major challenges to linking the ROK and China systems due to differences in the major design elements. Thus, it is necessary to modify the Korean domestic borrowing system and understand the Chinese institutional processes related to environmental negotiation to achieve further cooperation.

Can China lead in multilateral environmental negotiations? Internal politics, self-depiction, and China’s contribution in climate change regime and Mekong governance

ABSTRACTThe impacts of China’s intensified efforts to engage in regional and global environmental governance is widely noted and debated. With rapidly increasing economic and political influence, China has been gradually changing its attitude and strategy in negotiations over some of the most challenging cross-border environmental crises. In this paper, we examine two cases of multinational environmental negotiations, where China exhibited leadership potential and efforts, namely the climate change regime and Mekong river governance system. Our analysis focuses both on the leadership activities around institutional, moral, and financial contributions to the governance regime, and on the efforts for China to take up exemplary actions at domestic level. We argue that in both cases, China exhibited both determination and commitment to shape the course and outcome of the negotiations, whilst applying two clearly different strategies. In the case of climate change, China is using its entrepreneur power to facilitate the deals and portray itself as the moral leader of the climate change course, while in the Mekong river case, financial and institutional inputs are the major instruments for Chinese to assume the leadership role. Yet in both cases, China exhibited a notable shift from an un-cooperative and coercive veto power to a more constructive player in the multinational environmental negotiations.

Deliberative multi-actor dialogues as opportunities for transformative social learning and conflict resolution in international environmental negotiations

The format for formal international negotiations on environment and development sometimes prevents negotiators from truly listening to each other and adapt pre-existing positions to realize constructive conflict resolution. In this paper we present and analyse “Multi-Actor Dialogue Seminars” (MADS) as an approach to contribute to transformative social learning and conflict resolution, and the contribution to tangible and intangible outcomes in formal negotiations. Unlike negotiations, the objective of MADS is not to agree on a text, but to identify areas of agreement and disagreement, build trust and understanding and identify policy options that are tailored to different cultural-political and value systems. As a case study we use the breakdown of the negotiations at the formal Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference in 2010 regarding “innovative financial mechanisms,” and subsequent two international Quito Dialogues using the MADS approach. Through a composite of methods this article reveals the effects of the Quito Dialogues on formal CBD negotiations. The Quito Dialogues contributed to bringing actors out of their deadlock and thereby paving the way for constructive results in the formal CBD negotiations, evident by references in CBD Decisions adopted by 196 CBD Parties. We discuss key design and implementation factors which were decisive for these effects including the importance of a bridging organization, trust building, exploration of both convergences and divergences, involvement of participants with diverse and conflicting views early in the planning, promotion of active listening and addressing diverse knowledge systems and power asymmetries.

Regional convergence in environmental policy arrangements: A transformation towards regional environmental governance for West and Central African ports?

Environmental policy-making in West and Central Africa, with implications for the region's ports, is usually dominated by state actors that also represent the nation-states at regional inter-governmental co-operation. The ports share common and transboundary environmental problems, but fall under diverse political and decentralisation systems. Also, in spite of regional inter-governmental co-operation there is disagreement between regional environmental policies and those for the ports at sub-national level. The port authorities are largely absent in environmental negotiations with outcomes ignoring their contributions. However, institutional reform of the ports from the year 2000 onwards has seen the port authorities gaining greater autonomy as public non-state actors and beginning to involve in environmental policy-making. This paper seeks to understand how environmental policy-making and governance is transforming in West and Central African ports. By combining the policy arrangement approach, the main analytical tool for the paper, with the concept of regional convergence, interaction processes among key actors involved in port environmental policy-making in West and Central Africa are studied. The study finds a developing innovation of joint environmental policy-making arrangement in which West and Central African port authorities, from sub-national level, are engaging directly with regional inter-governmental and Environmental Non-Governmental Organisation actors. The developing innovation by-passes institutionalised state-led environmental policy-making arrangements, with the potential for transforming environmental governance of West and Central African ports. It is concluded that non-state actors, when given flexible manoeuvring, can be innovative in overcoming diverse statist political dynamics in dealing coherently with transboundary environmental issues within a territorial region. However, state actors remain key as linking pins in transboundary environmental policy and governance.

The Effect of Negotiation Costs on International Environmental Agreements: Regional versus Global Cooperation

This paper considers whether international environmental public goods provision bring significant benefits to countries with through a regional cooperation than a global cooperation. Using a repeated game model, this study shows that the regional cooperative approach is an appropriate way to address the difficulties emerging in environmental negotiations, assuming the negotiation costs which increase depending on agreement size. It is revealed that the introduction of negotiation costs can relax the condition that regional international environmental agreements (IEAs) are sustained as weakly renegotiation-proof equilibrium. Additionally, a reduction in abatement costs enhances the feasibility of agreement if regional cooperative approach and negotiation costs are considered.

Rethinking Justice in International Environmental Negotiations: Toward a More Comprehensive Framework

AbstractJustice is of central importance in international environmental negotiations. Key characteristics of this type of negotiation augment the complexities of justice issues and warrant a customized approach. Based on a discussion of these characteristics, the article derives four components that are central to a more comprehensive theoretical framework for analyzing justice in environmental negotiations: 1) going beyond narrow self-interest, 2) extending the notion of reciprocity, 3) linking backward- and forward-orientation, and 4) connecting process and outcome. The usefulness of the framework is illustrated by applying it to two important Conferences of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP15 in Copenhagen and COP21 in Paris – which are compared. The framework is suited for a systematic analysis of the complex role played by justice issues in international environmental negotiation, as a key avenue for addressing global threats emerging from anthropogenic environmental change.

A global degree days database for energy-related applications

Weather can have a profound effect on energy consumption particularly with respect to hot and cold temperatures, driving residential and commercial energy demand. The cooling and heating degree day methodology has been often been regarded as a reliable means to account for this effect for purposes of normalization and econometric analysis. However, when applied within the context of international cross-country comparison, this methodology suffers from two majors limitations: the lack of an appropriate international database that encompasses degree days at a functional spatial and temporal aggregation using various reference temperatures, and second, the existing methodologies only account for the effect of temperature and ignore the potential effect of other climatic factors such as humidity and solar radiation.This paper addresses these issues by presenting a new database of population-weighted degree days for 147 countries for 1948–2013 at various reference temperatures based on multiple thermal comfort indices. The database was mainly developed to compare the influence of weather on energy use across countries. This is important for policy because it defines the playing field for potential intervention to improve energy efficiency and productivity. It also puts countries on equal footing when it comes to participating in international energy and environmental negotiations.

‘From there to here’: narratives of transition, migration and national identity in Irish media representations of rugby union in the professional era

Irish media representation of rugby union in the post-1995 professional era has become a vehicle for the rehearsal of fantasies and anxieties concerning national identity in the context of the Republic of Ireland as a neoliberal state. Irish rugby’s reorganization and competitive successes have generated comforting images and discourses of centralized management, national cohesion and continuity while successive Irish governments’ neoliberal policies have focused on deregulation, facilitating foreign direct investment and reduced social services spending. Representations of advancements in management intersected with pervasive managerialist discourses in Irish media and politics during and following the 2008 collapse of the Celtic Tiger boom, but with a heavy stress on serving the ‘national interest’. Relatedly, the targeted import of foreign players and coaches is often depicted as reflective of Irish rugby management’s successful negotiation of the neoliberal environment of contemporary European and world rugby. However, concerns regarding the potential hindrance of ‘native’ player/coach development and the threat of economically driven out-migration evince anxieties concerning Irish rugby’s fragile economy and cultural identity that interconnect with broader concerns regarding Ireland’s enduring economic vulnerability following the 2008 financial crisis.

Of Presidents, High Representatives and European Commissioners – the external representation of the European Union seven years after Lisbon * * Dr Iur, Professor at the Free University, Brussels. Email: frank.hoffmeister@ec.europa.eu. For the case studies on Iran and the Ukraine in section 4, I would like to warmly thank Mrs Charlotte Berends for extensive research and analysis. Important details from

The article reviews the external representation of the European Union. Hoffmeister first analyses the rules established by the Lisbon Treaty (2007). He emphasizes the division between the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and non-CFSP and the importance of the diplomatic level. Moreover, he interprets recent case law in which the European Court of Justice has given guidance to the Council and the Commission about their respective roles in policy-making and representation. The author then provides extensive case studies on Iran, Ukraine, trade negotiations and environmental negotiations to track down relevant practice of the last seven years. He concludes that Europe continues to operate a multi-layered system of external representation, where supra-national elements with a strong role of the Commission in important areas are combined with inter-governmental traits of a principal–agent relationship between the Council and its President or the High Representative.

The Participation of the EU and its Member States in Multilateral Environmental Negotiations post Lisbon

The Participation of the EU and its Member States in Multilateral Environmental Negotiations post Lisbon

Splitting the South: China and India’s Divergence in International Environmental Negotiations

International environmental negotiations often involve conflicts between developed and developing countries. However, considering environmental cooperation in a North-South dichotomy obscures important variation within the Global South, particularly as emerging economies become more important politically, economically, and environmentally. This article examines change in the Southern coalition in environmental negotiations, using the recently concluded Minamata Convention on Mercury as its primary case. Focusing on India and China, we argue that three key factors explain divergence in their positions as the negotiations progressed: domestic resources and regulatory politics, development constraints, and domestic scientific and technological capacity. We conclude that the intersection between scientific and technological development and domestic policy is of increasing importance in shaping emerging economies’ engagement in international environmental negotiations. We also discuss how this divergence is affecting international environmental cooperation on other issues, including the ozone and climate negotiations.

MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY OF THE SOUTH: THE G77 + CHINA IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS

The G77 + China represents a multilateral group, engaged in multilateral diplomacy, across multiple fora. While the group has negotiated positive outcomes in terms of trade through its role in the UNCTAD, environmental negotiations have demonstrated the challenges facing the group in maintaining unity, and in turn, raised questions concerning its relevance. This review article considers the divisions that have emerged within the group, as well as those that have emerged between the G77 + China and developed countries within the context of the climate change negotiations. What is significant is that multilateral diplomacy within the group has seen the continuance of unity, despite considerable difference, yet there has been less success in bridging the divide between developed and developing countries as talks move towards the twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP) in 2015.

Negotiating Effectively: Justice in International Environmental Negotiations

Are negotiators who rely on justice principles in the process of bargaining and drafting agreements more—or rather less—effective than others? This article examines whether adherence to principles of procedural and distributive justice in negotiations contributes to more effective results, with a focus on international environmental negotiations. Effectiveness is defined in terms of the extent of agreement (among parties and on issues), time to reach agreement, and comprehensiveness of the agreement. A set of hypotheses is evaluated on a selection of bilateral and multilateral cases of environmental negotiations, using statistical methods. The analyses reveal that adherence to principles of procedural justice contributes to more effective results in multilateral environmental negotiations. These principles are found to hinder effectiveness in the bilateral cases. On the other hand, adherence to principles of distributive justice is only moderately related to effectiveness in both the bilateral and multilateral cases.

The Influence of Limits to Growth and Global 2000 on U.S. Environmental Governance

This paper assesses the influence of two reports, “The Limits to Growth” and “The Global 2000 Report to the President—Entering the Twenty-First Century,” on environmental governance in the United States. Published in 1972 and 1980, respectively, both reports used different methodologies to project changes to the global environment, but reached similar conclusions: business-as-usual economic growth was unsustainable and would lead to the collapse Earth’s life-support systems in the 21st century. Relying on eight oral interviews conducted with experienced and influential persons from environmental NGOs, academia, and the U.S. government, supplemented by a systematic literature review, this analysis finds Limits and Global 2000 had a limited influence on U.S. environmental governance. The reports contributed to greater awareness of the need for sustainable growth, especially among environmentalists, the U.S. government, and the business community; introduced system dynamics and computer modeling to the environmental policymaking process; and directly catalyzed some policy development, particularly in the context of international environmental negotiations. Despite these achievements, Limits and Global 2000 could not catalyze movement toward sustainable development at sufficient scale. The reports’ recommendations were rebuffed by the hostile political agenda of the Reagan Administration, their proponents frustrated by policymaking tools ill-suited to long-term system-level decisionmaking, and their message subsumed by the drive for short-term economic growth. The reports’ projections remain largely valid, but decisionmakers have long dismissed them as irrelevant.

The Tactics of Persuasion: Environmental negotiations over a corporate coal project in coastal India

Following the earthquake of 2001 in the Kutch district of Gujarat (India), the state government and corporate investors have focussed on the coastal areas of Kutch, India's largest district, for economic and infrastructure development. Within a decade of industrialisation of this landscape, these projects have had profound impacts on the environment, livelihoods and futures of its Kutchi inhabitants. Today, the coastline between the old Kandla and Mundra ports is drawn into a three-way battle between International Financial Institutions (IFIs) investing in coal projects, technical experts of sustainable development and international anti-coal campaigners. These three groups have selectively engaged the project affected Kutchis on the importance of economic development, environmental management and climate change. But the affected local people comprising artisanal fisherfolk who belong to a minority community, economically powerful salt and agricultural farmers and a traditional pastoral community of camel herders, frame, debate and act upon the impacts of the project in pragmatic ways. The range of remedies sought by them can be located between the practical expediency of everyday life and ethical questions about correct action. These remedies offer a glimpse of what regulatory bodies should be paying attention to rather than abstract or procedural justice.

The influential role of consensual knowledge in international environmental agreements: negotiating the implementing measures of the Mediterranean Land-Based Sources Protocol (1980)

The generation of consensual scientific knowledge significantly influences the development, evolution and outcome of international environmental negotiations. The impact of consensual science on global environmental policy-making is determined, inter alia, by a number of multidimensional factors. Some of these factors are closely associated with the nature and content of the usable scientific knowledge base. This article introduces the concept of gradated scientific validity and demonstrates how different types and aspects of consensual scientific information affect variously the negotiation process of international environmental agreements. Drawing on the negotiation of the Protocol for the Protection of the Mediterranean against Pollution from Land-Based Sources (1980), it shows that the thorough examination and in-depth analysis of the content and basic characteristics of the available scientific knowledge play a pivotal role in the elaboration and formulation of effective implementing measures of an environmental agreement. It is argued that the prominence of consensual science and subsequently its influence on environmental negotiations are substantially determined by the dynamic role of two interrelated variables of gradated scientific validity: the high or low degree of consensus in relation to the significance and value of the provided scientific information (degree of consensus), and the expanding or narrow scientific consensus on distinct underlying aspects of a negotiating problem, including its causes, extent and consequences (content of consensus). This article indicates that the extensive analysis of the nature, content and distinct characteristics of a consensual knowledge base lays the groundwork for comprehensively understanding the role of consensual science in the negotiation and implementation of an international environmental agreement.

Breaking the mold: a new type of multilateral sustainable development negotiation

Participants in the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were reminded time and again that there is no model for the process to develop the SDGs. They resolved to not repeat the closed process used to develop the Millennium Development Goals, but the OWG began work when failures to reach consensus and fatigue with multilateral environmental negotiations dominated delegates’ minds, rather than examples of successfully negotiated outcomes. The OWG Co-Chairs were faced with the daunting task of guiding delegates’ efforts to develop a proposed set of crisp SDGs and targets that all could agree to, and thus, had to accomplish the following goals: (1) reduce delegation rigidity, both of individual Member States and within coalitions; (2) maximize the sense of participation, transparency, and ownership to get the most buy-in at the end; and (3) develop a sense of trust that would change the relationship between Member States. To do this, the OWG Co-Chairs broke the mold of UN multilateral negotiations that Member States and observers had become familiar with and created a different approach. This article examines how the OWG accomplished these goals and overcame the shortcomings of other multilateral negotiating processes on sustainable development to produce a widely supported consensus outcome at a time when governments have struggled to achieve agreement in many multilateral negotiation tracks.

The (un)importance of existing: community sport organizations’ environmental negotiation

Through a dual-case study approach, the paper delves into the environmental negotiation of two American Community Sport Organizations (CSOs) who offer youth programmes to examine the ability of the CSOs under study to secure resources from their environment and the tactics used to do so. Through review of key organizational documents and in depth semi-structured interviews, the study presents evidence that the CSOs under study did not value their own organizational existence, but instead strongly favoured their organizational outcomes. The unimportance of existence is demonstrated to have allowed for greater access to key organizational resources for the CSOs under study. Implications for the further development of resource dependence theory and for the management of CSOs, especially those offering youth programmes are explored further.