Environmental Governance Structures Research Articles

Transboundary cooperation in Arctic climate change governance under geopolitical tensions

Political conflicts or geopolitical tensions can create uncertainty in addressing climate change and environmental management in the Arctic. Dissecting how actors interact with each other and form networks is important for understanding ecological and environmental management challenges during geopolitical tensions, as well as promoting better governance. We construct transboundary networks for Arctic climate change governance (ACCG) from 2013 to 2021 based on the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT). Further, we used network descriptive statistical analysis and Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (TERGM) to explore the structure of ACCG networks and the key factors influencing cooperation formation. The findings suggest that the overall cooperation density of the ACCG is low, and the dominant position of core actors is continuously strengthening. Non-state actors are less likely to be seen as partners and their participation depends largely on cooperation with states. The results also show that actors with similar stances and problem exposure are more likely to cooperate, but those exposed to high latitudes often choose not to cooperate; first-comers are more likely to perceive as cooperating yet they are inclined to establish internal cooperation. Additionally, two geographically proximate actors are more likely to cooperate. This indicates that under geopolitical tensions, the ACCG faces challenges not only due to the limited capacity of non-state actors to perform transboundary functions but also because the cooperation mechanisms are influenced by regional political logic. Accordingly, we further suggest policy recommendations from developing binding international frameworks to guide transboundary cooperation, enhancing cooperation among non-state actors, and ensuring the representativeness and fairness of non-Arctic actors' participation. This research provides insights into transboundary environmental management under political tensions, while also offering new pathways for analysing large-scale environmental governance structures.

Environmental governance, technological innovation and employment structure change: evidence from China

Environmental governance, technological innovation and employment structure change: evidence from China

Under the Background of Economic Structure Optimization, Environmental Governance Promotes Macroeconomic Structural Adjustment Measures

Along with the implementation of reform and opening up in the 1970s, China’s economy entered a period of rapid development. During this period, the economic structure of our country has gradually changed from the primary industry to the secondary industry. Even today, the industrial industry still plays a very important role in the economic structure of our country. The industrial chain such as the real estate industry, chemical industry, and manufacturing industry is still the main industrial structure that promotes our economic growth for a long time. However, as the energy of industrial development is obtained by massive consumption of fossil fuels, the economic development brought by industrial development is behind the serious environmental pollution problem. We gradually realize that economic development cannot be based on environmental damage, but although our country has been committed to reversing the situation of environmental sacrifice for economic development at the beginning of the discovery of problems, the effect is very little. Therefore, how to maximize environmental protection under the current economic structure is the issue to be discussed in this paper. This paper mainly summarizes relevant experience through domestic and foreign literature, and clarifies the macro relationship between environmental governance and economic structure, and then discusses it from three dimensions: technological innovation, consumer demand, and international trade. The final results show that different types of environmental regulations have different effects on industrial structure, and the effectiveness of policy incentive regulation is about 23% higher than that of command control regulation. At the same time, according to the analysis results of economic structure upgrading in the Pearl River Delta region, the effect of environmental regulation on the regional industrial structure is also different, and the average effect can improve the overall industrial structure optimization rate by about 36%.

Leading the charge: A qualitative case-study of leadership conditions in collaborative environmental governance structures

Collaborative governance structures are increasingly common among natural resource managers. While studies have assessed the conditions under which collaborative action occurs, little emphasis has been placed on the role leadership may play in joint-jurisdictional systems. Management of species under the Endangered Species Act offers an opportunity to assess the collaboration of federal, state, and tribal resource agencies. The Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segment of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) was managed under a structure called the Atlantic Salmon Recovery Framework (ASRF) from 2011 to 2019. Using the ASRF as a case study, we examined the influence of leadership approaches on perceived program efficacy, member buy-in, and experience through semi-structured interviews. Participant reflections revealed three major leadership themes that participants found inadequate: (1) shared goals, (2) transparency, and (3) trust. Collaborative approaches that foster these leadership conditions may increase adaptive capacity and the likelihood of sustained success in this, and other, environmental governance structures.

The energy transition of the Chinese national oil companies towards renewables: An opportunity or a bottleneck?

Renewable energy is the fastest growing energy source. China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, is also the largest investor in renewable energy. Although it is expected that oil will continue to dominate the energy mix in China and in the world by 2040, a transition towards a renewable model in the energy sector is unfolding, which has also been acknowledged by international oil companies (IOCs). Then, how the Chinese national oil companies (NOCs) approach such a transition becomes important – to what extent their investment transform and what are the pressures and influences behind the transformation. This paper investigates the positions and decisions taken by the Chinese NOCs, through comparing the similarities and differences between these NOCs and IOCs. A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework that considers environmental governance through dynamics at material, organisational, and discursive levels is used to examine the Chinese NOCs’ energy transition. We find that the Chinese NOCs’ energy transition is determined by: materially, economic profits; organisationally, the administrative environmental governance structure that copes with the market competition against IOCs and other state-owned companies; and discursively, the political concept of ecological civilisation.

Realigning practices of care and environmental governance: findings and reflections from a transdisciplinary research project in Wales (UK)

This article presents This article presents findings from a transdisciplinary research project on collaborative practices for the sustainable management of natural resources (SMNR) in Wales. Here, the legislation establishes that the national well-being agenda and the principle of SMNR in environmental governance must be achieved through collaborative and participatory practices, across sectors and organisations, including within the public sector. However, neoliberal and hyper-bureaucratic governance structures, characterized by a risk-adverse nature, do not allow public sector institutional actors to experiment and engage with such practices in their everyday work. This article discusses a collective experience of reflecting on, and challenging such oppressing neoliberal structures, through experimenting with alternative ways of doing and being together. The emerging community at the heart of this experience is composed of policymakers, practitioners, artists, and academics (including the authors), who together carved out a 'site of negotiation' to contest techno-managerialism and mere rational approaches to (natural resources) governance. In the course of this research, these actors began to collectively create and shape new and shared meanings of doing collaborative and cross-boundary work (as required by the Welsh legislation), based on relationships of trust, reflexivity, embodiment, and relationality. Reflecting also on our own experience (and interpretation) of working alongside them, we believe that such emergent processes of collective meaning-making have the potential to transform neoliberal (environmental) governance structures into 'lived' and 'owned' institutions. Inspired by relational, integrative and caring forms of democratic governance, we argue that professionals in public sector organisations can realign governance structures in ways that meet the challenge of enabling the rapid and wide sustainability transformations that are so desperately needed.

The Dilemma and Path of Rural Environmental Governance in China: From the Perspective of a Community with a Shared Future.

With the aim of achieving the goal of ecological livability in Chinese rural society, the issue of rural environmental governance has received great attention from the CCP and the government. However, due to local governments' model of development in exchange for economic interests and the "urban and rural binary" structure of environmental governance, rural environmental governance faces many dilemmas, such as lack of normative standards, lack of environmental governance subjects, and lack of judicial security. In order to improve the development of rural ecological civilization and realize ecologically friendly agriculture, this paper proposes a solution path for rural environmental governance from the perspective of the idea of the community with a shared future for humanity. Specifically, this solution path includes establishing the concepts of cooperation and governance of environmental protection, improving villagers' participation in environmental protection, balancing economic and environmental interests in rural environmental governance, and building a long-term mechanism for the rule of law in rural environmental governance.

Breaking the Mould—Britain’s New Office for Environmental Protection

Abstract An unexpected consequence of Brexit has been the creation under the Environment Act 2021 of a new public body, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP). OEP is more than a watchdog body and has important functions in advising government on proposed new environmental law, reporting to Parliament on progress in meeting statutory targets and reviewing the implementation of environmental law. Its enforcement role relates to the environmental duties of government and public bodies. The procedures are a specialised form of judicial review but are designed to secure a constructive settlement before reaching court. OUP is a novel and important addition to Britain's structure of environmental governance.

A vision of a One Health system for Australia: on the need to rethink our health system.

A vision of a One Health system for Australia: on the need to rethink our health system.

Bolsonaro's far‐right populist environmental and climate diplomacy

AbstractBrazilian diplomacy has historically used the environmental agenda as a soft‐power tool, particularly regarding climate change, but this situation has drastically changed under Jair Bolsonaro's administration. Imitating other far‐right populists and their antienvironmental rhetoric, especially Donald Trump's, Bolsonaro attempted to use the topic to inflame his domestic supporters against international players. On the one hand, this strategy weakened Brazilian influence in bilateral and multilateral forums; on the other, dismantling environmental policies and governance structures had substantial consequences, especially in deforestation rates and attacks on traditional communities. This article analyzes the Bolsonaro administration's stand on the environment and climate issues and the repercussions of its policies and rhetoric in Brazil's domestic and foreign scenarios. We conclude that changes in the international context, especially after Trump's electoral defeat in the United States, led to a softening of Bolsonaro's international environmental and climate discourse, with no substantial policy changes internally. Although climate denialism is a centerpiece of the discourse of far‐right populists, this empirical analysis indicates that, in the case of Brazil, this narrative did not bring significant results to Bolsonaro in terms of support or international relevance.

COVID-19 Crisis, Wildlife Trafficking and Environmental Governance in Nigeria

Illegal wildlife trade and wildlife trafficking are global environmental risks which is underscored not just by its convergence with other serious crimes but by the cross-border and trans-boundary nature of the crime, and its implications in many global health problems. The COVID-19 crisis, currently estimated to have been contracted from bats by humans through an intermediate host such as a pangolin, has propelled the global health implications of wildlife trade onto the global stage, thereby questioning global and national environmental governance structures to combat illegal wildlife trade and trafficking. Through a literature-based desk review, this paper appraises international environmental regulation such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES); wildlife regulatory governance in Nigeria such as The Endangered Species (Control of International Trade and Traffic) Act and their implications in the current global pandemic. It finds that weak legal systems, lack of enforcement capacity, high corruption levels and insufficient coordination, knowledge, and capacity are among the critical drivers of this crisis. It recommends legal and policy prioritization and effective environmental governance with regards to combatting wildlife trafficking as a panacea for present and future pandemics.

Digital economy: An innovation driving factor for low-carbon development

As an emerging driving factor, the positive impact of digital economy on low-carbon development (LCD) may be undervalued or even neglected. In the context of global Internet development and the widespread use of digital technologies, this study develops an evaluation system to measure China's digital economy by using provincial panel data from 2007 to 2019. Four dimensions are covered, including digital economy development carrier, digital industrialization, industrial digitalization, and digital economy development environment. Based on a comprehensive explanation of the influence mechanism, generalized method of moments and other econometric methods are used to examine the direct effect of digital economy on LCD. An intermediary effect model is then applied to explore its indirect transmission mechanism, followed by several heterogeneity analyses. The results show that digital economy is gradually becoming an essential driver for regional low-carbon development. Environmental governance, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrade are the three primary channels for digital economy to influence LCD. The intermediary role of industrial structure upgrade is the largest, while technological innovation is the smallest. Results of heterogeneity analysis show that the decarbonization of digital economy is better in the eastern region but not significant in the central and western regions. In addition, since the launch of the carbon emissions trading pilot in China, digital economy has significantly contributed to low-carbon development. This study provides valuable implications for China to achieve low-carbon development and valuable insights to other countries so that they can actively engage in energy conservation and emissions reduction.

Tackling the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies by making peace with nature 50 years after the Stockholm Conference

Today’s increasingly unequal and resource intensive development model degrades and surpasses Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being. Society must restore this capacity and adapt to it without surrendering hard won development gains while also honoring the rightful aspirations of poorer nations and people to enjoy better living standards, according to the UNEP report “Making Peace with Nature”. This article presents findings from the report and reflections on how to take advantage of the 50 years of experience gained since the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The interconnected environmental emergencies of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution need to be addressed together. International scientific assessments are providing the knowledge base for informed evidence-based decision-making, but none of the internationally agreed environmentally targets for climate and biodiversity have been met and the situation is becoming more dire with each passing year. Unless these issues are addressed in the next 5–10 years none of the 2030 sustainable development goals will be achieved. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation need to be mobilized in such an effort. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals provides a blueprint for the transformation. The international environmental governance structure needs to facilitate a system-wide cross-sectoral transformation of humankind's relationship with nature. Transformed economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability. Major shifts in investment and regulation are key to just and informed transformations that overcome inertia and opposition from vested interests. Government actions at all levels are needed together with strengthened actions by all actors in society and the next decade is critical.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and transnational hybrid governance in Ecuador’s palm oil industry

• The local institutionalization of RSPO standards shifts national and sub-national structures of environmental governance, power, and authority. • In Ecuador, palm oil governance is increasingly driven by a transnational regime of private and public institutions of governance. • The state has pursued an alternative model of governance that harmonizes private regulatory instruments with national economic plans. • Standards entrenchment has influenced community-company dynamics, public–private governing coalitions, and scalar approaches to landscape governance. • New arrangements bring about novel governance coalitions and approaches while reinscribing the exclusionary nature of palm oil governance. The expansion of Latin America’s palm oil frontier has spurred an explosion of interest in the social and environmental impacts of palm oil production. Researchers have been particularly focused on the effectiveness of global sustainability certification standards in addressing induced vulnerabilities. Only a small fraction of this research, however, analyzes how the local institutionalization of global standards has shaped national and sub-national structures of environmental governance, or regional conceptualizations of authority. It also fails to examine how the entrenchment of global standards has reworked local social relations inhering within formal and informal palm oil governing arrangements. To address these gaps, this paper draws on the case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Ecuador to answer the following research questions: 1) How does the local introduction and institutionalization of RSPO standards (re)shape national and sub-national environmental governance structures and relations? 2) How do RSPO standards reconfigure long-standing notions of power and authority? Drawing on extended fieldwork, the paper finds that the introduction of RSPO standards has prompted three major shifts in domestic palm oil governance. These shifts are: 1) technicalization of community-company relations, 2) hybridization of governance coalitions 3) regionalization of governance efforts. Taken together, these transformations point to an emerging transnational hybrid governance regime that blends public laws with private guidelines to reach national and international sustainability objectives. The regime has enabled the emergence of new palm governance authorities in the sector yet at the same time, it has reinscribed the uneven power relations of palm oil governance. The study concludes that future research and policy efforts must go beyond simply evaluating RSPO standards in local spaces, and instead aim to improve the social relations that exist within agro-commodity chains in order to make the governance of sustainable palm oil more socially-inclusive and just.

Populist authoritarian neoliberalism in Brazil: making sense of Bolsonaro's anti-environment agenda

In Brazil, the looming threat of mass extinction has prompted increasingly exceptional measures to protect sensitive biomes. At the same time, such measures threaten to curtail capitalist expansion and thus Brazil's neoliberal model of economic development. Jair Bolsonaro's 2018 presidential campaign responded to these threats by fueling anti-environment sentiments and anti-environmentalist enmity. Once inaugurated, he immediately began the work of dismantling national environmental governance structures. Yet his strategies for doing so are often masked by what this article describes as a 'firehouse effect', where his tactics appear chaotic, confused, and lacking any particular goal. The article uses a combination of interviews with 35 environmental experts, participant observation, and a review of secondary sources to zoom in on Bolsonaro's anti-environmentalism within the context of the contemporary turn toward populist authoritarian neoliberalism. By focusing on how Bolsonaro's policies serve to weaken protective environmental measures that limit capitalist extraction, the article unearths the major anti-environment strategies of the Bolsonaro administration. This framework thus allows us to see through the 'firehouse effect' to make some sense of Bolsonaro's methods, further building on emerging research on the political ecologies of the contemporary populist authoritarian neoliberal turn. Moreover, the article shows the utility of applying a generalized populist authoritarian neoliberal framework to a particular context in order to identify its local processes and specificities.

Research on Modern Marine Environmental Governance in China: Subject Identification, Structural Characteristics, and Operational Mechanisms.

Under the guidance of modern environmental governance concepts, there have been profound changes in the subject, structure, and operational mechanism of the modern marine environmental governance in China. This paper first classifies the subjects of modern marine environmental governance in China, as well as their relationships; analyses the structural characteristics from the three levels of rights, society, and region; explores the operational mechanism; and builds the framework of the modern marine environmental governance system in China. Both the central and local governments act as the leaders of the modern marine environmental governance system in China, and there have been many new changes in their relationships. On the one hand, the interest and goals of the central and local governments have gradually converged under the pressure system. On the other hand, local governments follow the principles of comprehensive governance regarding the coastline and collaborative cooperation is gradually beginning to occur. Different governance subjects are interrelated and intertwined to form a complete modern marine environmental governance structure, which includes the following three levels: the governmental power structure; the social structure, which involves collaboration between multiple entities; and the regional structure, which involves land-sea coordination in environmental governance. These structures each play their parts in the overall process of the marine environmental governance’s institutional arrangements, process coordination, and feedback adjustments and ultimately constitute a dynamic and complete modern marine environmental governance operational system.

Deforestation forecasts in the Legal Amazon using intervention models

In this paper, it was used the Box-Jenkins methodology to assess the historical deforestation data generated by PRODES in the Brazilian Legal Amazon region from 1988 to 2018, in order to acquire deforestation forecasts. Considering that the model achieved an acceptable performance, forecasts were estimated for the next seven years (2019 to 2023). If there is no significant intervention in the series, deforestation rates are expected to remain ranging from 7,559.97 km2 to 7,730.88 km2, with a mean around 7,625.12 km2. In the case of an intervention, these quantities may vary from 10,429.28 km2 to 28,669.75 km2, with a mean near to 16,766.71 km2, indicating an increase of 119% on deforestation rates. In this sense, this article reinforces the need for maintenance and expansion of the environmental governance structure for the Brazilian Legal Amazon, according to what has happened in the last decade, especially based on the instruments of Command and Control related, for example, to expansion of Conservation Units, institution of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), inducing land regularization, improvement of the detection and monitoring system of burning and deforestation, such as PRODES and DETER, and also ostensive operations to combat illegal deforestation governmental institutions.

The structure of environmental governance: How public policies connect and partition California's oil and gas policy landscape

In this paper, we ask how the written composition of public policies structure an environmental governance system. We answer this question using semi-automated text analyses of 22 state-level policies governing oil and gas development in California between 2007 and 2017. The findings portray an environmental governance system that is both partitioned and connected into different focal areas (called “targeted action situations”) through certain actors, issues, and rules. We conclude with substantive insights about California's oil and gas governance system, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions for analyzing the composition of public policy to advance knowledge about hybrid governance.

Indigenous guardians as an emerging approach to indigenous environmental governance.

Over the past 3 decades, indigenous guardian programs (also known as indigenous rangers or watchmen) have emerged as an institution for indigenous governments to engage in collaborative environmental governance. Using a systematic review of peer‐reviewed literature for research conducted in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa‐New Zealand, and the United States, we sought to characterize the emergence of indigenous guardians in the literature and explore whether guardian approaches are representative of Indigenous approaches to environmental governance. Using a multistep relevance‐screening method, we reviewed 83 articles published since 1995, that report on, critique, or comment on Indigenous guardians. Our findings indicated that most articles on the topic were published in the last decade (88%), focused on Australia (65%), and were in a social science discipline (53%). The lead author of the majority of articles was an academic, although only half of the articles included an indigenous scholar or member of an indigenous group or organization as a coauthor. Finally, 11 articles were on research of guardian programs that were locally led and only 5 exemplified indigenous governance, based on 2 well‐known community‐based monitoring typologies. Our findings indicate that more research is required to understand the implications of current guardian programs for indigenous self‐determination, particularly when such programs are embedded in a broader western environmental governance structure.

Democracies, change, sustainability, and transformation: historical perspectives

This article discusses the potential of a historical approach to sustainability transformations. Using environmental issues and governance structures as case studies, it first describes how historical “sustainability transformations” can be conceptualized. It then suggests that 19th-century constitutional reforms can be read as attempts at reaching fiscal sustainability, whereas some social reforms can be interpreted as attempts to render the capitalist economy sustainable. In conclusion, the article highlights that the primary value of historical approaches to sustainability transformations will not lie in models, but in encouraging more creative questions.