Question 2 (10 marks )

On July 28, 2022, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Drawing from course readings andcontent, especially Chapters 2 and 3 in Conca (2015), please discuss one reason why this development is a cause for optimism and one way that implementation (e.g., through international law and/or multi-lateral environmental agreement) will be challenging (450-500 words).

(CH-2 AND CHAPTER -3 READING ARE ATTACHED IN DOCX PDF BELOW WHICH ARE VERY VERY IMPORTANT AND HAS TO BE USED).

AND THIS READING MATERIAL ALSO HAS TO BE USED.

Reading Material
Material for Q -2Readings are as follows:

Week 5: The UN and Efforts to Address Global Environmental Change

Many multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have been negotiated in response to large-scale environmental challenges. You have already learned a bit about one, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), in the Climate Blueprint documentary last week! But there are many more; the features, numbers of signatories, and the types of successes and challenges across different MEAs are diverse and important to think about.

Global environmental governance can and does work! Just watch this TEDx Boulder talk by Climate Scientist Dr. Sean Davis, given in 2017. He talks about ‘The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.’ Finalized in 1987, it is a global agreement negotiated through the UN that phases out the production and consumption of over 100 human-made ozone-depleting substances (ODS), including chlorofluorocarbons.

The Montreal Protocol is held up as an example of an effective MEA and demonstrates that global environmental governance and negotiation can work. Nation states heeded scientific evidence about the negative impacts of ODS and worked together to negotiate an agreement. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) discusses how the principle of common but differentiated responsibility was integrated into the protocol:

“The Montreal Protocol phases down the consumption and production of the different ODS in a step-wise manner, with different timetables for developed and developing countries (referred to as “Article 5 countries”). Under this treaty, all parties have specific responsibilities related to the phase out of the different groups of ODS, control of ODS trade, annual reporting of data, national licensing systems to control ODS imports and exports, and other matters. Developing and developed countries have equal but differentiated responsibilities, but most importantly, both groups of countries have binding, time-targeted and measurable commitments.”

– UNEP, 2023, para. 2

As Dr. Davis concludes in his talk, it is critical to think of the negative environmental, human health, and economic implications that the world has avoided because The Montreal Protocol is in place. As one example, estimates suggest that millions of skin cancer cases have already been avoided because of the protocol. MEAs can have real-world positive implications, even when drafting, negotiation, ratification, and implementation take place over many years (or even more than a decade).

The UN as a Key Locale and/or Vehicle for Action

Meganck and Saunier (2012) consider Global Environmental Governance (GEG) in terms of process, architecture, and implementation. In each of these, the UN is a key locale and/or vehicle for action.

• Meganck and Saunier (2012) on PROCESS: “The visible portion of the GEG process is made up of a large variety of assemblies, conferences, congresses, and summits” (p. 5). Important examples include meetings that you have already learned about, like the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. In the big picture, there are so many that it would not be possible to cover them all in one course. What’s more, is that for every major meeting, “there are literally hundreds of other preparatory meetings sponsored by a galaxy of interests, including those that offer the science that informs the negotiations” (ibid).
• Meganck and Saunier (2012) on ARCHITECTURE: “The organizations surrounding an agreement consist of a variety of formal and informal advisory committees (panels, subsidiary bodies, bureaus, etc.) as well as the conferences or meetings of the parties that negotiated and/or signed on to the treaty or protocol” (p. 5). For example, The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) “encourages and facilitates implementation of the mandates of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development” (ibid). “Most of the treaties and conventions that have entered into force now will also have a secretariat to track ratification, help ensure implementation, and provide support to their administrative bodies” (p. 5-6). Please also note in the reading that different kinds of ‘hard law’ and ‘soft law’ instruments bind the parties to any given agreement with different levels of authority.
• Meganck and Saunier (2012) on IMPLEMENTATION: “Implementation of global environmental governance frequently causes seemingly endless anxiety, frustration, debate, accusations and delays.” Money, negotiation impasses, and logistics are central to challenges and holdups: “financing the work of the agreement’s plan of action; the staffing of a secretariat or other institution(s) designed to insure that the agreements meets its objectives; and intense negotiations to decide just where the secretariat will be located and what the limits to its authority should be” (p. 6). Ultimately, “funding is nowhere near what is required to fulfill current commitments to agreed upon targets for global environmental governance” (ibid).

The UN Multilateral Environmental Agreements

Please review the image below from InforMEA. The poster visually represents a large number of the UN Multilateral Environmental Agreements and may help you to categorize and better remember each MEA.

opens PDF in new windowMultilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) poster from InforMEA. Click on the above image to access a PDF version of the post.

Week 10: The United Nations’ Approach to Global Environmental Change – Limits and Progress

Can Persistent Challenges Coexist with Hope?

The three units of the course to date have built your understanding of the drivers of climate and other global environmental changes, introduced and examined the reality that impacts are uneven and socially complex, and offered insight into some of the science and modelling that underlies climate and environmental indicator science. Unit 04, the final unit of the course, is entitled ‘Persistent Challenges, Hope, and Course Conclusions.’

Are there reasons to be hopeful? We know that ‘the environment’ is firmly embedded within the UN, and it has well-developed sets of processes, a complex institutional architecture, and a specific approach to implementing MEAs and pursuing sustainable development. Chapter 3 in Conca (2015) sees reasons to be hopeful. Among the first few pages, you will read the following:

“The planet is better off for having broadly multilateral treaties on the ozone layer, ocean pollution, endangered species, and persistent organic pollutants, to name but a few […] In a summary assessment, researcher Norichika Kanie reminds us that: [H]undreds of MEAs have been adopted. Many of these MEAs have actually been effective at improving the environment by inducing states to change policies in a manner conducive to a cleaner environment. Stratospheric ozone pollution has been reduced. European acid rain is greatly reduced. Oil spills in the oceans are down in number and volume. Considering the pace with which economies have grown in the last 30 years, these should be recognized as considerable accomplishments” (p. 80).

In addition to what Conca says above, we have learned information and seen examples in this course demonstrating that scientific and social scientific understanding of global environmental change is greater than it has ever been before. Awareness among the general public is growing, as is consensus among the international community that action is urgent, needs to increase in speed, and expand in scope. However, as we have also seen, many indices suggest that the rate and intensity of climate and other environmental changes are increasing. Moreover, Conca (2015) raises concerns with respect to weaknesses and persistent challenges in the UN system and approach. Notably, a precipitous decline in the:

“number of multilateral environmental agreements reached annually over the past two decades. (Multilateral agreements are those with three or more parties; bilateral accords, which follow a very different political dynamic, are discussed separately, below). Unlike prior global summits in Stockholm (1972) and Rio (1992), the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg yielded no noticeable stimulus for multilateral accords, particularly at the supraregional or global levels. The decade after the 1972 Stockholm Conference (1973–1982) yielded 101 new multilateral accords, and the decade after the 1992 Earth Summit (1993–2002) yielded 193” (p. 80).

The Basel Convention

In Week 5, you learned about the Montreal Protocol as an example of an MEA that is nearly globally ratified, has resulted in meaningful action, and led to improved outcomes for people and the ozone layer. The Convention on the Control of Transboundary Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal—sometimes referred to in shorthand as the Basel Convention—is discussed in Chapter 3 of Conca (2015) as another similar example. Conca describes the Basel Convention on pages 86-89 and its clear strengths: it is global in scope, issue-specific in focus, and ambitious in its regulatory aspirations. Conca describes it as “a prototype of the emergent legal strategy of global environmentalism in the 1980s and 1990s” (p. 86).

However, like climate change and biodiversity loss, patterns and impacts of chemical/waste use and transport are socially complex and uneven. Conca writes: “as the chain of chemical production, consumption, and use snakes across borders in a globalized world economy, so do the risks to workers, consumers, communities, and ecosystems” (p. 86). As a result:

“Basel has struggled to keep pace with this dynamism, in part because the parties [to the agreement] have been locked for more than two decades in a contentious debate on whether to replace the “prior informed consent” regulations with an outright ban on the North-to-South waste trade. The ban has been embraced by the European Union and many less developed countries, particularly in Africa, but has been opposed by Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and others. The 1994 conference of the parties (COP) adopted the ban, but opponents argued that a change of such magnitude required formal amendment of the accord and separate ratification of any such amendment by the parties. The 1995 COP amended the convention to adopt the ban, but the ban amendment remains short of the required number of national ratifications to enter into force. Paralyzed by this split, Basel has plodded along with its working groups, COPs, and regional centers, while a shifting global economy has given rise to a world of waste not recognized by the original accord. Indeed, most of the world’s hazardous waste trade now flows outside of the regime’s North-to-South regulatory framework entirely” (p. 87).

As you read that long quote, you may have also been reminded of the Climate Blueprint documentary from earlier in the course. Learning more about Basel and thinking back to the Climate Blueprint documentary reinforces that the UN’s consensus-based approach is necessary to make MEAs possible, but, at the same time, consensus-making slows negotiation progress, introduces challenging political dynamics, and involves contentious debates around wording and what ultimately is (or is not) written-into and ratified in treaty documents.

What are Some Things that Contribute to the Duration and Success of an MEA?

Social science research into MEAs—and the organizations, relationships, funding, and implementation processes that build around them (sometimes referred to together as an ‘environmental regime’) —has found that there are variables that contribute to duration and success. Conca (2015) discusses the variables that contribute to the duration and success of MEAs in Chapter 3 (pages 85-86):

• Design features of the accord (e.g., how are country responsibilities defined, how will progress be monitored, how will new technologies and scientific understanding be updated/integrated, what are the implications if/when a country fails to meet its commitments?)
• The ability to build a broad coalition around the regime (i.e., signatory nations, civil society, and other groups)
• Perceptions of fairness, particularly with respect to how costs of compliance are financed and shouldered (e.g., how is common but differentiated responsibility written into the treaty, and do its principles continue to be recognized and met over time?)

As the chapter observes, these variables are not constant, and they shift over time. Conca (2015) concludes that MEAs and environmental regimes will “be most effective when they are dynamic institutions that prove willing and able to adapt key design features to changes in the distribution of costs and benefits, in the rise of new polluters or problems, in technology, or in demand for regulation” (p. 85).

Back to the Basel Convention: A Peek into What it Looks Like for an MEA to be ‘Willing and Able to Adapt’

The Basel Convention was first signed in 1989, but it continues to exist and evolve today. A short look around the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s ‘Earth Negotiation Bulletins’ proves this and provides insight. By reviewing the Summary report, 21–23 February 2023opens in new window, you will learn what the Earth Negotiation Bulletin team observed and summarizes about work undertaken at the 13th meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) of the Basel Convention. Some highlights include:

• Country delegates reviewed and revised two updates of technical guidelines on wastes containing, consisting or contaminated with persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in preparation for the upcoming 16th Conference of the Parties to Basel meeting;
• The OEWG recommended that the 16th COP to Basel meeting establish a small working group to identify challenges in implementing the Convention’s prior informed consent procedure and develop recommendations to improve its functioning; and
• The permanent Secretariat to the Basel Convention invited country delegates and civil society groups to make written submissions that offered ideas about what role the Basel Convention might play in a future international agreement on plastics and plastic waste agreement.

In the Big Picture: What Has Been Missing or Overlooked in the UN Approach to Environment?

The latter parts of Chapter 3 in Conca (2015) step back to consider persistent challenges in the big picture of the UN approach to environment. There are three key observations that require careful attention as you read. First, the approach has, until very recently, not made conceptual or institutional connections between environment/sustainability and fundamental human rights. Second, the approach has missed opportunities to make the case that equitable and more just sustainable development can contribute to reducing conflict (i.e., peace-making) and avoiding conflict (i.e., peace-keeping). Third, the UN approach to environment has a ‘blindspot’ to the power of large transnational corporations and the ways that commodity chains operate across borders with implications that extend beyond any single MEA.

Before we conclude this week, there is a very recent hopeful development and another persistent challenge to learn about.

July 28, 2022 – The UN General Assembly Declares the Human Right to a “Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment”

An exciting development that offers hope is that the UN General Assembly passed a declaration on July 28, 2022, affirming a “Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environmentopens in new window” as a fundamental Human Right. This is an exciting development because it begins to set the UN and delegate nations along a path to rectifying one of the big picture criticisms in Conca (2015): that the UN approach to environment failed to make conceptual and institutional connections between environment, sustainability, and human rights.

Before moving on, read this short piece in The Conversation entitled “The UN declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment – here’s where resolutions like this can leadopens in new window” and watch the video below produced by the United Nations Environment Program.Analyse this video below.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kQveJJBAfrI?rel=0&showinfo=0

Direct Video Link: Your right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environmentopens a video in a new window (5:51)

Wealth, Consolidation, and Power Among Transnational Companies

Folke et al. (2019) remind us that a small number of transnational companies (TNCs) control significant global wealth and tend to dominate within certain sectors and commodity chains as a result of a dynamic called consolidation. As a result, it is accurate to say that TNCs have a great deal of power over socio-economic and environmental circumstances around the world. This is widely considered to be a persistent challenge to the UN approach to environment (e.g., see pages 100-102 in Chapter 3 of Conca 2015) and a major hurdle to overcome in reaching more equitable and just sustainable development outcomes.

In the words of the authors, “the scale at which TNCs operate, and the speed and connectivity they galvanize across the world is unprecedented in history. TNCs have become a defining feature of the interconnected planet of people and nature” […] “TNCs have also become central in the development of the global food system, a major driver of environmental change, through simplification of landsacpes, loss of biodiversity, release of greenhouse gas emissions, and alteration of biogeochemical and freshwater cycles.” Figure 1 in Folke et al. 2019 (also shown immediately below) provides supporting evidence; please examine it carefully and consider reading the paper in full.