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Reforming Global Environmental Governance: The Case for a United Nations Environment Organisation (UNEO)
This paper summarizes the debate on a UN Environment Organization based on the current UNEP.
Global environmental change poses one of the largest governance challenges ever. Policy-makers in the twentieth century gained much experience in managing confined ecosystems, but in the twenty-first century, they are faced with one of the largest political problems humankind has had to deal with: protecting the entire system earth, including most of its subsystems, and building stable institutions that guarantee a safe transition and a co-evolution of natural and social systems at planetary scale: The challenge of earth´system governance.
This governance challenge is a core task for governments and civil society organizations, for local actors and national alliances, for public and private agents alike. Importantly, it is a challenge for effective international collaboration. There are a number of central actors here, including the numerous international organizations that are important agents in earth system governance. However, recent research also indicates that the overall system of international organizations falls short of its potential. For one, the community of international organizations and programs in earth system governance is highly fragmented, with most major international agencies running their own environmental programs, along with several hundred larger or smaller convention secretariats, with little effective coordination. In addition, earth system governance is not accountable to one international bureaucracy that is solely devoted to supporting international governance processes in this area. This situation has led to a debate in academia and policy circles on the need for a larger integrated organization, such as a“world environment organization” or a “UN environment organization.”
This paper summarizes this debate and lays out a vision on why a UN Environment Organization, based on the current UNEP, is an important building block for successful international cooperation.
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One more thing
Most of the references for this paper are from the book A World Environment Organization. Solution or Threat for Effective International Environmental Governance? I've wanted to read this book for some time now, and I tried to get my local library to buy a copy of but it was, alas, too expensive for even them to buy! (over $200 new!!!). If anyone has a spare used copy they would consider selling 2nd hand , please let me know: dhstrongheart@gmail.com
A reply from D.H. Strongheart
Thank you Frank, for this paper. It seems to be an update from your 2000 article in "Global Environmental Politics, though this new version includes an examination of an important question that, as far as I can see, is yet to receive enough attention: namely, whether the creation of a WEO / UNEO might weaken the already meager momentum behind Sustainable Development, and whether, instead, a recreation / expansion of UNDP to reflect sustainable / environmental development, would not be preferable. While I too am a supporter of the creation of a WEO / UNEO, I'd like to make a few brief comments:
First, we should know that the integrated understanding inherent in the "movement" (dare I say) of Sustainable Development is still very fringe and slow to percolate into the mainstream. I would suggest that we could still make a lot more noise about the irreducible and interconnected concerns of environment and development, in order to truly "get it on the map" and build more broad-based support for it at the grassroots level. If we over-regulate ALL things "environmental" to a WEO / UNEO, isn't there a danger of over-simplifying the issue? Or, as my father says, "Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater".
In my mind, we should differentiate between (at least) two themes (which correspond closely to the 2 themes of the Rio+20 conference). The first is of addressing the omnipresent critique of "fragmented" GEG. This, it seems, is the over-riding proposal in the current paper. Indeed, creating a coherent, centralized and efficient hub for MEAs, treaties, etc. of global importance would undoubtedly improve the ability of GEG to be a truly fruitful project.
The second theme is that of ADVANCING sustainable development and GEG. Here, I think we should think twice before about giving up on a reformed and expanded UNDP project. By advancing "environmental" objectives from an isolated organizational corner, the WEO / UNEO might be weakening its hand, so to speak. Immense progress has been made in communicating the human (coupled) dimensions of GEC. This is reflected in the carefully crafted reports by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the renewed focus of the IPCC to include more socio-economically relevant information in their reports. In short, many communicators have been making great strides in communicating the coupled dimensions of human well-being and environmental health. At the end of the day I think that environmental advocacy efforts will be most successful if they are ALWAYS included in this coupled format, rather than being (re)stigmatized as purely "environmental" concerns.
Because true "environmental" progress will never be achieved without corresponding advances in "green" technology and cultural / social systems, and because most people generally consider the latter more relevant than purely "environmental" considerations, I think that environmental advocates should reconcile themselves to having "development" considerations on-board as a constant companion. Hence, the second theme at the Rio+20 meeting--"green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication"--presents an ideal format within which to advance a more pro-active GEG agenda.
These are, I know complicated questions. It seems to me, though, that if we're overly ambitious about what a WEO / UNEO will become, we just might dream ourselves out of effectiveness, and in the process we may partly undermine the integrated, irreducible and, yes, highly complex and frustrating understanding of coupled human and natural systems that we have come to know as "sustainable development".
holistic redefining of the structures
We are fully convinced that so called organisations for serving the cause have failed to produce. Now we fully agree with the ideas given in this article now the challange is how to make them happen?
We have to network, unite, organise and shout on all platforms. Help each other to make noise which is heard and acted upon. There is no short-cut LET US WORK JOINTLY TO MAKE IMPACT FOR BETTER WORLD FOR ALL.