1 / 9

What Is To Be Done?

What Is To Be Done?. How can human societies address environmental degradation?. Spheres of Social Life. Globalization of “Environmentalism”. Interstate Cooperation for Environmental Governance. Copenhagen>Warsaw Jo’Burg (WSSD: 2002) > Plan of Action; Type II provisions

macon
Download Presentation

What Is To Be Done?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. What Is To Be Done? How can human societies address environmental degradation?

  2. Spheres of Social Life

  3. Globalization of “Environmentalism” Interstate Cooperation for Environmental Governance

  4. Copenhagen>Warsaw • Jo’Burg (WSSD: 2002) > Plan of Action; Type II provisions • UNCED (1992 Earth Summit) > Agenda 21; UNFCCC; CBD; UNCSD; GEF • Basel Convention (1989) • Vienna/Montreal (85/87) • Brundtland Report (1987) • UNCHE (1972) > UNEP • Limits to Growth (1972) • Population Bomb (1968); • UN Efforts: IUCN (1948) • Colonial Administration Economic Crisis (2008) 9/11 (2001) Seattle (1999) WTO (1995) Neoliberalism Debt Crisis NIEO Stagflation Crisis Vietnam Cold War Colonialism

  5. WCED: Strategic Imperatives for Sustainable Development • 1. Reviving Growth: Alleviation of environmentally destructive poverty requires growth in the South, which is in turn dependent on growth in the North • 2. Changing the Quality of Growth: Less material and energy intensive: backside of the EKC; more equitable. • 3. Meeting Essential Needs: jobs, food, energy, water, sanitation • 4. Population Control

  6. More Strategic Imperatives • 5. Conserving and Enhancing the Resource Base: Substitution and technological innovation (like aquaculture, or wood fuel substitutes) are seen as the ways forward. • 6. Reorienting Technology and Managing Risk: Need to reorient technology toward meeting the problems of the developing world; Risks of technology recognized, but conceptualized through the lens of “risk assessment.” • 7. Merging Environment and Economics in Decision Making: Eco-Mod thesis that the separation between environmental and economic decision-making must be closed.

  7. Role of the International Economy • Reviving Growth in the South • Technology Transfer • Financing Sustainable Development.

  8. 2012: Rio +20: Call for a new “constitutional moment” • Upgrade UNEP to give it more power (agenda-setting, norm development, compliance management, science assessment, capacity building); • Better integrate the “3 pillars” of sustainable development by increasing the effectiveness of the UNCSD, granting the G-20 a stronger role (50% of votes in the UNSDC); • At the level of the nation-state, close regulatory gaps (nanotechnologies, synthetic biology, geo-engineering) through treaty process; • “Mainstream” environmental policy into global trade, investment, and finance regimes (eg. non-product related process and production methods);

  9. 2012: Call for a new “constitutional moment” • Ditch “consensus model” of global decision-making on environmental issues and use weighted or qualified majority voting; • Increase accountability and transparency of global environmental institutions (more input from “civil society,” avenues for equalizing differential power within civil society, betters reporting and disclosure by global institutions); • Equity and fairness should be central principles in institutional design (ie more support for mitigation and adaptation in the South).

More Related