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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

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What Is To Be Done?

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  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).

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