COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE

The Potential of Environmental Governance as a Means of Combating Climate Change

The Potential of Environmental Governance as a Means of Combating Climate Change

Introduction

Environmental governance refers to all the processes by which political, economic, and social actors regulate interactions between humans and nature. These processes include the legislation, administration arrangements, and judicial enforcement by which local, regional, and national governments attempt to manage natural resources (Betsill, 2007). Yet, just as the term 'governance' is broader than 'government', so environmental governance also refers to the actions of non-governmental and supranational organizations in so far as these concern ecological issues. Many prominent environmental concerns are transnational collective action problems that are unlikely to be resolved by action at the level of the nation state (Aylett, 2010). Developments in environmental governance exhibit many of the trends associated with the rise of the new governance. These trends include the increasing prominence of marketization, networks based in part on civil society, and trans-nationalism.

Markets provide a mechanism by which all kinds of people seek to influence the ways in which others affect the environment. Increasing numbers of citizens are trying to affect the environment through their choices about what to consume. Citizens boycott some products, pay more for others, invest only in some companies, and so on (Esty, 2008). In doing so they often hope to influence the decisions of corporations. Markets also play a more indirect role in the measures by which political actors attempt to impact upon the actions of organizations and individuals alike. Environmental policies often rely on costs and benefits, along with market forces, to encourage or to discourage activities. Relevant costs include taxes and fines. Relevant benefits include partnerships and subsidies (Rice, 2010). For example, China, Colombia, the Philippines, and several other states have introduced pollution taxes to influence the decisions of industrial organizations. Market mechanisms also appear in some transnational and supranational schemes to address environmental issues. So, for example, the Montreal Protocol defines a set of rules for the exchange of pollution rights among states: these rules establish a market in pollution rights so that the total amount of pollution is limited, but states have more choice about the amount they are willing to pay in order to persist in creating more pollution than is the norm (Fischer, Peters, Vávra, Neebe & Megyesi, 2011). In essence, the purpose of this discussion is to shed light on the potential of environmental governance as a means of combating climate change.

Discussion

Contemporary environmental governance owes much not only to marketization but also to networks based in part on organizations from civil society. Non-governmental organizations, such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, are among the best-known actors in environmental governance (Dombrowski, 2010). These non-governmental organizations typically play a dual role in environmental governance. On the one hand, they are campaigning organizations that mobilize popular activism, and often hostility, to the decisions made by states and corporations. On the other, they are often part of the policy networks upon which political actors rely for ...