Dear Paul A problem many of us are struggling with. They way I am currently thinking about this to avoid despair (easy to slip into) is thinking across the whole range of things which need to be thought of as a global climate governance complex¹ - i.e. Not just the UN, not just national governments, not just the plethora of private governance projects or multilevel, translocal, etc., forms of what Matt Hoffmann is calling climate governance experiments¹ - but at the whole as a complex and look at where the key structural linkages between different types of governance might exist. They may not at present, because the dots haven¹t been joined up or because one of the forms is underdeveloped, but they could. So the idea is not to find the grand bargain¹ which can solve things once and for all, but the little synergies that could create bigger ones i.e. The potential for non-linear effects, tipping points, and the like. My preferred heuristic example (no stronger than this at the moment) is between price-based governance systems for the moment mostly carbon markets and disclosure based governance projects the Carbon Disclosure Project, most notably (and this could well be feeding into compulsory carbon disclosure in some jurisdictions). The higher the carbon price, the greater the importance to investors of good quality information about emissions-intensity, and so on...
Just one thought. I¹ll be hoping to elaborate on such things in some work Steven Bernstein, Matt Hoffmann and Michele Betsill and I are just starting on, in the next few years. Cheers Mat -- Matthew Paterson École d'études politiques, Université d'Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5 tel: +1 613 562-5800 x1716 Web site: http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pol/eng/profdetails.asp?ID=123 And http://matpaterson.wordpress.com/ Co-editor, Global Environmental Politics: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/glep From: "HARRIS, Paul Gordon" <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:04:51 +0800 To: GEP List <[email protected]> Conversation: Rethinking global climate governance Subject: Rethinking global climate governance Dear GEP Colleagues, I am trying to rethink global environmental governance, and to encourage my students to do likewise, especially in the context of climate change. While I know that some of you won't agree, it's my feeling the practice of global environmental governance surrounding climate change has been a failure. This is not to discount positive developments and steps forward, but is (by my estimation) a fact revealed by warnings of natural scientists and apparently by ongoing environmental changes. Thanks to hard work by many governments and nongovernmental actors, etc., things won't be as bad as they might have been. But I think they'll be very bad nevertheless, especially for the world's poor. Assuming I am correct (even if you don't agree), do you have ideas for how we might rethink global governance and climate change, or conceive of global governance in this context in very new ways? What are you saying to your students in this regard? What do you say when they ask for alternatives to the incrementalism of climate change diplomacy? Are their practical alternatives, or desirable ones that may appear to be impractical today? Many thanks for your ideas. All best, Paul -- P.G. Harris Department of Social Sciences Hong Kong Institute of Education 10 Lo Ping Road Tai Po, HONG KONG General Office Tel.: +852 2948 7707 Direct Tel.: +852 2948 6763 Fax: +852 2948 8047 Email: pharris @ ied.edu.hk http://www.ied.edu.hk/ssc/en/index.htm
