Engineering Vulnerability, written by sociocultural anthropologist Sarah E. Vaughn, is a fascinating book that will be of interest to multiple fields of research across environmental politics. Vaughn’s fieldwork and archival research into water management and climate adaptation in Guyana draw a long and complex history of a low-lying coastal settlement. Nothing about this history is simple, but she manages it all deftly, telling a story that historicizes the disastrous flooding of 2005; the colonial water management first of the Dutch, then of the British; and the changing demographics of a state whose independence has not ended either racial strife or settlement, with only 10.5 percent of the officially recorded population identifying as Indigenous Amerindian. Vaughn draws widely on theory, using a critical ethnographic approach to give detail and specificity to a story of climate vulnerability. This approach allows her to expand notions of climate adaptation, vulnerability, and the relationship of race to both. Engineering Vulnerability will therefore be of interest to environmental researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds, all of whom will take something from this intriguing book. The Guyana context is of great interest in and of itself. A member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), Guyana is counted officially as a “small island developing state,” despite not being an island. It is also a multiracial settler society, with its own politics of race that, Vaughn is careful to explain, does not center around Whiteness. Vaughn discusses racial politics in the book, but it is not for the most part a book about coloniality or racial capitalism. Instead, Vaughn asks us to consider racial politics in global contexts of post-emancipation, where settlers are nonWhite. The majority of the population are Indoor Afro-Guyanese, brought to Guyana as enslaved or indentured laborers, now trying to make lives on water logged terrain made habitable only through colonial intervention, the forced labor of their ancestors, and the knowledge of Indigenous people. Vaughn’s understanding of vulnerability is hinted at in the book’s title but is more closely reflected in the title of the book’s introduction: “Where Would I Go? There Was No Place with No Water.”What Vaughn draws out so well is that climate adaptation has a politics of where: where is home, where is a valid settlement, where will adaptation be done, where will be deemed worthy of
{"title":"Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation by Sarah E. Vaughn","authors":"C. Weatherill","doi":"10.1162/glep_r_00680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_r_00680","url":null,"abstract":"Engineering Vulnerability, written by sociocultural anthropologist Sarah E. Vaughn, is a fascinating book that will be of interest to multiple fields of research across environmental politics. Vaughn’s fieldwork and archival research into water management and climate adaptation in Guyana draw a long and complex history of a low-lying coastal settlement. Nothing about this history is simple, but she manages it all deftly, telling a story that historicizes the disastrous flooding of 2005; the colonial water management first of the Dutch, then of the British; and the changing demographics of a state whose independence has not ended either racial strife or settlement, with only 10.5 percent of the officially recorded population identifying as Indigenous Amerindian. Vaughn draws widely on theory, using a critical ethnographic approach to give detail and specificity to a story of climate vulnerability. This approach allows her to expand notions of climate adaptation, vulnerability, and the relationship of race to both. Engineering Vulnerability will therefore be of interest to environmental researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds, all of whom will take something from this intriguing book. The Guyana context is of great interest in and of itself. A member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), Guyana is counted officially as a “small island developing state,” despite not being an island. It is also a multiracial settler society, with its own politics of race that, Vaughn is careful to explain, does not center around Whiteness. Vaughn discusses racial politics in the book, but it is not for the most part a book about coloniality or racial capitalism. Instead, Vaughn asks us to consider racial politics in global contexts of post-emancipation, where settlers are nonWhite. The majority of the population are Indoor Afro-Guyanese, brought to Guyana as enslaved or indentured laborers, now trying to make lives on water logged terrain made habitable only through colonial intervention, the forced labor of their ancestors, and the knowledge of Indigenous people. Vaughn’s understanding of vulnerability is hinted at in the book’s title but is more closely reflected in the title of the book’s introduction: “Where Would I Go? There Was No Place with No Water.”What Vaughn draws out so well is that climate adaptation has a politics of where: where is home, where is a valid settlement, where will adaptation be done, where will be deemed worthy of","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"203-204"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64551456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stefan C. Aykut, Felix Schenuit, Jan Klenke, Emilie D’amico
Abstract Global climate governance is in transition. As the focus shifts from negotiations to implementation, the quest for ways to effectively coordinate ambitious climate action has become a key concern. While existing studies frame this problem mostly in terms of institutional design (to “facilitate” state ambition) and strategic delegation of authority (to “orchestrate” nonstate action), this article builds on dramaturgical policy analysis to examine soft coordination in practice. Using ethnographic methods, we analyze public performances at the twenty-fifth Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Madrid. We find that these were shaped by preestablished governance scripts and social roles available to participants, but also by creative improvisations and interventions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and COP Presidency intervened to configure the physical setting of the conference, mold its narrative arch, and shape available roles. We conclude that performances and dramaturgical interventions are important tools of soft coordination in global climate governance. Their analysis constitutes a productive entry point for grasping contemporary transformations in global politics.
{"title":"It’s a Performance, Not an Orchestra! Rethinking Soft Coordination in Global Climate Governance","authors":"Stefan C. Aykut, Felix Schenuit, Jan Klenke, Emilie D’amico","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00675","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Global climate governance is in transition. As the focus shifts from negotiations to implementation, the quest for ways to effectively coordinate ambitious climate action has become a key concern. While existing studies frame this problem mostly in terms of institutional design (to “facilitate” state ambition) and strategic delegation of authority (to “orchestrate” nonstate action), this article builds on dramaturgical policy analysis to examine soft coordination in practice. Using ethnographic methods, we analyze public performances at the twenty-fifth Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Madrid. We find that these were shaped by preestablished governance scripts and social roles available to participants, but also by creative improvisations and interventions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and COP Presidency intervened to configure the physical setting of the conference, mold its narrative arch, and shape available roles. We conclude that performances and dramaturgical interventions are important tools of soft coordination in global climate governance. Their analysis constitutes a productive entry point for grasping contemporary transformations in global politics.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"56 3","pages":"173-196"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41288144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate change poses financial risks to individual firms and is a source of systemic risk to the stability of financial systems. Central banks are emerging as key state actors in environmental governance to tackle these risks, implementing policies encompassing regulatory oversight, credit guidance, and the greening of prudential regulations. The diffusion of these policies across countries is at various stages of deliberation and implementation. In this context, this article uses a newly constructed index measuring the intensity of green financial and regulatory policies imposed by central banks of various developed and developing countries from 1996 through 2018. We empirically assess whether central banks in countries that are more vulnerable to climate change are more likely to be implementers of these policies and find robust evidence in support of our hypothesis.
{"title":"Green Financial and Regulatory Policies: Why Are Some Central Banks Moving Faster than Others?","authors":"Bhavya Gupta, Ruijie Cheng, R. Rajan","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00716","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Climate change poses financial risks to individual firms and is a source of systemic risk to the stability of financial systems. Central banks are emerging as key state actors in environmental governance to tackle these risks, implementing policies encompassing regulatory oversight, credit guidance, and the greening of prudential regulations. The diffusion of these policies across countries is at various stages of deliberation and implementation. In this context, this article uses a newly constructed index measuring the intensity of green financial and regulatory policies imposed by central banks of various developed and developing countries from 1996 through 2018. We empirically assess whether central banks in countries that are more vulnerable to climate change are more likely to be implementers of these policies and find robust evidence in support of our hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47807501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract State-to-state accountability has greatly failed to improve compliance with multilateral environmental agreements. As this is also the case in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), this article explores how and with what effect nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) persuade states to fulfill their commitments to conserve biodiversity. The article conceptualizes accountability as learning-enabling dialogue with the potential to influence state behavior through the provision of constructive criticism. The underlying argument is that NGOs can contribute to overcoming implementation challenges by engaging in constructive dialogue with states. The triangulation of interviews with NGOs, CBD documents, and gray literature suggests that NGOs can challenge or even prevent states’ inertia by establishing critical but cooperative multilevel partnerships with states to advance implementation. Reconceptualizing accountability as constructive dialogue may contribute to realizing the transformative potential of accountability. However, more evidence is needed to understand the roles of NGOs in fostering learning and the impact of learning on improving implementation, compliance, and environmental outcomes.
{"title":"Accountability as Constructive Dialogue: Can NGOs Persuade States to Conserve Biodiversity?","authors":"A. M. Ulloa","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00673","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract State-to-state accountability has greatly failed to improve compliance with multilateral environmental agreements. As this is also the case in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), this article explores how and with what effect nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) persuade states to fulfill their commitments to conserve biodiversity. The article conceptualizes accountability as learning-enabling dialogue with the potential to influence state behavior through the provision of constructive criticism. The underlying argument is that NGOs can contribute to overcoming implementation challenges by engaging in constructive dialogue with states. The triangulation of interviews with NGOs, CBD documents, and gray literature suggests that NGOs can challenge or even prevent states’ inertia by establishing critical but cooperative multilevel partnerships with states to advance implementation. Reconceptualizing accountability as constructive dialogue may contribute to realizing the transformative potential of accountability. However, more evidence is needed to understand the roles of NGOs in fostering learning and the impact of learning on improving implementation, compliance, and environmental outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"23 1","pages":"42-67"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47166675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract To achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal, fossil fuel production needs to undergo a managed decline. While some frontrunner countries have already begun to adopt policies and measures restricting fossil fuel supply, an outstanding question is how international cooperation in support of a managed decline of fossil fuel production could take shape. This article explores two possible pathways—one following a club model and the other more akin to a multilateral environmental agreement. Specifically, the article discusses the participants in an international agreement; the forum through which cooperation will take place; the modalities, principles, and procedures underpinning the agreement; and the incentives to induce cooperation. The article concludes that the most likely scenario at this juncture is the emergence of club arrangements covering particular fossil fuel sources and groups of actors that, over time, give rise to growing calls for a more coordinated and multilateral response.
{"title":"Pathways to an International Agreement to Leave Fossil Fuels in the Ground","authors":"H. van Asselt, P. Newell","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00674","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract To achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal, fossil fuel production needs to undergo a managed decline. While some frontrunner countries have already begun to adopt policies and measures restricting fossil fuel supply, an outstanding question is how international cooperation in support of a managed decline of fossil fuel production could take shape. This article explores two possible pathways—one following a club model and the other more akin to a multilateral environmental agreement. Specifically, the article discusses the participants in an international agreement; the forum through which cooperation will take place; the modalities, principles, and procedures underpinning the agreement; and the incentives to induce cooperation. The article concludes that the most likely scenario at this juncture is the emergence of club arrangements covering particular fossil fuel sources and groups of actors that, over time, give rise to growing calls for a more coordinated and multilateral response.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"28-47"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46730732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charles Weiss has written a timely and compelling interdisciplinary book on science, technology, and world politics. He deftly blends insights from science and social science to a number of complex contemporary issues, ranging from the environment to nuclear disarmament to the economy. He concludes with some governance heuristics. The book is appropriate for undergraduate courses in global governance, science technology and society (STS), environmental politics, and world politics, as well as for a popular audience. Weiss provides a matrix (or “nexus”) for understanding these issues and their governance: “the interweaving of science and technology with politics, economics, law, business, psychology, culture and ethics” (14), or, in summary, “science proposes, and politics disposes” (45), where politics encompasses geopolitics, domestic politics, market considerations, and policy tractability. Human survival, according to Weiss, rests on harnessing science and technology (S&T) to deal with current issues. S&T is the co-productive driving force—science enables innovative technology with the potential for human betterment. Whether this potential is realized depends on good governance. S&T is subject to, and interactive with, the broader political nexus. Technology: you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. Technological innovations and their governance have helped avoid nuclear Armageddon, promoted historically unprecedented economic growth and poverty reduction, and provided selective success at environmental protection and public health. Challenges remain: climate disruption, nuclear war, pandemics, and job losses from technology that has helped with economic growth and environmental protection, COVID-19, cyberwarfare, and the control of autonomous weapons and hypersonic missiles that can lead to unintended nuclear war. Yet technology offers the promise of developing renewable energy sources to mitigate climate change and agricultural innovation to combat famine. Weiss warns that “we are needlessly allowing technology to take the world to the brink of disasters from accidental climate disruption, nuclear war, and pandemics—while we are allowing the means for controlling these technologies to erode. In effect, we are edging closer and closer to cliffs from which we have removed the guardrails” (251). He also recognizes the growing threat to governance from nationalism and antiliberal social movements.
{"title":"The Survival Nexus by Charles Weiss","authors":"P. Haas","doi":"10.1162/glep_r_00670","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_r_00670","url":null,"abstract":"Charles Weiss has written a timely and compelling interdisciplinary book on science, technology, and world politics. He deftly blends insights from science and social science to a number of complex contemporary issues, ranging from the environment to nuclear disarmament to the economy. He concludes with some governance heuristics. The book is appropriate for undergraduate courses in global governance, science technology and society (STS), environmental politics, and world politics, as well as for a popular audience. Weiss provides a matrix (or “nexus”) for understanding these issues and their governance: “the interweaving of science and technology with politics, economics, law, business, psychology, culture and ethics” (14), or, in summary, “science proposes, and politics disposes” (45), where politics encompasses geopolitics, domestic politics, market considerations, and policy tractability. Human survival, according to Weiss, rests on harnessing science and technology (S&T) to deal with current issues. S&T is the co-productive driving force—science enables innovative technology with the potential for human betterment. Whether this potential is realized depends on good governance. S&T is subject to, and interactive with, the broader political nexus. Technology: you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. Technological innovations and their governance have helped avoid nuclear Armageddon, promoted historically unprecedented economic growth and poverty reduction, and provided selective success at environmental protection and public health. Challenges remain: climate disruption, nuclear war, pandemics, and job losses from technology that has helped with economic growth and environmental protection, COVID-19, cyberwarfare, and the control of autonomous weapons and hypersonic missiles that can lead to unintended nuclear war. Yet technology offers the promise of developing renewable energy sources to mitigate climate change and agricultural innovation to combat famine. Weiss warns that “we are needlessly allowing technology to take the world to the brink of disasters from accidental climate disruption, nuclear war, and pandemics—while we are allowing the means for controlling these technologies to erode. In effect, we are edging closer and closer to cliffs from which we have removed the guardrails” (251). He also recognizes the growing threat to governance from nationalism and antiliberal social movements.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"194-196"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45278682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Maria Ivanova offers the first “biography of UNEP” (6). The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution traces the organization’s inception back to the preparations for the 1972 Stockholm Conference and guides the reader through mandate evolutions and reform projects, including the reform process concluded at Rio+20 in 2012, which granted UNEP universal membership through the newly established UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Ivanova assesses UNEP’s successes, such as the reversal of the depletion of the ozone layer, which she describes as its “greatest achievement” (93), and its failures, including its director’s disengagement from the lead-up process to the 1992 Rio Earth summit. The author begins by challenging the institutional deficiency theory, which argues that UNEP was deliberately designed as a weak institution. She offers alternative lenses to study UNEP’s performance and its limits as an anchor institution: capacity, connectivity, and credibility. Through the different chapters, she shows how politics, geography, and individuals shape these three dimensions, eventually affecting UNEP’s authority: UNEP is “in authority in the environmental field” but not “an authority” (201, emphasis original). Its institutional design, mandate transformations, location, and leadership jointly contributed to the uneven outputs of an organization “created to be a catalyst in the environmental field” (92) with “a big vision and modest resources” (91) but whose “identity and place within the UN system ... remain in flux” (139). Throughout the book, Ivanova shows a permanent tension between the political role induced by the coordination mission attributed to UNEP and the functionalist project, with UNEP being “pushed out of the political debate and forced to be more of a technical organization” (150). The political argument put forward by developing countries, and Kenya especially, to locate UNEP’s headquarters in Nairobi faced the functional mandate and efficiency logic defended by developed countries. The political ambitions of some executive directors were curbed by guardians of the status quo. Yet power dynamics are not systematically addressed in the book. Intergovernmental negotiations and funding politics are acutely discussed, but states’ authority over the organization’s path is not fully analyzed. This omission leaves some questions
{"title":"The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty by Maria Ivanova","authors":"Lucile Maertens","doi":"10.1162/glep_r_00669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_r_00669","url":null,"abstract":"On the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Maria Ivanova offers the first “biography of UNEP” (6). The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution traces the organization’s inception back to the preparations for the 1972 Stockholm Conference and guides the reader through mandate evolutions and reform projects, including the reform process concluded at Rio+20 in 2012, which granted UNEP universal membership through the newly established UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Ivanova assesses UNEP’s successes, such as the reversal of the depletion of the ozone layer, which she describes as its “greatest achievement” (93), and its failures, including its director’s disengagement from the lead-up process to the 1992 Rio Earth summit. The author begins by challenging the institutional deficiency theory, which argues that UNEP was deliberately designed as a weak institution. She offers alternative lenses to study UNEP’s performance and its limits as an anchor institution: capacity, connectivity, and credibility. Through the different chapters, she shows how politics, geography, and individuals shape these three dimensions, eventually affecting UNEP’s authority: UNEP is “in authority in the environmental field” but not “an authority” (201, emphasis original). Its institutional design, mandate transformations, location, and leadership jointly contributed to the uneven outputs of an organization “created to be a catalyst in the environmental field” (92) with “a big vision and modest resources” (91) but whose “identity and place within the UN system ... remain in flux” (139). Throughout the book, Ivanova shows a permanent tension between the political role induced by the coordination mission attributed to UNEP and the functionalist project, with UNEP being “pushed out of the political debate and forced to be more of a technical organization” (150). The political argument put forward by developing countries, and Kenya especially, to locate UNEP’s headquarters in Nairobi faced the functional mandate and efficiency logic defended by developed countries. The political ambitions of some executive directors were curbed by guardians of the status quo. Yet power dynamics are not systematically addressed in the book. Intergovernmental negotiations and funding politics are acutely discussed, but states’ authority over the organization’s path is not fully analyzed. This omission leaves some questions","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"200-202"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47212214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Private Governance and Public Authority by Stefan Renckens is a detailed account of European Union (EU) regulation of private sustainability standards in different sectors. It is a valuable book that gives insight into the interplay between public and private regulation. Private sustainability standards are governance initiatives by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or businesses, setting voluntary standards for sustainable conduct by firms. Often external auditors will assess compliance with the standard, after which producers can put the standard’s label on the product. These standards are sometimes unregulated, and at other times, governments set procedural or substantive requirements for standards in particular sectors. The variation in government intervention is what this book aims to explain. The case studies in the book address organic agriculture, biofuels, fair trade, and fisheries. Private sustainability standards can be completely unregulated. An actor can simply set a standard, certify producers that live up to this standard, and label the products as sustainable. It is up to the consumer to determine whether to trust this standard. Though standards could be a useful tool to reduce information asymmetries and therefore make a market in sustainable products possible, this usefulness can be undermined by a lack of substance of and trust in these standards. In addition, a proliferation of standards leads to confusion on the side of consumers and limits market access for producers, who might have to comply with many different standards. This all limits the potential positive benefits private standards can have. These problems could be solved by government intervention. Governments could verify the credibility of these standards or regulate private standards to facilitate market access. Renckens addresses the interesting and relevant question of when governments get involved. The book presents two hypotheses: that governments intervene when it is in the interest of domestic producers and intervene when the private governance market is too fragmented. Renckens distinguishes two types of government intervention. The first is the creation of substantive rules, for example, with respect to the production process or requiring that a standard be communicated via a product label. The second type of intervention is procedural rules. These are rules on the
Stefan Renckens的《私人治理与公共权力》详细介绍了欧盟（EU）对不同部门的私人可持续性标准的监管。这是一本有价值的书，深入了解了公共和私人监管之间的相互作用。私人可持续发展标准是非政府组织或企业的治理举措，为企业的可持续行为设定自愿标准。通常，外部审计师会评估是否符合标准，之后生产商可以在产品上贴上标准的标签。这些标准有时是不受监管的，而在其他时候，政府为特定部门的标准制定程序或实质性要求。这本书旨在解释政府干预的变化。书中的案例研究涉及有机农业、生物燃料、公平贸易和渔业。私人可持续发展标准可能完全不受监管。演员可以简单地设定一个标准，证明生产商达到了这个标准，并将产品贴上可持续发展的标签。由消费者决定是否信任该标准。尽管标准可以成为减少信息不对称的有用工具，从而使可持续产品市场成为可能，但由于缺乏这些标准的实质内容和对这些标准的信任，这种有用性可能会受到损害。此外，标准的泛滥导致消费者的困惑，并限制了生产者的市场准入，他们可能不得不遵守许多不同的标准。这一切都限制了私人标准可能带来的潜在积极好处。这些问题可以通过政府干预来解决。各国政府可以核实这些标准的可信度，或者规范私人标准，以便利市场准入。Renckens提出了一个有趣且相关的问题，即政府何时介入。这本书提出了两个假设：政府在符合国内生产商利益时进行干预，而在私人治理市场过于分散时进行干预。Renckens区分了两种类型的政府干预。首先是制定实质性规则，例如，关于生产过程或要求通过产品标签传达标准。第二类干预是程序规则。这些是关于
{"title":"Private Governance and Public Authority: Regulating Sustainability in a Global Economy by Stefan Renckens","authors":"E. Holtmaat","doi":"10.1162/glep_r_00671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_r_00671","url":null,"abstract":"Private Governance and Public Authority by Stefan Renckens is a detailed account of European Union (EU) regulation of private sustainability standards in different sectors. It is a valuable book that gives insight into the interplay between public and private regulation. Private sustainability standards are governance initiatives by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or businesses, setting voluntary standards for sustainable conduct by firms. Often external auditors will assess compliance with the standard, after which producers can put the standard’s label on the product. These standards are sometimes unregulated, and at other times, governments set procedural or substantive requirements for standards in particular sectors. The variation in government intervention is what this book aims to explain. The case studies in the book address organic agriculture, biofuels, fair trade, and fisheries. Private sustainability standards can be completely unregulated. An actor can simply set a standard, certify producers that live up to this standard, and label the products as sustainable. It is up to the consumer to determine whether to trust this standard. Though standards could be a useful tool to reduce information asymmetries and therefore make a market in sustainable products possible, this usefulness can be undermined by a lack of substance of and trust in these standards. In addition, a proliferation of standards leads to confusion on the side of consumers and limits market access for producers, who might have to comply with many different standards. This all limits the potential positive benefits private standards can have. These problems could be solved by government intervention. Governments could verify the credibility of these standards or regulate private standards to facilitate market access. Renckens addresses the interesting and relevant question of when governments get involved. The book presents two hypotheses: that governments intervene when it is in the interest of domestic producers and intervene when the private governance market is too fragmented. Renckens distinguishes two types of government intervention. The first is the creation of substantive rules, for example, with respect to the production process or requiring that a standard be communicated via a product label. The second type of intervention is procedural rules. These are rules on the","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"197-199"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42498641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement is often depicted as a turning point for global climate governance. Following years of diplomatic gridlock, it laid the foundations for a new global climate regime that invites states to partner with nonstate actors in the transition to the low-carbon society. This article critically examines the political rationalities that inform the pluralization of climate politics after Paris and the turn toward cooperative modes of governing. Drawing on an analysis of initiatives led by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that were launched to engage nonstate actors in the evolving Paris regime, we identify a global governmentality that mobilizes nonstate actors as active and responsible partners in the quest for rapid and deep decarbonization. In its search for cooperative and efficient forms of problem management, we argue, this form of rule nurtures a global space free from friction and opposition where businesses, investors, and industry are elevated as the real partners of government.
{"title":"Accelerating Climate Action: The Politics of Nonstate Actor Engagement in the Paris Regime","authors":"Maria Jernnäs, Eva Lövbrand","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00660","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement is often depicted as a turning point for global climate governance. Following years of diplomatic gridlock, it laid the foundations for a new global climate regime that invites states to partner with nonstate actors in the transition to the low-carbon society. This article critically examines the political rationalities that inform the pluralization of climate politics after Paris and the turn toward cooperative modes of governing. Drawing on an analysis of initiatives led by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that were launched to engage nonstate actors in the evolving Paris regime, we identify a global governmentality that mobilizes nonstate actors as active and responsible partners in the quest for rapid and deep decarbonization. In its search for cooperative and efficient forms of problem management, we argue, this form of rule nurtures a global space free from friction and opposition where businesses, investors, and industry are elevated as the real partners of government.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"38-58"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47882811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the focus of the United Nations climate regime has shifted from forging consensus among national governments toward animating implementation activity across multiple levels. Based on a case study of the Global Climate Action Portal—an online database designed to document nonstate actor climate commitments and implementation efforts—we trace, conceptualize, and assess how the roles of data, data infrastructures, and actor constellations have changed as a result of this shift. We argue that in the pre-COP21 negotiation phase, the United Nations Climate Secretariat strategically used the database to orchestrate and leverage nonstate actor commitments to exert pressure on intergovernmental negotiations. By contrast, in the post-COP21 implementation phase, the Secretariat, in collaboration with climate data specialists, is seeking to develop the portal to track and animate implementation activity. Given these developments, we discuss the potential and limitations of data-driven climate governance and set out avenues for future research.
{"title":"Orchestrating Global Climate Governance Through Data: The UNFCCC Secretariat and the Global Climate Action Platform","authors":"Laura Mai, J. Elsässer","doi":"10.1162/glep_a_00667","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00667","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the focus of the United Nations climate regime has shifted from forging consensus among national governments toward animating implementation activity across multiple levels. Based on a case study of the Global Climate Action Portal—an online database designed to document nonstate actor climate commitments and implementation efforts—we trace, conceptualize, and assess how the roles of data, data infrastructures, and actor constellations have changed as a result of this shift. We argue that in the pre-COP21 negotiation phase, the United Nations Climate Secretariat strategically used the database to orchestrate and leverage nonstate actor commitments to exert pressure on intergovernmental negotiations. By contrast, in the post-COP21 implementation phase, the Secretariat, in collaboration with climate data specialists, is seeking to develop the portal to track and animate implementation activity. Given these developments, we discuss the potential and limitations of data-driven climate governance and set out avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":47774,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Politics","volume":"22 1","pages":"151-172"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43229826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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