International Environmental Governance Can Never be Effective - Term Paper Example

Running head: INTЕRNАTIОNАL ЕNVIRОNMЕNTАL GОVЕRNАNСЕ САN NЕVЕR BЕ ЕFFЕСTIVE Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Environmental sustainability is very crucial for the enjoyment of life for both the current and future generations. Due to this fact, international environmental governance was formulated to help in the achievement of environmental sustainability. International environmental governance is the sum of organisations, policy instruments, rules, procedures, norms and financing mechanisms that regulate and guide the processes of global environmental protection, (Gehring, 2005). Even though it has achieved a lot in terms of new treaties, more funding, more and active nations participation in environmental issues there is still environmental degradation. According to World Economic Forum in 2009 annual risk assessment considered the lack of effective global governance as a risk in its own right This shows international environmental governance can never be effective in achievement of its intended goals and objectives. This essay analyses various factors that makes international environmental governance to be ineffective in its roles. Factors that has made it impossible to be effective include; proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements MEAs and its fragmentation, lack of cooperation and coordination among international organisations, ever emergence of new pollutants, lack of implementation, compliance, enforcement and effectiveness of treaties and agreements, these and other factors have greatly contribute to the failure of these governance to become effective. One challenge that makes international environmental governance not to be effective is proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements MEAs and its fragmentation. The rapid growth of environmental agreements, MEA-related instruments and geographically dispersed institutions has left environmental governance in disarray, (Taiyap, 2009, p. 29). Development of many agreements has lead to the emergence of inconsistencies in policies, rules and norms and this pace of activities cannot be adopted by all countries. The incoherent systems of solving interconnected global environmental threats have made it complex to accomplish the intended purpose. MEA proliferation has lead to five major problems that hinder the success of international or global environmental governance. These are treaty congestion; states’ struggle to meet institutional demands; institutional fragmentation; duplicating and conflicting agendas; and diminishing role of science in international environmental governance. There are over 500 MEAs registered with the UN on various sectors related to environmental conservation and sustenance. The high number of treaties and agreements hinders the functionality of international environmental governance. They create incoherence, messiness and confusion in achievement of sustainability. Institutional and policy fragmentation is a problem to effective functionality of international environmental governance (Hass, 2008). Since most of institutions required to address environmental problems are either geographically dispersed and at the same time their policies are not interrelated. This is a hindrance given the fact that most of the environmental problems have cause and effect chain relationships in terms of climate, water, desertification, forestry, biodiversity among other factors hence requiring interrelated institutions and policies to deal with them. With increase in number of environmental institutions, many countries struggle to meet their demands, (Annabell, 2003). Many institutions come with different demands that required resources to implement. Many institutions also result to duplication and conflicting agendas. These makes it difficult to have a clear direction towards good governance in global environmental hence lack of success. Scientific considerations are also not put into practice in most of these treaties which makes them to achieve very little. Proliferation is a big challenge that has made it impossible for international environmental governance not to be effective. It makes it not to have a clear direction, require too many resources to maintain environmental sustainability while making its leadership ineffective. This makes it impossible to realise environmental sustainability. The second challenge towards achievement of success by international environmental governance is the lack of cooperation and coordination among international organisations. Given the high number of organisations that include United Nations Environmental programme (UNEP), Environmental Management Group (EMG), Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF) among other national and international agencies has made the coordination of their activities very difficult, (Patterberg, 2012). UNEP as the general leader in this sector has failed to offer the required cooperation and coordination leadership and this makes realisation of common goals impossible, (Andresen & Rosendal, 2007). Presence of more agencies, more funds and more treaties without good coordination and cooperation among the members makes international governance not to effectively achieve its goals. To realise achievements in environmental sustainability a way forward has to be created in terms of the governance that can bring all the environmental agencies both governmental and non-governmental together and ensure there is maximum cooperation and coordination on both formulation and implementation of environmental policies. The third factor that makes international environmental governance not to be effective is the lack of implementation, compliance, enforcement and effectiveness of treaties and agreements. Despite formulation of volumes of effective treaties and agreements, the actual implementation has been too low, (Jacobsen, 2003). Many efforts have been channelled in policy negotiations and formulation rather than implementation, in fact there are only few global institutions given the necessary structures to implement treaties and agreements into workable. Poor leadership in implementation is a failure in international environmental governance, (Skodvin & Andresen, 2006). Implementation is a crucial activity in the realization of environmental sustainability and if it is not achieved then international environmental governance fails. Politicization of environmental issues has contributed in making it harder to implement environmental policies. It has made it hard to come into consensus on implementation of norms and treaties. The rise of emerging economies has continued to create environmental problems in terms of high-energy consumption and creation of pollution while making it very hard to implement post-Kyoto climate change agreements. Rivalry between U.S and China on implementation of environmental policies has made it hard to realize success by international environmental governance given that they are the largest economies in the world, (Andersen, 2001). The International environmental governance seems ill equipped to deal with such challenges, this is evident in wide debate on a reform of the UN climate negotiation format. Lack of implementation, compliance and enforcement of relevant environmental factors makes international environmental governance never to be effective. This is because they will remain to be pieces of paper. Much effort needs to be diverted into their implementation in order for forward steps to be realised towards realisation of environmental sustainability. The rise of Global policy challenges in the areas of energy security, natural resource scarcity and food security is a factor contributing to ineffectiveness of international environmental governance (Falkner, 2011). There exist an overlap between these policy challenges and the global environmental agenda and attention towards these challenges puts risk and undermines global environmental policies. For instance, efforts of promotion of the use of bio fuels as an alternative to petroleum in transport not only undermines food security but adds to environmental burden faced by developing countries. Creation of synergies between the policy agendas is of critical importance to further development of international environmental governance. However, since common understanding and ground in the challenging policies agendas cannot be reached international environmental governance cannot be effective. The ever emergence of new technologies comes up with new environmental risks that makes it hard to achieve effective international environmental governance. Efforts put in eradication of traditional forms of environmental hazards as dealt with by international institutions and treaties have born some fruits. New technologies and emergence of new forms of threats to environmental sustainability has made it hard to deal with. They tend to be surrounded by unusually high degree of scientific uncertainty. Their rapid speed of emergence is also a hindrance towards the effective achievement of international environmental governance. The governance is also weak in anticipatory of the changes in the technological field. Conclusion International environmental governance has achieved a lot of progress since the development of United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Nevertheless, international environmental governance can never be effective in its achievement of its goals and objectives. As seen above various factors have made it impossible for it to be ineffective in their operations. Challenges like proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements MEAs and its fragmentation, emergence of new forms of environmental pollutants, lack of cooperation and coordination among international organisations, lack of implementation, compliance, enforcement and effectiveness of treaties and agreement, conflicting global international and national agendas among other challenge. These challenges individually and collectively contribute towards lack of achievement of effectiveness of international environmental governance. For international environmental governance to be effective these challenges and issues need to be totally solved. This is impossible given the gravity of the problems. This will thus make it impossible for international environmental governance to be effective. Reference Adil Najam ,Mihaela Papa & Nadaa Taiyab. Global Environmental Governance. A global Agenda. 2009. Winnipeg, Manitoba: International Institute for Sustainable Development. 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