GAIA · Governance and Agents in Institutional Architecture on Climate and Energy

Governance and agents in institutional architecture on climate and energy

Recent findings in International Environmental Governance (IEG) have emphasised the emergent equivalent of a division of labour amongst actors involved in environmental governance. Elsewhere in IR attention has focused on the prevalence of transnational public-private partnerships. In the GAIA project, I aim to move beyond a concern with partnerships of non-state actors, and of state and non-state actors, to develop a framework research program that looks at the effects of different configurations of political actors on climate and energy governance. When the project started in summer 2009, I expected a solid result from COP15 to UNFCCC at the end of that year to a formalised institutional architecture on the issue, as many others did. However, unlike expectations, the result of the Copenhagen COP15 was rather disappointing. It came up with neither a comprehensive picture of institutional architecture nor roadmaps towards achieving that. Therefore, most part of the project remains theoretical rather than practical and empirical, but lessons drawn from the project will be useful for improving energy and climate governance in the middle to long term. Governance entails a procedural component of administrative activities diplomats frequently perform when designing institutional arrangements. These are now regarded as administrative activities that are performed in effective international governance, rather than phases of environmental governance, as in practice they overlap and there is no clear linear sequence with which they were performed. These activities include agenda setting, issue framing, rule making, enforcement and assessment. Based on literature survey, I refer to these activities as 'governance components'. I also did survey research on political actors in environmental governance. A distinct set of categories of political actors has emerged over the last 30 years. In addition to traditional nation states, international organisations (IOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), multi-national companies (MNCs), and scientists have all emerged as significant actors in IEG. By focusing on participation of actors I seek to accomplish two analytic tasks. One is to take an analytic stance that stresses agency rather than structure. Secondly the behaviour of particular actors informs the political impulse behind the performance of governance components. Certain configurations, or partnerships, presumably, will provide the political impulse behind better or worse performance of governance components. This led to come up with a set of scenarios of actor combination for long-term governance architecture on climate and energy issues. These are: - Good agenda setting comes from combinations of science, NGOs, media and IOs. - The stronger the influence of pusher states, the higher the chances of effective negotiated settlements. - The stronger 'insider' NGOs lobbying, the higher the chances of effective negotiated settlements - Strong international organisations and epistemic communities are likely to generate effective negotiated settlements. - MNC and NGO partnerships can lead to effective enforcement and compliance. This includes both partnerships on the ground between productive sectors and NGOs, as well as between media and NGOs. - Vigorous capacity building by IOs or developed states can render more effective compliance in developing countries with weak states. - Independent scientific networks can provide impartial data about compliance, and thereby improve effectiveness via voluntary compliance by the verified. Similarly, good reporting and verification mechanisms increase the chances of higher effectiveness. - MNCs that anticipate net discounted benefits will comply and contribute to more effective compliance. - Vigorous capacity building by IOs or developed states is likely to render more effective implementation in developing countries. - States with strong administrative capacity are likely to implement more effectively than weak states. - Implementation of multilateral commitments by states and business will be stronger if they were included in negotiations. However, such involvement may have an effect on shaping the nature of the commitments which they are implementing, by design or through mere outputs. - Shaming and blaming by NGOs, amplified by media (business) may render higher effectiveness. - Scientific reporting can build or reinforce state implementation. - Major contributors (states, MNCs) to the problem need to be a part of the governance arrangements, either directly or indirectly, in order for the arrangements to be resilient. - The involvement of both strong IOs and epistemic communities is likely to form resilient governance. - MNCs and NGOs in an adversarial setting are likely to yield demanding guidelines. - Certificate schemes work best when there is third party verification. On the other hand, the current configuration of actors can be summarised as follows. To analyse the current situation in the light of the above-mentioned theoretical models is important for narrowing the gap between scenarios and the status quo. The result of the study sheds lights on agents and importance of its appropriate configuration in the management of next generation of climate change governance. The result of the research will be presented in international policy-making process leading to COP16 and COP17, as well as the one leading to Rio+20 Conference. In academic side, this will be presented as an academic paper and a chapter of a book.

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