The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), could have brought us closer to a strengthened earth system governance. Closer towards a global, effective architecture for governance of sustainability that can adapt to changing circumstances, that involves civil society, that is accountable and legitimate beyond the nation state and that is fair for everyone.
It could have been. But the negotiated text agreed before the conference is weak. It falls behind expectations of most countries, and is disappointing to practically all civil society organisations. The global intergovernmental negotiation process has failed. Again.
In a recent blog-contribution two renowned scientists affiliated to the Earth System Governance Project, Steinar Andresen (The Fridtjof Nansen Institute), and Arild Underdal (University of Oslo and CICERO) therefore concluded that “we do not need to bringing thousands of participants to a series of mega-conferences to confirm that the range of politically feasible solutions is quite narrow”.
This is certainly true when measuring the Rio+20 Conference against what it is on paper: A meeting of UN member states. But there is more Rio+20 than just a few days of intergovernmental get-together. The Rio+20 Conference is the climax and a catalyser of the multi-year process it is embedded in. This process involves more than diplomats and international bureaucracies. It includes countless actors ranging from business associations, to youth movements, major group representatives, regional organisations, alliances of cities, corporate leaders, and many NGOs.
The Rio+20 Process also has strong involvement from the global scientific community. Scientists provide evidence of the environmental, social, and economic state of society and the planet; advise national delegations and NGOs, analyse the negotiation process as such, and not least bring their research findings as policy recommendations into the process.
Recommendations to Rio+20
Social scientists have made substantial progress in identifying the factors that foster the creation of international environmental treaties and pointed out the significant potential for incremental improvement to get better treaties sooner. They suggest conducting negotiations within existing institutions, splitting problems into smaller packages, or having a stronger reliance on qualified majority voting. Political systems that rely on majority-based decision-making arrive at more far-reaching decisions more quickly.
These recommendations are taken from an assessment of the state of knowledge in the social sciences by a group 32 researchers affiliated to the Earth System Governance Project – a global research alliance. This assessment has been published as policy brief for the Planet under Pressure Conference and as scientific article in Science and in longer version in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
Other recommendations for Rio+20 by the Earth System Governance Project include:
creating multilaterally harmonised systems that allow for discriminating between products on the basis of production processes, hence enabling trade policies that favour more sustainably produced products. Under current global trade law, this is not possible
developing or strengthening regulatory frameworks for emerging technologies in water, food and energy
upgrading the United Nations Environment Programme to a specialised UN agency
improving national governance
strengthening and streamlining public–private governance networks and partnerships
and crucially, strengthen accountability and legitimacy.
The gap between knowledge and action
Despite many studies and recommendations from the scientific community, and various references to the importance of research and technology in the current Rio+20 outcome text, the Rio+20 process has not systematically taken up research findings. It has ignored those on strengthening governance and improving policy processes, and those from natural sciences that provide clear evidence for the need for urgent and transformative change.
This again illustrates what we know all too well: having adequate and appropriate knowledge does not necessarily lead to requisite actions. In the gap between knowledge and action lie crucial issues. It is not only how knowledge is produced and by whom, but equally crucially how knowledge is framed and communicated by whom for what purpose and in what context, and how it is learned and understood by relevant stakeholders.
We must continue rigorous, curiosity-driven interdisciplinary social science research on options for a strengthened institutional framework for sustainable development in the time beyond the failed Rio+20 Conference. But the global change research community also has to strengthen and improve its efforts in communicating its findings to policy makers and other stakeholders in order to close the gap between knowledge and action.
This article is written on personal title and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Earth System Governance Project or Lund University.
Lincoln Fung
Economist
While Rio+20 may have a much wider agenda in terms of sustainable development, the inability of the international community to reach an agreement of actions and policy framework on emissions, arguably the most pressing and important environment issue facing all human beings, suggests the large gathering is unlikely to achieve meaningful outcomes for the environment.
For emission and climate change issues, it is the rich and powerful countries that have been the obstacles to progress, out of their self interests because they have far greater per capita emissions than most other countries.
Until the international community can achieve a fair and workable agreement on emissions control there is no reason and justice for rich countries to press poorer countries to be responsible to the environment in their development and make sacrifices in getting a better world environment.
Gerard Dean
Managing Director
Mr Zondervan
Your opinion that failure of Rio+20 is due to scientists and opinion leader's failure to communicate the science to the stakeholders while widely held, is incorrect.
For around 30 years we have been subjected to a barrage of information about climate change, ocean acidification, rising CO2 levels, melting ice, AGW etc etc etc all of which has prompted little international action besides token efforts such as the upcoming Australian Carbon Tax
The real reason Rio+20 descended…
Read moreJane Rawson
Editor, Energy & Environment at The Conversation
Hi Gerard,
I believe Ruben is asking that Rio pay attention to current social science research on how to run a complex process like Rio+20 so you get an outcome (rather than to science on climate change). It's quite an interesting argument - there are experts in how to manage a process like this, so why not listen to them?
Gerard Dean
Managing Director
Hello Jane
Thanks for pointing out that we should listen to the experts on how to run a process, however I was bought up to question everybody, including experts. I actually agree with many of Mr Zondervan's recommendations including his calls for better national governance, better accountability and better use of existing organisations to progress the sustainablity cause.
However there are 2 reasons that doom his paper to be buried in the clouds.
The first is the utter futility of trying…
Read moreJohn Nicol
logged in via Facebook
For many years, people supporting the ideas being promulgated by the IPCC have mocked, very rudely, anyone who suggested that part of their agenda was to promote world governance of one kind or another. In this article the word "governance" appears no less than eight times in various contexts, including "the Earth System Governance Project", "improving national governance", "strengthening and streamlining public–private governance networks and partnerships". By any criteria, how can one deny that…
Read morePeter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer
John Nicol,
Excellent point. The main agenda behind CAGW is the socilaists/progressives political Left's push for world government.
Let's be honest, these people want communism.
Chris Harper
Engineer
No, it isn't communism, at least not overtly.
Current rhetoric is to leave the means of production in the hands of private individuals, but for the state to regulate all aspects of production, ownership and private activity. In other words, implement the fascist/Fabian models of socialism rather than the Marxist.
Pleasant people huh? All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. Try and explain how Mussolini devised their preferred approach and watch the hysterics.
John Robert Davidson
Retired engineer
One of the problems with conferences like Rio is the underlying impression is that we can't do much unless important somebodies do something. There is also the impression that we have the choice between short term disaster (loss of job) and long term disaster.
Both messages are exaggerations. Individuals and communities really do have the power to reduce emissions and adopt to a changing world. In addition, much of the action required to reduce emissions is either job neutral or job positive.
We need to understand what the barriers to climate action are and do something about these barriers. I suspect a failure to appreciate the effect of emissions is well down the list of important barriers.