World Environment Organization

Facing global environmental problems there is the general call for a reform of the institutional global environmental policy or even more for a global environmental organization with increasing frequency. What exactly is this reform-process about, what kind of institution is needed and is there a chance for a World Environment Organization in a foreseeable future?

Introduction

At the latest since the disappointing United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 it became obvious that we are living meanwhile in a world risk society without an answer to environmental challenges- neither in form of an acting global community nor a promising world environment organization. On the other side we are facing more and more environmental challenges. These environmental problems can be distinguished in three kinds (cf. Rechkemmer, 2004, p. 7 & Simonis 561): in regional, local and global environmental problems. Regional phenomena are caused and occur just in a small, limited space for example the emissions in a lake through the local industry. Local problems, e. g. the contamination of a river flowing through different countries, affect more than one country, but do not have an impact on the whole world. The last kind of phenomena are global problems, for example the famous climate change, the global loss of biodiversity, erosion of the earth’s surface, desertification, pollution of the sea etc.. These global problems are characterized by different aspects:

• There is no longer a direct link between the area where they are caused and the places where the effects occur (cf. Alter Text).
• No direct link between small effects and the dimension of the “reaction”- especially tipping-points.
• Almost all global environmental problems affect global public goods.

In which way these global environmental problems are directly caused by globalization is discussed in other texts- but they do have and will have a real impact on globalization and the world risk society. Therefore it is important to face these problems- fast.

To face these problems it can be focussed on a horizontal (e. g. civil society or diffusion of environmental pioneer-activities between national-states) and a vertical dimension (Rechkemmer, 2005, p. 23). However both dimensions do have a real importance, this article focuses on the vertical dimension and the institutional structures for it.

Because of the characteristics of these global environmental challenges there is the need for a global environmental policy or as xy said: “Global problems need global solutions”. But right now there is no political frame-institution - the success and the speed of an excluding conference-policy was shown in Copenhagen. Other needs for a global environmental organization are the increasing globalization of the economy, the complexity of the bio-chemical and physical connection between cause and effect, the potential irreversibility of the results, the number of political actors, the contradictory interests and the differences between the potential to act of different actors as well as the global asymmetry of knowledge (Simonis, p. 562).

The following article will give an overview to main points of the current reform-debate and show the characteristic. Therefore it points out in a first step the situation of institutional global environmental policy right no and the need for a reform more specific. In a second step different attempts for a reform will be shown and the necessary characteristics of such an organization will be pointed out. Finally there will be a conclusion and an outlook to the process in the future.

Current Global Environmental Policy

The current environmental policy is characterized by a high fragmentation: More than 30 years after the first global environmental conference in Stockholm there are different UN-secretaries, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), special organisations e. g. FAO, IFAD, UNESCO, UNDO and the World bank, sectional environmental conventions and a huge number of interstate committees and work teams involved. There were more than 900 multinational agreements. The illustration on the left makes this situation clear. In total there are less organizations pursuing cross-sectional purposes (Rechkemmer, p.5). Only the UNEP calls itself in the Nairobi-Declaration: “The leading global environmental organization […] within the United Nations system and that serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.”

Problems in general

It seems like an uncoordinated, ineffective system of autonomic processes with a number of overlapping, contra-productive single decisions, with unused synergies. For the developing countries this system is unwieldy and because a lack of resources they can concurrate in the conference-marathon. Furthermore as Copenhagen has shown there is the need for consensus-decisions. And even if there are agreements there is still a lack of implementation of the decisions (Informationen zur politischen Bildung, p. 72).

Problems in the UNEP

Facing the UNEP as the main organization for environmental problems of the UN it has no fixed financial basis, there is no universal membership, there are only 800 employees (for example the German Federal Environmental agency has about 1300 employees) in Nairobi and it has no own entity (REchkemmer, 15).

Facing this lack of environmental policy the need for a reform becomes clear. The following text will focus of this reform of global environmental policy- but is has to be seen against the backdrop of the reform of the UN in general and the problems there.

Theoretical Reform-Attempts

There is a global agreement for a reform of the political environmental system- but what this reform should look like there Rechkemmer distinguishes about four attempts (2005, p. 21). What the concert reform-attempts look like will be shown later in this essay.

Upgrade-Approach

The aim of this approach is to strengthen and to consolidate the UNEP. Therefore the financial system should be changed from a trust-fund-principle to a core budget sum. Moreover the staff should be increased and a universal membership of all UN-members should be installed. The cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) should be intensified and through a conversion of the inner organisational structures and management the assertiveness should increase. This model could be colloquial called as “pimp UNEP” represents the position of the UNEP itself and nations for example China and India.

Mainstream-Approach

Since Rio 1992 there is the idea of the integration of social, economical and ecological attempts in sustainability. Furthermore the worldwide power is situated in the economical entities like WTO, worlbank and IWF. Because of these two aspects the interest of this approach is to integrate the environmental policy into these other organisations. It is important to separate environmental issues no longer because it is already a cross-section-task. With a single environmental organization there would be a further separation of environmental issues, moreover it would be not as powerful as other economical organizations are. Therefore it needs a systematic integration of environmental issues into these organizations.

Specialized-Agency-Approach

The aim should be an entity for the environmental issues under the UN- compared to the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore the financial system and the personal situation would be reformed anyway. The decision-making would be democratic, but for example with a norther-souther- balanced decision-process. The fragmentation of all the environmental secretaries would be disbanded and integrated into this one powerful organization. Of course this organization could develop form the UNEP. This idea is the position of more and more counties for example Germany and France. One scientific model of a hierarchical world environmental organisation was developed by the WBGU and was discussed very often.<ref> The model can be found under WBGU-model<ref>

Global-Governance-Approach

The main idea of the global-governance-Approach is that environmental policy is no longer a question what could be answered by (national) policy itself or what is concentrated on one policy field. Rather there must be an integration of other actors for example NGOs and companies. Therefore a WEO must be planned in the way of an integration and participation of these other actors and cooperation with other organizations.

Critics

Of course these four different approaches cannot be separated in the reality perfectly. Rather every idea, reform-process and compromise is a conglomerate of aspects of these approaches. And of course there are lots of critical aspects the realization is influenced by. Some critiqs are the following:

• The missing point are not the structural deficits, it is the political willingness. These problems could not be solved with a new organization.
• The complexity of the current environmental policy is an appropriated answer to the complexity of the problems- a centralization could endanger their solution even more.
• A huge institution needs a huge organizational apparatus; therefore important human resources and financial resources would be needed for this and cannot be used for facing concrete environmental challenges.

Because of these aspects the reform-process of global environmental governance in reality is very hard, last lots of years.

List Of References

• Biermann, F. & Simonis, U. E. (1998). A World Environment and Development Organization. Functions, Opportunities, Issues [www.sef-bonn.org/download/publikationen/policy_paper/pp_09_de.pdf]. Policy Paper 9, Bonn: Development and Peace Foundation.
• Biermann, F. (2004). Global Environmental Governance, Conceptualization and Examples. Global Governance Working Paper No 12 [www.glogov.org/images/doc/WP12.pdf]. Amsterdam, Berlin, Oldenburg, Potsdam: The Global Governance Project.
• Biermann, F. (2007). Reforming Global Environmental Governance: From UNEP Towards A World Environment Organization [www.centerforunreform.org/system/files/GEG_Biermann.pdf]. In: Swart, L. & Perry, E. (Ed.), Global Environmental Governance. Perspectives on the Current Debate (pp. 103-123). New York: Center for UN Reform Education.
• Curtis, F. (2007). Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Globalization: Contradictions of Natural Capital. In Review of Radical Political Economics, 39, 385-390.
• Gane, N. (2001). Chasing the ‘Runaway World’: The Politics of Recent Globalization Theory. In Acta Sociologica, 44, 81-89.
• Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perrat, J. (2008). What is Globalization? In What is Globalization? Introduction. Global Transformations website. Retrieved October from www.polity.co.uk/global/whatisglobalization.asp .
• Meyer-Ohlendorf, N. & Knigge, M. (2007). A United Nations Environment Organization [www.centerforunreform.org/system/files/GEG_Meyer-Ohlendorf_Knigge.pdf]. In Swart, L. & Perry, E. (Ed.), Global Environmental Governance, Perspectives on the Current Debate (pp. 124-141). New York: Center for UN Reform Education.
• Meyer-Ohlendorf, N. (2006). "Would a United Nations Environment Organization Help to Achieve the Millenium Developement Goals?" In RECIEL, Band 15 (pp. 23-29). Oxfort: Blackwell Publishing.
• (Vijge, M. (2009). A World/ United Nations Environment Organisation? An explanation of the non-decisions on the reform of the international environmental governance system.)