Talk:Environmental governance

Wiki Education assignment: Public Writing

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2022 and 30 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Annikachun (article contribs).

Removed content on outer space

I've removed this content on outer space because I would argue it goes beyond the scope of this article. This article should be about the environment on Earth. We have various space articles that deal with this content already, e.g. space law, space debris. If needed, we could link to one of them under See also.

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Outer Space Environmental Governance

Since space travel and activities began in the 1950s, more nations have engaged in the race to use space more rigorously. More specifically, USA and Russia launched the world's first artificial satellite. The other new nations entering the space race lack the comprehensive space abilities similar to the US and Russia. The need and desire to expand into space creates numerous problems, none more prominent than the concern of space wreckages. Various organizations, including the Committee of Space Research, continue to implement ways to successfully and effectively govern the global sphere. Laws like the Planetary Protection Policy are meant to regulate the use of space, specifically, the issue of space debris. As each launch becomes more and more dangerous, the policy development of various countries is unbalanced, and there is a lack of unified international standards and norms. Space is at risk of permanent damage or "Kessler syndrome" (an on-orbit collision chain reaction caused by major debris events). It increases the risk of paralyzed global space services, including GPS, the global financial system, and daily weather forecasts. Although the Planetary Protection Policy law is not enforceable, it helps protect against the Moon's contamination and other celestial bodies. The space governing organizations implement laws that help regulate space use, thus, lessening space contamination. For instance, the 65% post-mission-disposal still falls well short of the 90% target, which China looks to increase to 95%. However, more countries are implementing additional measures to increase that number. Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is important because it monitors the conditions in space and helps improve Safety-of-Flight (SoF), increasing its comprehensiveness, timeliness, accuracy, and transparency.

Outer space is part of the environment because it is linked to the Earth's environment in numerous modest ways. For instance, the day-to-day changes in the weather system are closely related to outer space conditions. The solar wind repeatedly hits Earth's magnetic field, including its upper atmosphere, resulting in Earth's electrical properties. Furthermore, Earth sits at the center of the 'gale' of particles that emanate from the outer parts of the Sun's atmosphere. Like the solar wind but of much deeper space origin, cosmic rays also strike the Earth penetrating its lower atmosphere, where it is believed to help form low-level clouds. Lastly, outer space is part of the environment because its conditions affect the operations of spaceships, the health of astronauts, and the state and functioning of any other objects and satellites circumnavigating Earth. The international space order is amid an upheaval, adjustment, and reconstruction period. The global space economy will be worth $360 billion by 2018. However, as costs decline, it is expected that the entry barrier to space will continue to decrease. Countries are increasingly focusing their attention on space not only for national security but also for commercial opportunities. As a result, outer space environmental governance is being introduced gradually.

The space governance methods incorporate the issues provided in the Montreal Declaration, which requires the following elements. The inspection of the shifting international fiscal, social, and political environments and space infrastructure dependence; the identification and valuation of all known space threats and dangers; the inspection of all space prospects and the need for maintainable and diplomatic use of outer space, including the study and manipulation of space for the advantage of man; the recognition of safety, technical, and operative alterations requiring resolutions; and the endorsement of relevant space governance treaties, arrangements, guidelines, ethics, and apposite established mechanisms, inventions and procedures pertinent to existing and developing space events. Many countries aspire to be leaders and responsible actors in space and therefore support the international community's ongoing efforts to develop responsible behavior and norms for space operators. Countries such as Brazil, China, France, Japan, and South Africa are all working to establish standards of behavior in space, hoping to protect space assets through better space situational awareness and space traffic management.

Below are examples of policies from three different countries.

• Australia does not have a national space policy but emphasizes COPUOS standards for space debris mitigation while creating official guidelines for international launches. Australia has activated a C-band space surveillance radar system for the purpose of tracking space debris. These data from the southern hemisphere will help increase worldwide awareness of the state of the world's space and sustainable practices.
• France's outer space environmental governance policy is mostly seen in the 2011 Technical Regulations Decree, which focuses on launch and orbital licensing. The Technical Regulations Decree requires that rail systems be designed, manufactured, and implemented in such a way that debris is avoided during regular operation. At launch, the likelihood of disintegration in orbit must be less than one in 1,000. Additionally, it must be capable of safely deorbiting and re-entering the atmosphere once the mission is accomplished. If it cannot deorbit, it must adhere to the ITU's standards for geosynchronous orbits.
• Canada's government has established a regulatory framework aimed at reducing the formation of space debris. Operators must give an evaluation and plan for disposing of projected orbital debris. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has adopted the IADC principles for space debris mitigation and aims to implement them across all CSA activities. Additionally, the Canadian government requires licensees of spacecraft that operate in the radio frequency to submit a space debris mitigation strategy as part of the licensing process. Simultaneously, if the satellite is in a geosynchronous orbit, it must adhere to ITU standards. EMsmile (talk) 11:11, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 11:11, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Removed content about global environmental governance

I've removed this content because it was essay-like and relied too much on one particular book from 1956. I suspect it was added as part of a student assignment:

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Global environmental governance is the answer to calls for new forms of governance because of the increasing complexity of the international agenda. It is perceived to be an effective form of multilateral management and essential to the international community in meeting goals of mitigation and the possible reversal of the impacts on the global environment. However, a precise definition of global environmental governance is still vague and there are many issues surrounding global governance. Elliot argues that “the congested institutional terrain still provides more of an appearance than a reality of comprehensive global governance.” It is a political practice which simultaneously reflects, constitutes and masks global relations of power and powerlessness.” State agendas exploit the use of global environmental governance to enhance their oven agendas or wishes even if this is at the detriment of the vital element behind global environmental governance which is the environment. Elliot states that global environmental governance “is neither normatively neutral nor materially benign.” As explored by Newell, report notes by The Global Environmental Outlook noted that the systems of global environmental governance are becoming increasingly irrelevant or impotent due to patterns of globalisation such as; imbalances in productivity and the distribution of goods and services, unsustainable progression of extremes of wealth and poverty and population and economic growth overtaking environmental gains. Newell states that, despite such acknowledgements, the “managing of global environmental change within International Relations continues to look to international regimes for the answers.” EMsmile (talk) 21:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 21:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Removed content from definitions section

I've removed this content from the "definitions" section as it seemed essay like to me. It's from 2011, possibly added by a student. I don't think it fits here and it's not encyclopedic.

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Neoliberal environmental governance is an approach to the theory of environmental governance framed by a perspective on neoliberalism as an ideology, policy and practice in relation to the biophysical world. There are many definitions and applications of neoliberalism, e.g. in economic, international relations, etc. However, the traditional understanding of neoliberalism is often simplified to the notion of the primacy of market-led economics through the rolling back of the state, deregulation and privatisation. Neoliberalism has evolved particularly over the last 40 years with many scholars leaving their ideological footprint on the neoliberal map. Hayek and Friedman believed in the superiority of the free market over state intervention. As long as the market was allowed to act freely, the supply/demand law would ensure the ‘optimal’ price and reward. In Karl Polanyi's opposing view this would also create a state of tension in which self-regulating free markets disrupt and alter social interactions and “displace other valued means of living and working”. However, in contrast to the notion of an unregulated market economy there has also been a “paradoxical increase in [state] intervention” in the choice of economic, legislative and social policy reforms, which are pursued by the state to preserve the neoliberal order. This contradictory process is described by Peck and Tickell as roll back/roll out neoliberalism in which on one hand the state willingly gives up the control over resources and responsibility for social provision while on the other, it engages in “purposeful construction and consolidation of neoliberalised state forms, modes of governance, and regulatory relations".

There has been a growing interest in the effects of neoliberalism on the politics of the non-human world of environmental governance. Neoliberalism is seen to be more than a homogenous and monolithic ‘thing’ with a clear end point. It is a series of path-dependent, spatially and temporally “connected neoliberalisation” processes which affect and are affected by nature and environment that “cover a remarkable array of places, regions and countries”. Co-opting neoliberal ideas of the importance of private property and the protection of individual (investor) rights, into environmental governance can be seen in the example of recent multilateral trade agreements (see in particular the North American Free Trade Agreement). Such neoliberal structures further reinforce a process of nature enclosure and primitive accumulation or “accumulation by dispossession” that serves to privatise increasing areas of nature. The ownership-transfer of resources traditionally not privately owned to free market mechanisms is believed to deliver greater efficiency and optimal return on investment. Other similar examples of neo-liberal inspired projects include the enclosure of minerals, the fisheries quota system in the North Pacific and the privatisation of water supply and sewage treatment in England and Wales. All three examples share neoliberal characteristics to “deploy markets as the solution to environmental problems” in which scarce natural resources are commercialized and turned into commodities. The approach to frame the ecosystem in the context of a price-able commodity is also present in the work of neoliberal geographers who subject nature to price and supply/demand mechanisms where the earth is considered to be a quantifiable resource (Costanza, for example, estimates the earth ecosystem's service value to be between 16 and 54 trillion dollars per year). EMsmile (talk) 22:02, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 22:02, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

What should the first sentence say?

Not sure what it should be but it certainly needs improving.

These sources don’t say exactly but might help?

https://www.unep.org/regions/west-asia/regional-initiatives/environmental-governance

https://globalpact.informea.org/sites/default/files/documents/International%20Environmental%20Governance.pdf

https://unacademy.com/content/upsc/governance-notes/environmental-governance/

The last one seems the least authoritative but how about adapting that to something like:

“Environmental governance is the laws, policies, and organisations that manage the environment”

or duck the issue with

”Environmental governance is governance of the environment”

or

”Environmental governance is governance of the natural environment"

Chidgk1 (talk) 16:28, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

World Trade Organization (WTO)

I moved this here because obviously the WTO will be irrelevant for at least 4 years - also it is uncited and incomplete. For example I understand carbon tariffs cannot be challenged in the WTO because USA will not appoint the WTO staff. Chidgk1 (talk) 16:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Main article: World Trade Organization

The WTO's mandate does not include a specific principle on the environment. All the problems linked to the environment are treated in such a way as to give priority to trade requirements and the principles of the WTO's own trade system. This produces conflictual situations. Even if the WTO recognizes the existence of MEAs, it denounces the fact that around 20 MEAs are in conflict with the WTO's trade regulations. Furthermore, certain MEAs can allow a country to ban or limit trade in certain products if they do not satisfy established environmental protection requirements. In these circumstances, if one country's ban relating to another country concerns two signatories of the same MEA, the principles of the treaty can be used to resolve the disagreement, whereas if the country affected by the trade ban with another country has not signed the agreement, the WTO demands that the dispute be resolved using the WTO's trade principles, in other words, without taking into account the environmental consequences.

Some criticisms of the WTO mechanisms may be too broad. In a recently dispute over labelling of dolphin safe labels for tuna between the US and Mexico, the ruling was relatively narrow and did not, as some critics claimed,