Negotiating the Environment

Civil Society, Globalisation and the UN

Lauren E Eastwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781135106348
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Real Estate
• Index: Business

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity.

By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people's actual activities as policy is generated and contested.

Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.

1The politics of nature and the nature of politics

There is no question that the climate negotiations are dealing with a very important political reality. However, that reality pales in comparison to the reality presented by physics and chemistry. Frankly, I don’t think that the natural world is going to budge on its negotiating position.

(Bill McKibben field notes, 29 November 2010)

What does it mean to ‘make policy’ through the UN? How do UN environmental negotiations actually work? What is at stake as delegates and credentialed participants make their way to a Conference of Parties (‘COP’ as delegates say) located in a city that likely requires extensive travel for the majority of the attendees? The world of policy-making is a strange and complex one. It is a world that is often simultaneously mundane and fascinating. This is a world that is marked by intensity and focus—as participants gather for intensive and focused discussions of texts, where rest is hard to come by, and constant strategic manoeuvring is expected and anticipated. This is a world where people’s talk is punctuated with acronyms and jargon. In fact, the talk becomes so specialised that when one stops to think about it, one notes that discussions remain largely focused on language associated with particular agenda items. This language is abstracted from actual geographical locations and references to identifiable cases of environmental degradation. The uninformed observer would be lost and confused, wondering what the discussions had to do with climate, biological diversity, or forests, since policy talk brings participants into a specialised realm that seems strikingly disconnected from specific environmental problems.

What are the implications of what gets accomplished in this world for ‘on-the-ground’ realities? Regardless of whether the negotiations involve ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ law, there is no ‘International Court of Environmental Justice’ designed to arbitrate and litigate lack of adherence to any given Declaration, Convention, Agreement, or Accord. Yet negotiations continue, and delegates debate for hours whether the appropriate word in a given paragraph will be ‘can’ or ‘may’, ‘should’ or ‘shall’. This is a world that is well known by few—but those who engage regularly in this arena have sophisticated, in-depth work knowledges of the intricacies of agenda items and alphabet-soup lexicons. Participants work hard to find the exact term that can say enough to gain an agreement among governments but yet not too much to cross other delegations’ ‘red lines’, thus jeopardising the possibility of achieving the oft-elusive Consensus Agreement.

Clearly, international environmental deliberations are inherently messy, as governments’ negotiating positions are based on a range of interests that become entangled in such dynamics as foreign relations, global economic downturns, fossil-fuel-based infrastructures, and historical development inequities, among myriad other intensely complex issues. This book is situated in the centre of this broad and convoluted context, where debates about the environment have profound significance on a political level, as nation-states come to the table with particular agendas and mandates. The implications of these intergovernmental negotiations on the ground—at the local level in specific locations—are less obvious and more difficult to track. Yet it is clear that, regardless of the relative obscurity of these deliberations and the regular intransigence of governments to make environmental commitments that are consistent with environmental science, the majority of the participants are largely unwilling to fully abandon the UN as an intergovernmental realm providing a space for potential social or environmental change.

This book speaks to the complexity of these issues by taking an explicitly ethnographic approach to researching, analysing, and writing about UN environmental policy. Based on data collected within the halls and meeting rooms of UN negotiations that have been held in various locations around the world, the analysis presented here is intended to contribute to broader discussions of global environmental governance, in part by bringing readers into the processes themselves. The ontology of ethnography oriented my data collection as I attended meetings associated with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII).¹ I utilise these data to engage in conversations about such dynamics as civil society participation in global environmental governance, the relevance and role of science in policy processes, and the meaning of multilateral negotiations in a world impacted by the economic trends of neoliberal globalisation. Interspersed in my analysis are what I call ‘ethnographic snippets’, which are largely in the present tense and are thus designed to bring the reader into the actual site of my research. In the spirit of ethnography, I use these rich descriptions of actual experiences to illustrate the settings where the type of work on which I focus in this manuscript gets done.

Throughout my research, I specifically kept an analytic eye on the work of those who have engaged in the process as UN-designated ‘non-governmental’ participants—members of civil society organisations (CSOs) and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations (IPOs) whose engagement with policy negotiations was designed to strategically contribute to the environmental policy-making processes and influence policy outcomes yet who often brought a set of concerns to the table that were different than the concerns of many governments.

To some degree, as I have analysed the data, I have also drawn on prior participant observation research conducted in meetings associated with bodies such as the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the predecessor body to the UNFF, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), as these and other UN-related fora have provided spaces for members of CSOs and IPOs to highlight issues of specific importance to them—issues that also intersect with the policy work of the UNFCCC, CBD, UNFF, and UNPFII.

As I have been attending UN meetings related to environmental and Indigenous Peoples’ policy since 1998, I have a somewhat longitudinal view of the transformations in various dynamics over the past two decades. Gathered from inside the negotiations as I observed UN meetings held in Costa Rica, Denmark, Thailand, Japan, Canada, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Germany, Qatar, Poland, Peru, the United States, and France, the data are used to illustrate how policy-making gets done in a very literal and concrete sense. These data are the basis for insights into how ‘global environmental governance’ actually works in practice. The ethnographic elements of the book are designed to bring readers into the policy processes as I engage in my evaluation and analysis of some of the broader implications of the dynamics surrounding the deliberations.

Ethnography: Into the belly of the beast

Typically, as I have made my way through the hallways of the UN headquarters in New York or Geneva, I’ve thought of myself as being ‘in the belly of the beast’—knowing that all around me work is being done to accomplish the ‘work’ of the UN. The underground meeting rooms and passageways that lead to mail centres, UN document centres, or various other offices, connect the range of activities to each other. As I emerged from a washroom in New York, for example, preparing to head back into negotiations of the UNFF, I encountered a film crew clustered around none other than actor George Clooney, who had come to the UN to advocate for a policy response to the atrocities in South Sudan. I’ve gotten lost in those hallways—both in New York and Geneva—as I have attempted to attend a meeting of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or locate a photocopier to duplicate documents. The badge that lists my credentials has allowed me access to some areas and not others, making the shortest route to a particular destination often impossible. Even after all these years, I still feel most comfortable staking out a seat in the NGO-designated area of a meeting room, settling in with my earpiece for translations and armed with the most current negotiating text so that I can follow the ‘interventions’ (official statements) of participants in the various processes.

‘Ethnographic snippet’: UNFCCC COP16

Now, however, I’m out of the confined space of UN headquarters, yet somehow my ‘site’ is still marked by the mammoth intergovernmental bureaucracy that is the UN. I’m in Cancun, Mexico, attending UNFCCC COP16. It is December, and the palm trees lit up by tiny white lights at night seem contradictory, as I have spent the majority of my life in geographical regions where Christmas decorations are accompanied by snow and coniferous trees rather than sun and tourists. I have arrived at the actual meeting location by bus; the Mexican government has arranged for several transport loops to the major hotels in the area. Cancun, known as a destination for all-inclusive resorts, is now overrun by an odd mix of the usual revellers and those of us who are here not for the beachside margaritas but for the work that lies ahead over the two weeks of climate negotiations. Rather than beachwear and sunblock, our suitcases have carried our typical meeting-appropriate garb, laptops, and business cards. We have been notified by conference organisers that, due to the climate in Mexico, ‘business casual’ attire is acceptable.

Having been dropped off by the designated bus for my hotel’s loop, I have come through security at the UN ‘Cancunmesse’. I know what to expect as I have been doing this for several days now here in Cancun, and, more importantly, this is not my first foray into UN deliberations. After going through security, as I make my way down the newly constructed corrugated-metal hallway brightly lit by fluorescent lights and past a high-tech exhibit scrolling through statistics and graphs related to civil society participation in past COPs, I’m struck by the fact that the UN COPs for climate negotiations seem to create a new infrastructure wherever they are held. Like a mini-Olympics, nation-states express their interest in hosting a climate COP, negotiate with the UNFCCC Secretariat, and, upon approval, the planning of logistics and construction of necessary infrastructure begins.

Clearly, in this case the Mexican government has learned from the debacle that was Copenhagen a year earlier, as far as space is concerned. While the Danes had created the ‘Bella Center’ for the 2009 COP15—an impressive and massive tent-like facility that contained restaurants, meeting rooms, exhibit halls, postal services, cyclists with bins of apples for sale, solar prototypes, delegation offices, and a range of other amenities that have become standard for these particular annual UN meetings—multiple dynamics came together in Copenhagen to create a context where participant interest overwhelmed space capacity. A growing public concern about governmental (and intergovernmental) inaction on climate change, an increased sense of urgency in light of increasingly dire scientific findings, and the key relevance of the agenda items for the 2009 COP meetings combined to create a dynamic where well over 30,000 individuals legitimately registered to attend COP15, yet the organisers argued that the venue could safely hold only approximately 11,000.

Not only did the negotiations themselves fall apart in Copenhagen as a result of a range of factors, some of which will be addressed later in this book, but organisers of COP15 were forced to restrict access to the Bella Center, much to the chagrin of those members of civil society who subsequently gained access only on a rationed basis through ‘secondary badges’, with many left out of the negotiations—relegated to venues around the city where webcasts of the unfolding deliberations provided excluded participants with a space to remain apprised from afar. The political turmoil related to tensions that arose around the negotiations themselves worsened as access was denied to thousands of participants. Regardless of the fact that the majority of these participants would not have had the opportunity to engage directly in the negotiations whether they had been in the conference room or not, people’s perceptions of being ‘inside’ the meeting venue rather than relegated to a satellite location signalled the fact that space and location have meaning for those involved in these negotiations. Watching the negotiations from the back of the room in the actual venue versus observing the negotiations unfolding on a large screen in a separate location seemed somehow categorically different to participants, as their engagement with the negotiations were perceived to be lacking in legitimacy if they couldn’t get ‘inside’ the Bella Center to engage with COP15.

A year later, in Cancun at COP16, it is evident that the Mexican government has taken measures to avoid the space capacity issues that exacerbated frustrations about political process in Copenhagen. In fact, there are two venues for COP16—strategically geographically removed from one another. Official negotiations on agenda-item texts are held at the Moon Palace Hotel, a sprawling complex with lodging and meeting-space options. However, I’m here at the ‘Cancunmesse’, a series of freshly built warehouse-sized buildings—also with meeting rooms and food options—where ‘side event’ presentations and exhibits are scheduled to take place. The Cancunmesse serves as all participants’ point of entry to the negotiations. All delegates and credentialed participants, except for those who represent the highest level of government, must first go through the security process here at Cancunmesse before boarding yet another bus to travel approximately 15 kilometres to the site of the negotiations. No official negotiations take place in the Cancunmesse, yet talk of negotiations is constant. And side events, depending on their content, can be packed with participants.

The side event I’ve arrived to attend is not slated to start for another ten minutes, yet the room is full to overflowing as I approach along the meeting room hallway inside building D. I squeeze through the crowd of people chatting near the door to enter the room and notice a few empty chairs—predictably in the middle of rows of otherwise occupied seats. Some people have elected to stand along the walls rather than become mired in the middle of a row of seated people. I identify a seat that looks available, awkwardly make my way to the centre of the row and settle in. We’re here for a presentation called ‘Science-Based Long-Term Targets: Why They’re Needed, How They Can Be Achieved’ hosted by two civil society-based organisations: 350.org and the Center for Biological Diversity.

In contrast to the highly specialised and often seemingly obscure negotiations of text that takes place at all COPs, the side events tend to put aside the language of diplomacy in favour of presentations of research findings or innovative programmes that may be of interest to participants. Thus, while both side events and negotiations are equally ‘political’ in that they take up issues that are relevant to the negotiations, side events tend to engage with the politicised elements of the deliberations more openly so, as they are not bound by the same rules and expectations of diplomacy as text negotiations are. Here at COP16, presentations by the Rainforest Alliance, the Greenbelt Movement, the Third World Network, the Secretariats of the various UN Conventions, and myriad other organisations fill the time slots of the early afternoon break between official negotiations and into the evenings. These are often bypassed by delegates who are eager to get on the bus heading to the Moon Palace location, yet many participants make a point of attending side events in order to learn more about the broader terrain that circumscribes the actual negotiations.

It is evident, not only by the attendance but also by the feel of the energy in the room, that there is great interest in this particular side event. Much of the allure is related to the fact that Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, is slated to speak. 350.org, an activist CSO that emerged in response to the inaction of governments on climate policy at regional, domestic, and intergovernmental levels, explicitly tied itself to climate science through its name: James Hansen’s now iconic research that indicated that 350 parts per million of carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere represents a climate threshold (Hansen et al., 2008). Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide would lead to conditions unlike those we have seen in human history by precipitating global average temperature rise that would, ultimately, have catastrophic consequences for the biosphere. This side event was explicitly designed to allow participants to discuss growing concerns—supported by the scientific community—regarding a rapidly changing climate in a context where, at the intergovernmental level, progress is impeded by the procedural need for governments with myriad conflicting political interests to come to a consensus.

As the side event started and McKibben began to speak, it was evident that his sentiments were shared by many in the room. ‘Look’, said McKibben in his matter-of-fact yet amiable style. ‘There is no question that the climate negotiations are dealing with a very important political reality. However, that reality pales in comparison to the reality presented by physics and chemistry. Frankly, I don’t think that the natural world is going to budge on its negotiating position.’² This statement was met with smiles and even some laughter, yet the significance and gravity of McKibben’s point was well understood. Sub...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of figures
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The politics of nature and the nature of politics
• 2 Setting the scene: The UN as an ethnographic research site
• 3 The contested terrain of action: Civil society in UN climate negotiations
• 4 Civil society engagement in regulating biotechnology under the UN
• 5 The elephant in the room: The treadmill of production as the root cause of environmental harm
• Index