Agency in international climate negotiations: the case of indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation

Abstract

Agency, Avoided deforestation, Earth system governance, Indigenous peoples, REDD, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),

Splintering South: Ecologically Unequal Exchange Theory in a Fragmented Global Climate

“…As for resistance to global environmental inequality, numerous studies highlight forms of resistance by peripheral states and civil society actors to the disadvantageous rules in global governance regimes on issues such as forests (Schroeder 2010;Ciplet 2014), biodiversity (Escobar 1998;Shiva 1996), waste (Okereke 2006), and climate change (Pettit 2004;Terry 2009;Roberts and Parks 2009;Ciplet 2014Ciplet , 2015Ciplet et al 2015). However, few studies have explicitly linked these politics of resistance and the forms that they take in particular historical periods to conceptions of ecologically unequal exchange.…”

Governance of global climate change in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of Amazonian municipalities of Brazil

“…In a study about indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation, Schroeder (2010) analyzes to what extent indigenous peoples can be seen as agents in designing REDD mechanisms under the UNFCCC. The author makes the distinction between actors and agents.…”

“…Thus, global governors perform the combination of this set of policymaking activities that produce coordinated action in the absence of world government. While the view of Schroeder (2010) is useful to indicate different degrees of agency. The perspective of Avant et al (2010) gives us a broader range of activities which actors can carry out to "govern," or to exert agency.…”

“…We should be aware of how interactions from global to local occur, and how they can drive the way governance arrangements are built enabling, fostering, constraining or hindering actor's ability of prescribing behavior and participating in decision-making. Amazonian municipalities of Brazil can exert different degrees of agency, depending on their type of involvement in global climate policymaking (Schroeder 2010). Moreover, these municipalities can perform several tasks in climate governance besides rule making, like setting agendas and creating issues, implementation and enforcement, and evaluating, monitoring, and adjudicating outcomes (Avant et al 2010).…”

“…Two concepts will be used to frame the discussion: one is the concept of "governors" (Avant et al 2010): authorities who exercise power across the border for purposes of affecting policy. The other is "agent" (Schroeder 2010, Dellas et al 2011: actors who have the ability to prescribe behavior. Based on these concepts, the article will analyze to what extent it is possible to view these actors as agents in the process of climate governance and how they interact to create issues, set agendas, and establish and implement rules.…”