The Nature and Role of Regional Agreements in International Environmental Politics: Mapping Agreements, Outlining Future Research

Abstract

Global agreements to mitigate climate change, conserve biodiversity or combat desertification typically take center stage in scholarly discussions about international environmental politics. Even though the United Nations Environment Programme reported ten years ago that regional agreements make up two-thirds of all international treaties, regional cooperation has by comparison either received scant attention or been conceptually and empirically lumped together with global treaties. This lack of knowledge about the historical and current scope of regional governance is a serious obstacle to understanding the architecture of global environmental governance and to overcoming current bottlenecks in international environmental cooperation. In response, we report on the outcome of an analysis that complements the most comprehensive database on international environmental agreements (iea.uoregon.edu) with variables for analysis at the regional level. We introduce a multidimensional typology of regional agreements based on contiguous/noncontiguous agreement membership, contiguous/noncontiguous spatial ambit, and whether membership and ambit are adjoining and/or coextensive. We discuss the theoretical and empirical relevance of the different types of agreements and the nature and prevalence of special cases. Given the previous lack of research in this area, our primary purpose is to present a systematic account of regional environmental governance, leaving causal analysis to our own and others' future research. We identify a number of knowledge gaps and analytical directions in the conclusion.

Drivers of fluctuating embodied carbon emissions in international services trade

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Survey of Experts on Climate Change Awareness and Public Participation in China

“…It has become an issue of major global concern and the subject of growing international and regional cooperation. Many agreements at different geographic levels have been concluded (Balsiger, Prys, and Steinhoff 2012). Recently held global summits and conferences, including the United Nations' Rio+20 in June 2012 and the Copenhagen conference in 2009, have demonstrated how many obstacles remain in the way to achieving progress in climate protection.…”

The Role of the 2015 Agreement in Mobilising Climate Finance

“…For example, the European Commission established the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF), Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) and the Global Climate Financing Mechanism (GCFM); these have been managing a number of mitigation projects (For further discussion, see e.g. Butzlaff et al 2013;Balsiger 2012;De Coninck et al 2008). For adaptation, the African Risk Capacity (ARC) is a panAfrican drought risk facility, to which donors and member African countries pay annual premiums.…”