Research On The Structure And Process Of Global Environmental Governance

This study sets various international arrangements and transnational arrangementsto global environmental issues as research subjects, studies the problem of “Why theexisting arrangements of global environmental governance are not able to manage theglobal environmental issues effectively?” This thesis will study the defects of the ar-rangements of global environmental governance from the view of the structure and theprocesses of global environmental governance, based on the existing researches.Conforming to approaches—raising questions, literature review, making hypothesisand hypothesis verification—this thesis is divided into five chapters in addition to in-troduction and conclusion.An overall explanation about the thesis is made in the introduction part, includingtheoretically verifying the rationality and the authenticity of the researching issue, ex-pounding the scope and the significance of the study, reviewing existing solutions tothe researching issue, introducing the fundamental viewpoints and approaches adoptedto conduct the research, and pointing out the innovations and limitations of the re-search.There are five perspectives of existing research to this research problem: theperspective of anarchy and inequality of international politics; the perspective of di-vergence among nations; the perspective of contradictions among global, regional andnational interests; the perspective of the theory of global governance. These researches have profiled the reasons of the inefficiency of existing arrangements in global envi-ronmental governance. Based on these researches, this thesis uses the theory of globalgovernance as basic origin of thoughts, focus on analyzing the defects in the structureand the processes of existing arrangements of global environmental governance. Andthen, research on the problem of “Why the existing arrangements of global environ-mental governance are not able to manage the global environmental issues effective-ly?”In Chapter One, current arrangements to deal with global environmental problemshas been analyzed and reviewed. At the beginning, this chapter has explained the con-tents and characteristics of global environmental problems and analyzed the constitu-ency and features of global environmental governance, then grounding on which, fourmajor global environmental problems—climate change and atmospheric pollution,ecological deterioration, marine environment, cross-borders transfer of harmful sub-stance—and their governances, has been discussed. As following, the formulation, de-velopment and difficulties facing ahead of international environmental treaties areanalyzed. Then at the closing part of this chapter, functions and limitations of impor-tant governing arrangements, such as international organizations, non-governmentalorganizations, cross-border social movements, has been reviewed.The second chapter has explained the rationale of the structure and process ofglobal governance, conceptualized so key ideas, established and verified the analyticalframework for the thesis, which has lied down the theoretical foundation for the analy-sis of global environmental governance.Focusing on its impacts on the efficiency of environmental governance, the thirdchapter has analyzed the structure of international global governance. And then somestructural defects existing in international global governance has been revealed. Thischapter has first analyzed the ideal global environmental governance model andpointed out the significance of two structural elements, reasonable authority distribu- tion and impeccable national cross-border transfer, to the efficient global environmen-tal governance. Then, the structural defects existing in global environmental gover-nance reality has been studied respectively. The confirming procedure of durable or-ganic contaminant in “Stockholm Convention”, the controlling arrangements on ozonedepleting substances under the framework of “Vienna Convention” and its “Montréalprotocol”, and the acid precipitation governance in East Asia, have been selected tostudy the influence of misbalanced authority distribution. Cases like insufficientcross-border legal cooperation under the framework of “City Plan on EnvironmentalProtection” and “Basel Convention” has been chosen to demonstrate negative impactsof insufficient national cross-border transfer on global environment governance.In this thesis, the structure of global environmental governance includes two as-pects of elements: the first is the authoritative allocation among governance body invarious global environmental governances; the second is the characteristic changes ofthe governance body in various global governmental governances. The first element ofthe structure of the governance: the authoritative allocation among governance body invarious global environmental governances. Generally, main governance body whichcan undertake particular function in global or regional environmental governance, andshare the authority of environmental governance are nations, sub-national government,super-national institutions and international organizations; and internationalnon-governmental organizations and its transnational networks, transnational corpora-tions, scientific organizations and its transnational networks. Global environmentalgovernance function includes nine aspects, which are: agenda setting, frameworkbuilding, environmental monitoring, performance verification, regulation establishing,norms establishing, enforcement, capacity building and fund supply. With research andargumentation, this thesis expounds that, in particular arrangements of global envi-ronmental governance, the first element leading to the inefficiency in global environ-mental arrangements is the defects of authoritative allocation governance body in var- ious functional areas.The second element of the structure of global environmental governance is thecharacteristic changes of the governance body itself. This research believes that, thehost variable is the Transnational Transformation during the process of national partic-ipation in global environmental governance. Transnational Transformation refers to theprocess that central government as the only significant representative represents nationto participate in international affairs turning into each department of central govern-ment, sub-national government, even legislation, judicial department all participate inissues of global or regional environmental governance, and form a transnational coop-eration among departments, sub-national governments, legislation and judicial depart-ments. Transnational Transformation of nation is of great significance to issues ofglobal environmental governance. Objectively speaking, without participation ofsub-national government, regional environmental governance would be extremely dif-ficult. While the cooperation to regional and global environmental issues among de-partments of central government and legislation, judicial departments of each countryneed to be strengthened. This thesis argues that the second element which leads to theinefficiency of the global environmental arrangements is the general deficiency oftransnational transformation in arrangements of global environmental governance.In Chapter Four the process of global environmental governance, that is, how en-vironmental governance is conducted, has been paid special attentions, so as to showthe defects and limitations in the process of existing international environmental go-vernance. First, in order to analyze the ideal global environmental governance model,this chapter has explained “Tri-cycle Processing Model” at the beginning. Then, theinteractive defects, between science cycle and politics cycle, politics cycle and marketcycle, market cycle and science cycle, and their impacts in global environmental go-vernance reality have been analyzed respectively. In the analysis,“Summary for Poli-cymakers” in IPCC report, the determination of controlling long-term temperature rise at2℃, and many cases in the process of compiling “Global Biodiversity Assessment”have been selected to demonstrate the point that it is the defects in the process of glob-al environmental governance that lead to the insufficient governance.“The Process of Governance” on the arrangements could affect global environ-mental governance arrangements remarkably.“The Process of Governance” can be ab-stractly understood as “How the governance is achieved”. Global and regional envi-ronmental governance are all proceed in these three fields which influence each other:scientific research, political policy and market; and nation, international regulation,organization, transnational corporation, nongovernmental organization and its transna-tional networks, scientific institution and its transnational network these six gover-nance bodies of global and regional environmental governance work and perform au-thority of governance distinctively in that three fields. Hence, those six governancebodies form an interaction among science, politics and market. This thesis demon-strates that the third element leading to the inefficiency of arrangements in global en-vironmental governance is the defect of interaction of various governance bodies inglobal environmental governance.Chapter Five has generally concluded the analysis in above chapters, and takingglobal climate governance practices as the object of empirical analysis, comprehen-sively verified the influences of structure and process of global environmental gover-nance on governance efficiency. In the first part of this chapter,“Efficiency Distribu-tion Model of Global Environmental Governance” has been concluded. Then, takingthe determination of emission reductions in “Kyoto Protocol” the determination ofemission reductions under the framework of “Clean Development Mechanism” and“cap-and-trade” Mechanism, the rest of this chapter has made a comprehensive verifi-cation of all the viewpoints proposed in this thesis.The conclusion part has summed up the whole thesis, and analyzed the governanceof global issues in an age of globalization from the perspectives of Global studies and global governance.