The State of Global Environmental Governance 2019
-
2019 saw scientists rise as truth-tellers, with international scientific bodies producing a range of reports on climate change, biodiversity and the environment as a whole.
-
Despite thousands of pages of evidence and rising global protests, 2019 saw intergovernmental political processes deadlocked on many environmental issues.
-
The IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin team reflects on the successes, shortcomings and overall trends of international environmental negotiations in 2019.
Key Messages
- In this book, the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin team reflects on the successes, shortcomings and overall trends of international environmental negotiations in 2019.
- The year saw scientists rise as truth-tellers, with international scientific bodies producing a range of reports on climate change, biodiversity and the environment as a whole.
- The report concludes by looking to a busy environmental negotiations’ agenda for 2020 amid waning political will, rising nationalism and faltering support for multilateralism.
In 2019, a range of international scientific reports on climate change, biodiversity and the environment held dire warnings for the future of our planet. Yet, despite thousands of pages of evidence and rising global protests, intergovernmental political processes were deadlocked on many issues. Policy-makers could not mount a response that matched the science.
In The State of Global Environmental Governance 2019, the globetrotting Earth Negotiations Bulletin team reflects on the environmental negotiations they attended, including the precious bright spots, the troubling misses and the linkages between these international processes.
The report ends with a look ahead: 2020 is expected to conclude negotiations and establish new tools to address biodiversity, marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdictions, and a post-2020 strategic approach to international chemicals management. With mounting pressure for action, the authors hold out hope that countries will regain the momentum recently lost.
Additional downloads
You might also be interested in
IPCC focuses attention on fossil fuel phase-down
The phase-down of fossil fuels is firmly in the spotlight, as ministers restart climate talks and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth synthesis report, warning of the effect that continued fossil fuel burning will have on global carbon budgets.
India pushes for equity at crucial climate meeting
The negotiations leading to the latest synthesis report of the IPCC revealed deep differences between wealthy nations and developing countries like India on funding needed to combat the climate crisis and the role of the developed world in precipitating the emergency.
Governments battle over carbon removal and renewables in IPCC report
Governments fought over how their favoured green technologies are described in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientists last week.
Nations fight to be called climate vulnerable in IPCC report
Government negotiators fought bitterly last week over which groups and regions are defined as particularly vulnerable to climate change in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).