Climate governance: frameworks, institutions and actors

19th century marks beginning of a struggle to understand composition, mechanics and behaviour of Earth’s atmosphere

At a basic level, climate governance refers to actions and interventions intentionally taken by a diverse group of people to reduce, prepare for and cope with carbon emissions. Inherently in a collaborative process, the scope of a governance model includes institutional frameworks that provide it legitimacy and the financial vigour to influence change. Governance is about power backed by policy initiatives, regulations and international bindings. It is about making decisions on an administrative model that best delivers in times of crisis and peace. Governance is about obligations and responsibilities to prevent system breakdown. It is about putting up a bold face, taking tough decisions and aiming for a social route to profitability.

The story of climate change from a sideshow to a centerpiece is a story of frameworks, institutions and actors.

Since the recorded history of human life on Earth, natural disasters have been occurring as a matter of routine. In many cities in ancient Rome or Egypt, in the Indian sub-continent, or in Europe, there were long spells of droughts, inundating floods and a winter that would freeze the blood in the veins. The difference between the disasters that happened in older times and what we see today is that the present situation is man-made. The ancient response to climate change was to ration grain or offer prayers and sacrifices to appease the god or goddess of weather. Today a plethora of national, regional and local governments, in collaboration with international bodies such as the IPCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and the World Trade Organization, are attending to the problem in support of trained scientists, engineers, hundreds and thousands of committed activists and concerned citizens and an extensive reservoir of research. Yet, despite the colossal knowledge base, we are as bad as our ancestors in bailing ourselves out from the catastrophe.

The early 19^th century marks the beginning of a struggle to understand the composition, mechanics and behaviour of the Earth’s atmosphere. By 1895, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius had established the relationship between the level of carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperature. Through his findings, he warned that the continuous and excessive use of coal might increase the global temperature in future.

The decade of 1950 was dominated by the discussion of industrial pollution and its effect on the climate. This deliberation resulted in the groundbreaking research by scientist Charles David Keeling, who developed the now-famous “Keeling Curve”, which clearly showed CO2 increase in the atmosphere. After that, nearly every research on global warming proved it a man-made phenomenon.

In 1988, James Hansen, then director of the National Air and Space Administration’s Institute for Space Studies, testified before the US senate that the Earth was warming and that 99% of the warming was not a natural occurrence but an intentional build-up of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere. This testimony followed a barrage of international treaties, conventions and discussions on climate change. Finally, the decade ended in a unanimous agreement that to recalibrate the Earth’s atmosphere, we humans had to change how we interact with nature.

The era of environmental reform started with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. It led to the emergence of a sustainable development concept and the establishment of the United Nations Environment programme. It was a beginning of a relentless pursuit of a calmer, cleaner and friendly life on planet earth

The Stockholm conference did not have many supporters at its inception.

Sweden’s effort to nudge the world leaders immersed in Cold War towards pollutant hazards confronting environment met with serious doubts, misconceptions and misbelieves. The proposal to have a UN conference on the human environment was rejected by the UK and France. Both the countries did not see it as an issue requiring UN involvement. On the contrary, they feared the conference might encourage their former colonies to demand financial support for development. The countries in the South saw it as another predatory action of the so-called developed countries to limit the former’s potential for growth by using the ‘green issue’. Surprisingly, the US, the former USSR, and other member states of the Eastern bloc supported the Swedish initiative, despite their cold war engagements.

By 1968, Sweden had gathered sufficient support to allow the United Nations General Assembly to adopt resolution 2398 (XXIII). The resolution called for a conference on the relationship between environmental, social and economic issues. The conference was to be held in Stockholm in 1972. It was also decided that the General Assembly would formally adopt recommendations given at the conference.

The conference had a three-point agenda:

One, it was concerned with developing an intellectual and conceptual framework to gather literature on the state of the environment and create a new knowledge base on an issue that previously was the domain of science scholars only — the conference aimed at forging a new relationship between the human and their natural habitat.

Two, it was about the future. It was about planning, identifying actions and creating a paradigm to delineate future actions on environmental issues.

Three, it proposed and adopted new initiatives and measures for an immediate improvement in the quality of the environment. The establishment of a global environmental monitoring system, an international registry of chemical compounds and marine pollution measures were picked out as areas of immediate attention. It is pertinent to note that the Stockholm conference was not about climate change. That phrase came into the climate lexicon seven years later in 1979, at the World Climate Conference convened by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The scientists argued that the rising carbon dioxide concentration was because of fossil fuel burning, deforestation and changes in land use. They predicted that the full effects of the changes would be visible by the end of the 20^th century.

The first-ever “state of the environment” report, “Only one Earth”, was published at the end of the conference.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2023.

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