International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance

International Organizations in

Global Environmental Governance

This book provides a comparative study of the role of international organiza￾tions in environmental governance.

Whilst a growing body of literature considers global governance in a

number of policy areas, this volume delivers one of the first comprehensive

accounts of international organizations in relation to environmental policy.

Providing the reader with key insights within this area of global governance,

the book focuses on policies developing in relation to climate change, bio￾diversity and international environmental funding. Presenting a compelling

and up-to-date account of developments within this burgeoning policy area,

the volume:

• includes a range of case studies including the World Bank, UNEP and the

OECD

• presents quantitative and qualitative research that advances understand￾ing of international organizations in the field of international relations

• delivers contributions from a range of internationally renowned academ￾ics and specialists within the field

International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance will be of

interest to students and scholars of international relations theory, inter￾national economics, environmental policy, organizational theory and environ￾mental studies.

Frank Biermann is Professor of Political Science and of Environmental Policy

Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Bernd Siebenhüner is Professor of Ecological Economics at Oldenburg Uni￾versity, Germany.

Anna Schreyögg is Researcher at the Climate Change Division, Federal

Environment Agency, Germany.

Environmental politics / Routledge research in

environmental politics

Edited by Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa and Graham

Smith, University of Southampton

Over recent years environmental politics has moved from a peripheral interest

to a central concern within the discipline of politics. This series aims to rein￾force this trend through the publication of books that investigate the nature

of contemporary environmental politics and show the centrality of environ￾mental politics to the study of politics per se. The series understands politics in

a broad sense and books will focus on mainstream issues such as the policy

process and new social movements as well as emerging areas such as cultural

politics and political economy. Books in the series will analyse contemporary

political practices with regards to the environment and/or explore possible

future directions for the ‘greening’ of contemporary politics. The series will be

of interest not only to academics and students working in the environmental

field, but will also demand to be read within the broader discipline.

The series consists of two strands:

Environmental Politics addresses the needs of students and teachers, and the

titles will be published in paperback and hardback. Titles include:

Global Warming and Global Politics

Matthew Paterson

Politics and the Environment

James Connelly and Graham Smith

International Relations Theory and Ecological Thought

Towards synthesis

Eric Laferrière and Peter Stoett

Planning Sustainability

Edited by Michael Kenny and James Meadowcroft

Deliberative Democracy and the Environment

Graham Smith

EU Enlargement and the Environment

Institutional change and environmental policy in Central and Eastern

Europe

Edited by JoAnn Carmin and Stacy D. VanDeveer

The Crisis of Global Environmental Governance

Towards a new political economy of sustainability

Edited by Jacob Park, Ken Conca and Matthias Finger

Routledge Research in Environmental Politics presents innovative new

research intended for high-level specialist readership. These titles are

published in hardback only and include:

1 The Emergence of Ecological Modernisation

Integrating the environment and the economy?

Stephen C. Young

2 Ideas and Actions in the Green Movement

Brian Doherty

3 Russia and the West

Environmental cooperation and conflict

Geir Hønneland

4 Global Warming and East Asia

The domestic and international politics of climate change

Edited by Paul G. Harris

5 Europe, Globalization and Sustainable Development

Edited by John Barry, Brian Baxter and Richard Dunphy

6 The Politics of GM Food

A comparative study of the UK, USA and EU

Dave Toke

7 Environmental Policy in Europe

The Europeanization of national environmental policy

Edited by Andrew Jordan and Duncan Liefferink

8 A Theory of Ecological Justice

Brian Baxter

9 Security and Climate Change

International relations and the limits of realism

Mark J. Lacy

10 The Environment and International Politics

International fisheries, heidegger and social method

Hakan Seckinelgin

11 Postmodern Climate Change

Leigh Glover

12 Contemporary Environmental Politics

From margins to mainstream

Edited by Piers H. G. Stephens, with John Barry and Andrew Dobson

13 Sustainable Consumption, Ecology and Fair Trade

Edited by Edwin Zaccaï

14 Environmental Governance in China

Edited by Neil Carter and Arthur P. J. Mol

15 Global Justice and Neoliberal Environmental Governance

Ethics, sustainable development and international cooperation

Chukwumerije Okereke

16 The Politics of Unsustainability

Eco-politics in the post-ecologist era

Ingolfur Blühdorn

17 International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance

Edited by Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner and Anna Schreyögg

International Organizations in

Global Environmental

Governance

Edited by Frank Biermann,

Bernd Siebenhüner and Anna Schreyögg

First published 2009

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa

business

© 2009 Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner and Anna Schreyögg;

selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their

contributions

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter

invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

International organizations in global environmental governance /

edited by Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner and Anna Schreyögg.

p. cm. – (Routledge research in environmental politics ; 17)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. International agencies – Environmental aspects. 2. Environmental

policy – International cooperation. 3. Environmental protection –

International cooperation. I. Biermann, Frank, 1967– II. Siebenhüner,

Bernd. III. Schreyögg, Anna.

JZ1324.I58 2008

333.7 – dc22

2008032291

ISBN 10: 0–415–46925–2 (hbk)

ISBN 10: 0–203–88315–2 (ebk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–46925–8 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–203–88315–0 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

ISBN 0-203-88315-2 Master e-book ISBN

Contents

List of figures ix

List of tables x

Notes on contributors xi

Preface xiii

1 Global environmental governance and international

organizations: setting the stage 1

FRANK BIERMANN, BERND SIEBENHÜNER AND ANNA SCHREYÖGG

PART I

Intergovernmental organizations 17

2 The impact of international organizations on the

environment: an empirical analysis 19

AXEL DREHER AND MAGDALENA RAMADA Y GALÁN SARASOLA

3 Setting standards for responsible banking:

examining the role of the International Finance Corporation in

the emergence of the Equator Principles 51

CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT

4 OECD peer reviews and policy convergence:

diffusing policies or discourses? 71

MARKKU LEHTONEN

5 Socialization, the World Bank Group and global

environmental governance 91

SUSAN PARK

6 The European Union and the ‘external’ dimension

of sustainable development: ambitious promises but

disappointing outcomes? 111

CAMILLA ADELLE AND ANDREW JORDAN

PART II

International environmental programmes and secretariats 131

7 The role of the United Nations Environment

Programme in the coordination of multilateral environmental

agreements 133

STEINAR ANDRESEN AND KRISTIN ROSENDAL

8 UNEP as anchor organization for the global environment 151

MARIA IVANOVA

9 Treaty secretariats in global environmental governance 174

STEFFEN BAUER, PER-OLOF BUSCH AND BERND SIEBENHÜNER

PART III

New public–private hybrid organizations 193

10 International organizations as entrepreneurs of

environmental partnerships 195

LILIANA B. ANDONOVA

11 Private governance organizations in global

environmental politics: exploring their influences 223

PHILIPP PATTBERG

12 Agility and resilience: adaptive capacity in Friends

of the Earth International and Greenpeace 244

VANESSA TIMMER

13 International organizations in global environmental

governance: epilogue 264

BERND SIEBENHÜNER AND FRANK BIERMANN

Index 270

viii Contents

Figures

4.1 The four roles of the OECD 78

4.2 Conceptual framework for analysing the impact of OECD

reviews 79

4.3 Four pathways of influence from the EPRs (Environmental

Performance Reviews) 81

8.1 Main functions for an anchor organization 152

8.2 Functions of UNEP’s mandate and anchor organizations 154

8.3 Comparative organizational annual budgets 164

8.4 Total UNEP biennial income from 1973 to 2003 in real

2000 US dollars 165

8.5 Top five donor contributions to UNEP in real 2000 US

dollars 166

10.1 Lead UN organization in UNFIP projects 207

10.2 Issue distribution of UNFIP partnerships 208

10.3 UNFIP and PCF partners by type 213

Tables

2.1 Trade liberalization, 1980–2000 38

2.2 Environmental quality, 1970–2000, 112 countries 40

2.3 Environmental quality, 1985–2000, 75 countries 42

2.4 Environmental quality, 1970–2000 43

10.1 Sample of public–private partnership institutions for

sustainable development 205

10.2 Comparison of partnership structure and resources 216

12.1 Summary of four organizational challenges 252

12.2 Adaptive functionality of agility and resilience 255

Notes on contributors

Camilla Adelle, Policy Analyst, Institute for European Environmental Policy,

London, United Kingdom.

Liliana B. Andonova, Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental

Studies at Colby College, United States of America.

Steinar Andresen, Senior Research Fellow at Fridtjof Nansen Institute;

former Professor of Political Science at University of Oslo, Norway.

Steffen Bauer, Research Associate at the German Institute for Development

Studies.

Frank Biermann, Professor of Political Science and Professor of Environ￾mental Policy Sciences, and head of the Department of Environmental

Policy Analysis, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Director of the Global Governance Project, a joint research programme

of ten European institutions. Principal investigator (with B. Siebenhüner),

research project ‘Managers of Global Change: Effectiveness and Influence

of International Environmental Organizations’.

Per-Olof Busch, Research Associate and Coordinator of the working group

on Global Environmental Governance at the Freie Universität Berlin,

Germany.

Axel Dreher, Professor of Economics at the Georg-August University,

Göttingen, Germany.

Maria Ivanova, Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental

Policy at the College of William and Mary, United States of America.

Director of the Global Environmental Governance Project at Yale

University.

Andrew Jordan, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social and Economic

Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), University of East

Anglia, United Kingdom.

Markku Lehtonen, Research Fellow with the Sussex Energy Group, Science

and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex, United

Kingdom.

Susan Park, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Government

and International Relations, University of Sydney, Australia.

Philipp Pattberg, Research Fellow at the Institute for Environmental Studies

at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Research

Coordinator of the Global Governance Project, a joint research pro￾gramme of ten European institutions in the field of global environmental

governance.

Magdalena Ramada y Galán Sarasola, Research Fellow at the University of

Konstanz, Germany.

Kristin Rosendal, Senior Research Fellow and coordinator of the working

area on biodiversity governance, the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway.

Anna Schreyögg, Researcher, Climate Change Division, Federal Environment

Agency, Germany.

Bernd Siebenhüner, Professor of Ecological Economics at Oldenburg Univer￾sity, Germany, principal investigator (with F. Biermann), research project

‘Managers of Global Change: Effectiveness and Influence of International

Environmental Organizations’.

Vanessa Timmer, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of British

Columbia, Canada.

Christopher Wright, Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute on Climate

Change and the Environment, London School of Economics, and

Visiting Researcher at the Center for the Environment and Development,

University of Oslo.

xii Notes on contributors

Preface

The pressing problems of global environmental change have challenged the

international research community to generate new theoretical understandings,

methodological refinements and empirical knowledge of its institutional

dimensions. Most of this work, however, has concentrated on the principles,

norms, rules and decision-making procedures that underlie the emerging

system of global environmental governance. More systematic work will

be necessary to better understand the actors at the international level that

identify, analyse, manage and evaluate the problems of global environmental

change. This particularly applies in the case of the plethora of intergovern￾mental organizations and programmes that are entrusted with assisting in

the mitigation of, and adaptation to, global environmental change. These

organizations are hence in the central focus of this book.

All contributions to this volume were first presented at the 2005 Berlin

Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change,

which was held in December 2005 under the overall theme of ‘International

Organizations and Global Environmental Governance’. What became clear

during this conference was the broad and rising scholarly interest in the work,

influence and deficiencies of international organizations in particular in the

field of global environmental governance. In total, more than 150 papers

were presented at this conference. The studies in this book were selected as

the best conference papers by the two conference chairs – who served as

editors of the present volume – and their international advisory group. All

papers were subsequently revised, submitted to peer review, and subsequently

further amended and updated.

The conference was supported financially or in kind by the Volkswagen

Stiftung, the Freie Universität Berlin and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,

which is gratefully acknowledged. The organizers particularly thank the

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research for hosting this event.

Frank Biermann (Amsterdam)

Bernd Siebenhüner (Oldenburg)

Anna Schreyögg (Dessau and Berlin)