Global environmental problems are often the aggregated effect of behavior by individuals, but is persuading people individually to change their behavior useful for addressing these problems? Understanding why it is that people behave individually in ways that have collectively problematic environmental effects is key to understanding what works—and doesn’t work—to change this individual behavior. This article argues that because of the problem characteristics and social structures that underpin large-scale environmental problems, a focus on trying to persuade people to behave in ways that are less environmentally problematic is ineffective at best and possibly even counterproductive. Instead we should focus on changing systems and structures to provide incentives, routines, and contexts in which we can simultaneously change the behavior of large groups of people, whether or not their behavior change is undertaken intentionally for environmental benefit.

This forum reflects upon the current state of research on post-conflict natural resource management. It identifies two dominant perspectives on environmental peacebuilding in the literature: one focused on environmental cooperation, the other on resource risk. Both perspectives share a concern for the sustainable management of natural resources in post-conflict settings and prescribe environmental cooperation at large as a means to foster peace and stability. Yet both perspectives also feature notable differences: The cooperation perspective is driven by a faith in the potential of environmental cooperation to contribute to long-term peace through spillover effects. The resource risk perspective, however, recognizes that resource-induced instability may arise after intrastate conflict; stressing the need to mitigate instability by implementing environmental cooperation initiatives. Despite the significant contributions of both perspectives, neither has provided any cohesive theoretical understanding of environmental peacebuilding. This article suggests a timely revision of the research agenda to address this gap.

This forum article discusses environmental official development assistance (ODA), the official aid allocated for the purpose of making environmental improvements in recipient countries, focusing on the affinity between the changing ODA rules and the patterns of green aid activities at a global level. It explores the question of how far ODA rules and principles can consistently accommodate the interface between aid and the environment, through examining the changing ODA principles reflected in the outcome of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4), held in Busan in 2011–2012. This article argues that the shifting emphasis and the subsequent laxness in ODA norms may increasingly facilitate donor-oriented green-labeled projects that, in turn, create and reinforce a negative synergy with an undesirable aid modality. If ODA in this field were better managed, it could serve as a significant tool for improving the quality of life through environmental protection in poorer countries.

The deep sea, defined as those parts of the ocean below 200 meters, is increasingly the site of intensive resource exploitation for fish, minerals, and other uses, yet little thought has been given to effective governance by either scholars or policy-makers. This article provides an overview of existing deep-sea governance arrangements, as well as a description of the barriers to developing a more effective institutional framework, with particular focus on the unique status of the deep sea as part of the common heritage of mankind, the logistical challenges inherent in monitoring resource exploitation in the deep sea, and the lack of available scientific data. We call for greater engagement by political scientists and environmental studies scholars in addressing these challenges and protecting one of Earth’s last true frontiers.

Mitigation and adaptation represent the two main ways the world is responding to climate change. However, a third response is being practiced by the most vulnerable: widespread suffering. No matter how much we mitigate or adapt to climate change, pervasive suffering is inevitable. In fact, it is already being experienced throughout the world. This article reports on interviews conducted with subsistence farmers living on the frontlines of climate change in northern India in the spring of 2013. It relates the ways in which sustained drought and then punishing rains wreaked hardship on the farmers, and the ways farmers endured such challenges. By relating farmers' tales and describing how this experience personally influenced the researcher, the article offers and invites reflection on the many meanings of climate suffering.

The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 generated a wide range of mostly negative reactions. Even before the conference, there was widespread doubt about the possibility of success. As soon as the conference closed, analysts highlighted its failures and criticized the outcome document, The Future We Want . While it does not present a grand transformative vision, the outcome document does reaffirm past political commitments and addresses the multiple dimensions of sustainable development and the linkages among them. Indeed, Rio+20 had subtle, yet significant impacts. Three main areas stand out: reform of international institutions, sustainable development goals, and participation as principle and practice. The global decisions in these domains and the unprecedented local engagement provide critical junctures likely to shape global environmental governance for the next two decades.

In the course of the last four years, finance ministries have increasingly become involved in the international climate change negotiations. Their involvement has to a large degree been an outcome of the framing of climate change as a market failure. This framing calls for an active climate change policy and is at odds with the framing of climate change policy that was previously predominant in finance ministries: that it constitutes expenditure to be avoided. The persistence of both framings has led to clashes within and between finance ministries with respect to climate change. The article calls for further research focusing on the role of the two frames and of finance ministries as actors in climate change politics.

In this deliberately provocative commentary, I interrogate the relationship between two critical perspectives on the one-sided scientific framing of the climate issue: a constructivist interpretation of climate modeling on the one hand and the debate in political theory on the depoliticization of the public sphere on the other. I argue how they could be tied together in order to provide an enriched understanding of climate denial as a symptom rather than a cause of dysfunctional climate politics. It is my claim that in attempting to translate the universal validity of scientific knowledge into the contours of an inclusive, consensual negotiation model, the constitutive role of exclusion in the emergence of scientific objectivity is overlooked.

Human-driven climate change resulting from carbon emissions threatens major environmental disturbance. However, the problems we face are the environmental costs of the changing climate, not the presence of CO 2 molecules as such. This essay argues that present climate action strategies dangerously fail to appreciate the environmental, socioeconomic and climate context of carbon. Reducing action on climate to the management of carbon emissions, while favored by governments and businesses, threatens to create a myriad of wider environmental and social problems. This has been exacerbated by the subsequent transformation, made possible by this carbon reductionism, of carbon into a commodity. Consideration of context is effectively prevented, even if one tries to factor in environmental values, because tradable carbon credits depend on treating carbon in the abstract as a commodity. Contesting the decontextualization of carbon requires researchers to explain the importance of environmental context, to develop potential models for the transition to a “climate clean” global economy, and to explore the political levers for such structural change.

NGOs comprise over half the cumulative number of delegates attending the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) for the 1995–2009 period. These NGOs represent a wide array of issues, including sustainable development, business, and higher education, to name just a few. Based on UNFCCC publicly available participation statistics, this article analyzes NGO participation from a quantitative issue-based perspective, and compares the results with the relevant conclusions drawn by the other contributors to this special issue. The findings of this analysis confirm informed expectations about issue-driven NGO participation. In particular, three main findings are that: (1) environment and conservation, academic, business, and energy NGOs dominate civil society participation in the UNFCCC; (2) UNFCCC constituencies do not adequately capture the range of issues addressed by observer NGOs; and (3) since 2007, NGO participation has sig-nificantly increased and diversified.

Civil society organizations were disenfranchised, as were many countries, at COP-15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. The main forces that contributed to this disenfranchisement were not, however, increased registration and the merging of movements within civil society. Poor planning did contribute to the disenfranchisement; however, in cooperation with state actors, this was also to some extent overcome at COP-15. The unusual process by which the Copenhagen Accord was developed did disenfranchise civil society and many countries. Major concerns regarding the undemocratic nature of this process and the inadequacy of the Accord were raised by some countries in the final plenary of COP-15. These countries were backed by a number of civil society organizations that had already denounced the Accord as a non-deal, contributing to the COP not adopting the Accord as a formal decision. The Accord's existence was eventually only noted by the final COP-15 plenary, reflecting this widespread disaffection.

While there is growing interest among researchers and practitioners concerning the risks that emerging REDD+ regimes pose to rural livelihoods, there has been little scholarly analysis of specific policies that could be applied to guard against these risks. We argue that for REDD+ regimes to avoid negative impacts on local populations, social safeguard policies will need to overcome the significant barriers posed by ambiguous property rights and weak governance and create five institutional conditions: (1) local community support for project-level activities, (2) citizen participation in reforms affecting property rights and land use, (3) transparency of forest carbon revenue flows, (4) citizen access to grievance mechanisms, and (5) opportunities for adaptive management through evaluation. We identify and discuss various policies that could be applied to produce these conditions. We argue that positively engaging rural populations in REDD+ may be integral to the effectiveness of programs in reducing deforestation and degradation, and enhancing forest carbon stores. Future research should aim to identify the causal mechanisms (policies and institutions) responsible for positive socioeconomic and ecological impacts in REDD+, while testing key theories that link participation to conservation and development outcomes.

One of the biggest challenges for global environmental governance is “the problem of consumption.” The task involves far more than simply influencing what consumers choose, use, and discard. It requires a concerted effort to address the systemic drivers—including advertising, economic growth, technology, income inequality, corporations, population growth, and globalization—that shape the quantities, costs, and distribution of consumer goods. Current efforts to green consumption are “improving” management on many measures, such as per unit energy and resource use. Yet, this essay argues, such “progress” needs to be seen in the context of a rising global population and rising per capita consumption, where states and companies displace much of the costs of consumption far from those who are doing most of the consuming. This raises many questions about the value of sub-global measures for evaluating the environmental effectiveness of efforts to govern consumption. It also suggests the need for more global cooperation to mitigate the ecological effects of consumption. Current international initiatives such as the Marrakech process to draft a 10-Year Framework on “sustainable production and consumption,” however, will need to go well beyond simply promoting efficiencies, new technologies, and a greening of household consumption. Researchers in global environmental politics can assist here by probing even further into the complexity of governing the drivers and consequences of consumption, then working to thread these findings into the international policy process.

The environmental consequences of political conflict are a growing problem throughout the world. Not only nations, but a variety of terrorist and insurgent groups have shown a disturbing tendency to make use of intentional environmental destruction in the pursuit of their political agendas. Currently, scenarios of environmental terrorism in Iraq are particularly dire, due to the changing political situation in that country, the vulnerability of its petroleum infrastructure, and the precedent set by the catastrophe in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. The international community should remain aware of the real threat of sudden, intentional environmental destruction, and should take preventative steps, while preparing for the possibility of a major event. Steps can be taken to provide for security and emergency response, while the promotion of social justice and educational initiatives can help to decrease the likelihood of such an event. Further research should be conducted to identify the most effective strategies for reducing the threat of environmental terrorism in specific regions.

The Global Environmental Governance (GEG) system has grown significantly since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. In this paper we analyze ten leading Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), reviewing various quantitative indicators (related to time, resources and commitment) to chart their evolution and to measure the “negotiation burden” that the burgeoning GEG system is imposing on states and secretariats. We find that these representative MEAs have not only grown in size but also have become busier over time, although there are indications that as the GEG system “matures,” it may also be stabilizing. Among other things, we find that the reported budget for these ten MEA secretariats has grown nine-fold in sixteen years, from US$ 8.18 million in 1992 to US$ 75.83 million in 2007. Counting only the most important of meetings, and using the number of meeting days as an indicator of the “negotiation load,” we find that the negotiation load for the leading MEAs has stabilized, averaging around 115 meeting days per year. Decisions also seem to plateau at about 185 per year.

A central conundrum in the need to infuse a long-term perspective into climate policy and other environmental decision-making is the widespread belief that humans are inherently short-term thinkers. An analysis of human decision-making informed by evolved adaptations—biological, psychological and cultural—suggests that humans actually have a long-term thinking capacity. In fact, the human time horizon encompasses both the immediate and the future (near and far term). And yet this very temporal duality makes people susceptible to manipulation; it carries its own politics, a politics of the short term. A “legacy politics” would extend the prevailing time horizon by identifying structural factors that build on evolved biological and cultural factors.

In the climate change negotiations the thirteen countries that are members of OPEC obstruct progress towards reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Although these actions undermine sustainable development in developing countries, the larger Group of 77 (G-77) coalition nevertheless tacitly supports its OPEC members in the climate regime. This article explains the connection between OPEC's interests in oil exports and its inaction on climate change, and the divergence of these interests with those of the G-77. It argues that OPEC's influence within the G-77, and therefore the climate regime, stems from the desire to maintain unity within the G-77. This unity has and is likely to continue to cost the majority of developing countries in the form delayed assistance for adaptation, the possibility of inadequate reduction in emissions under the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and continued dependence on increasingly expensive oil imports.