At first glance, the agreements obtained between 193 countries in Nagoya, Japan, for biodiversity conservation, seem to give a survival of the shape of global governance of the United Nations, which seeks consensual solutions among the parties to major environmental issues that affect life on Earth - especially after the great frustration suffered in Copenhagen in December of last year, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change.
But the way these issues are debated and negotiated calls for innovation and continues to target questions and proposals. One revisits the cradle that originated in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the so-called "three sisters Conference" Climate Change (UNFCCC), Biological Diversity (CBD) and Desertification (UNCCD).
One proposal, published in Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development, is to merge the three conventions in one. Authored by Walker Young, of Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Thailand, it argues that they be consolidated in what he calls the Convention on Environmental Management (CEM).
While dealing with issues completely intertwined and interdependent, the three conventions were placed in separate boxes, each with its own apparatus, and not treated in a systematic way, how the environment in real life.
(As an example of the different possible combinations between the three themes, biodiversity losses lead to lower environmental resilience to climate change, which in turn leads to increased desertification, which in turn accentuates the loss of biodiversity.)
The author argues that the unification would strengthen the organizations, eliminate overlap and create synergies with better scientific knowledge management and greater efficiency in operations and search for resources.
Walker points out that developing countries, in particular, not enough to participate in the extensive framework of the three conventions, which amount annually no less than 230 multilateral meetings. That is, there is much room to spare resources, streamline processes and save time.
Since August 2001, runs an informal forum to exchange information, explore opportunities for synergy and improve coordination among the three themes. Walker proposes that this forum, called Joint Liaison Group (JLG), acting as a management consulting, assume the task of identifying the best way to merge the three conventions.
The task is not easy, as the author concludes. Starting from the fact that a country can be a signatory to a convention and not another, or have signed the three, but in different years, with different responsibilities and goals on each subject. To unite them, as it is?
Anyway, the questions are in the air. In the world of accelerating change, set the scope to bring the best answers to urgent environmental issues entered the agenda. It's a good discussion at this time of preparation for the 2012 Conference, which will return to Rio de Janeiro twenty years later.
by: Amalia Safatle http://saf.li/68zyL
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