Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the United Nations system and is charged to bring together diverse stake-
holders to build sets of consensus principles regarding the achievement
of sustainable development. And the UNFCCC is the secretariat for the
Kyoto Protocol—a hard-law treaty that holds government signatories
accountable to their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.
Drawing from theories of institutional change and social movement
strategies, I put forth a framework by which to evaluate each of these
institutions as potential sites for advancing environmental justice poli-
cies. Due to their organizational designs, neither of these institutions can
stand alone in this task. Rather, I recommend that environmental justice
advocates develop a multilayered strategy to target each of these orga-
nizations in the ways they are best suited to support the movement. The
UNFCCC provides access points for NGOs and environmental justice
advocates to engage, but those intervention points are limited due to the
hard-law nature of treaty negotiations. Collaborative exchange between
governments and nonstate actors is limited to strictly consultative forums,
including side events and panels. NGOs face similar limitations across
the UN system (Emadi-Coffi n 2002; Dodds 2004) and have honed a
toolkit of strategies to effectively nudge governments in the direction of
their interests. Most of these strategies require multiple years of partici-
pation in UN meetings to leverage them effectively, because they require
informal relationships of trust with intergovernmental and governmental
representatives to operate most effectively (Dodds 2004. Nonetheless,
numerous UN-savvy environmental NGOs have joined forces to target
UNFCCC talks. Pulver's (2005) examination of how NGO positions
gained favor over those of opposing industry BINGOs illustrates that
environmental justice advocates can indeed impact negotiations in this
and other hard-law venues.
In the end, however, any strategy for the articulation of more justice-
oriented policies should target the UNCSD. Charged with oversight of
the implementation of Agenda 21, the organization is the only United
Nations agency specifi cally responsible for advancing all three pillars of
sustainable development—the environment, economy, and equity. From
the organization's inception following the Rio Earth Summit in 1992,
the UNCSD has brought together NGOs, women's groups, farmers,
scientists, youth, industry, local authorities, and governments North and
South in an effort to achieve a just and sustainable balance between
development and the natural environment. Numerous factors have
caused NGOs and the media to deemphasize the UNCSD in recent years,
including an increased focus on climate change. Recent tendencies within
