Expert Paper Series Expert Paper Global Two Commons Global Commons Copyright © 2006 by the Secretariat of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-9788790-3-1 For electronic copies of this report, please visit www.gpgtaskforce.org. For hard copies of this report, please contact the Secretariat of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, PO Box 16369, SE- 103 27 Stockholm, Sweden. After 31 December 2006, please contact the Department for Development Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, SE-103 39 Stockholm, Sweden. Printing: Erlanders Infologistics Väst AB, Stockholm, Sweden Design: Grundy & Northedge, London, United Kingdom Editing and layout: Communications Development Incorporated, Washington, D.C., United States This publication may be reproduced in full or in part if accompanied with the following citation: Secretariat of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. 2006. Expert Paper Series Two: Global Commons. Stockholm, Sweden. ii Contents Biographies of Authors v Acronyms and Initials vii Preface ix Papers commissioned by the Secretariat of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods xi Chapter 1 – Managing the Global Commons Scott Barrett 1 Mitigating climate change 4 Managing fisheries 17 Conserving biodiversity 22 Conclusions 26 Notes 27 References 28 Chapter 2 – The Costs and Benefits of Protecting Global Environmental Public Goods Raymond Clémençon 31 Climate change 34 Biodiversity 46 General conclusion on costing studies 58 Recommendations 60 Notes 64 References 65 Chapter 3 – Resource Needs and Availability for Protecting Global Environmental Public Goods Raymond Clémençon 75 Resource availability 79 The extent of the funding gap 89 Explanations for the gap 90 Addressing the funding gap 94 Directions for future work 96 Notes 97 References 98 iii Chapter 4 – Sustainable Management of the Global Natural Commons Daniel C. Esty 103 The need for global collective action 104 Strategies 106 Institutions 108 Rules 109 Resources 110 Assessment 111 Options and recommendations 112 References 115 Chapter 5 – Assessing the United Nations Environment Programme Maria Ivanova 117 Monitoring and assessment 122 Capacity development 129 Limiting factors 132 Notes 148 References 151 Appendix: Feedback from the Yale presentations 158 Chapter 6 – Capacity Building for Global Environmental Protection Raymond Clémençon 159 Methodology and scope 160 The GEF and capacity building 166 The FCCC and capacity building 168 The CBD and capacity building 173 Participation in the FCCC and the CBD negotiating process 178 Conclusion 188 Recommendations 189 Notes 194 References 196 iv Biographies of Authors Scott Barrett is a professor and the director of international policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Stud- ies and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University. His recent and forthcoming arti- cles have been on topics ranging from global climate change to disease eradication and global catastrophes. He is currently writing a book in association with the International Task Force on Global Public Goods to be published by Oxford University Press. Raymond Clémençon is a senior lecturer on international and com- parative environmental policy at the University of California in San Diego and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Environment and Development. Until 1994 he was a section head in the Swiss Environment Agency, participating in numerous international environmental negotiations, in- cluding the 1992 Rio Conference and the replenishment and restruc- turing negotiations of the Global Environment Facility. Since leaving the Swiss government he has also been a policy consultant to various international clients. He holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Zürich and a master’s degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dan Esty is a professor of environmental law and policy at Yale Univer- sity with faculty appointments in Yale’s Environment and Law Schools. He is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy as well as the Yale World Fellows Program. Esty is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles on environmental policy issues and the relationships between the environment and trade, globalization, security, competitiveness, international institutions and development. Maria Ivanova is an assistant professor of government and environ- mental policy at the College of William and Mary and the director of the Global Environmental Governance Project at the Yale Center for v Environmental Law and Policy. Her research focuses on international institutions and organizations, environmental policy at the national and global levels and global governance. She is the co-editor of “Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities” (with Daniel Esty) and author and co-author of articles and chapters on governance, globalization and the environment. vi Acronyms and Initials CBD Convention on Biological Diversity CDM Clean Development Mechanism CFC chlorofluorocarbon CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora COP Conference of the Parties CRS Creditor Reporting System CSD Commission on Sustainable Development EIA Energy Information Administration EMG Environmental Management Group EPA Environmental Protection Agency EU European Union FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FCCC Framework Convention on Climate Change GDP gross domestic product GEF Global Environment Facility GEM global environmental mechanism GEO Global Environment Organization GEO Global Environmental Outlook ILO International Labour Organization IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NCSA national capacity needs self-assessment NGO non-governmental organization ODA official development assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PAC pollution and abatement control vii PCF Prototype Carbon Fund R&D Research and development UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNEO United Nations Environment Organisation UNEP United Nations Environment Programme UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation WHO World Health Organization WMO World Meteorological Organization WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development WTO World Trade Organization WWF World Wildlife Fund viii Chapter Preface 5 The creation of property rights and the delineation of territories and national boundaries have made it pos- sible for private actors or nations to lay claim to sig- nificant parts of the Earth. Global commons are the resource domains that do not fall within the (exclusive) jurisdiction of any one government. They include such diverse resources as the glo- bal climate, the stratospheric ozone layer, outer space, Antarctica, high-seas fisheries, international waters and migratory wildlife. Some of these resources, such as the global climate, have the characteristics of global public goods: no state can be prevented from consuming them, and the consumption of such goods by one state does not diminish the amount available to others. Other resources are managed under com- mon property and open access regimes. For these resources, such as fisheries, consumption by one state depletes the resources, leaving less for others. But they are fundamentally alike once opportunities for na- tionalization, private ownership or other restrictions on access have been exhausted. ix The management of global commons has generated growing inter- national public interest since the late 1950s. The transboundary charac- ter of environmental degradation was highlighted during the landmark United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. Since then the complexities of preventing the degradation of the global commons have multiplied with the growth of world population and the associated pressure on resources, with the evolution of technolo- gies to extract and consume natural resources and with the development of knowledge and techniques to identify and understand transnational pollution. In this context global commons issues have typically been ad- dressed one by one in the form of separate international agreements. Among the many treaties and conventions that have been promulgated, some aim at preventing pollution of collective resources, and others are intended to conserve (or make sustainable use of) the global commons. At the time of the 1972 Stockholm conference most global commons agreements focused on avoiding pollution. More recent agreements de- signed around the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro focus on the conservation or the sustainable use of the global commons. Examples for the air, the earth and the sea, respectively, include the 1992 UN Frame- work Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and the 1993 FAO Compli- ance Agreement for the conservation of high-seas fisheries. In addition to the hundreds of individual and ad hoc international agreements, many international organizations have been created or man- dated to handle specific issues. The United Nations Environment Pro- gramme (UNEP) was created in 1972 with a broad mandate but limited authority. It was established as a part of the United Nations Secretariat but not as a specialized agency, which meant its influence in its area of responsibility was much less than that of the World Health Organization. Over