Headline: From Local to Global: How Agents Influence Climate Policy at Different Levels

The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro raised many hopes. With Agenda 21, governments gave themselves a mandate for action to prevent the further deterioration of humanity’s situation, the environment, and the climate. While the summit succeeded in raising public awareness about sustainability issues, the practical implementation of its targets has proven to be more difficult. Critics often argue that not all parts of society have been sufficiently involved in the implementation of Agenda 21 at local level. On 8 September, scientists, politicians and representatives of civil society gathered at the IASS to analyse and discuss the multi-layered system in which people contribute to more environmentally friendly production and living conditions at local, regional, national and global levels. The conference “Towards a Global System of Multi-Level Climate Governance” was organised by the IASS together with the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) at Berlin’s Freie Universität.

As the then Minister for the Environment, IASS Executive Director Klaus Töpfer represented the German government at the Rio Summit 22 years ago. In his introduction to the conference, Töpfer stressed that even then there had been no shortage of knowledge on how to prevent the collapse of ecosystems: “But people are not acting! So we need to find new ways of solving the problem and must not limit ourselves to agreements between states.”

In his talk, Martin Jänicke, professor at the FFU and senior fellow at the IASS, described the influence wrought by different actors at individual, local, regional, national, European and global levels. He stressed that the global multi-level climate policy system opened up opportunities for “competent and motivated knowledge-based leadership at all levels”. In the past, it has often been possible to mobilise economic interests at all levels for the sake of climate protection. Now, Jänicke argued, it is time to integrate civil society, something which has at least been achieved at local level in cities and towns.

Halldór Thorgeirsson, director of the UN Climate Framework Convention’s implementation strategy and Hans Bruyninckx, director of the European Environment Agency, agreed that any ambitious legal framework at national or international level requires the committment of local communities and states. This in turn has positive effects at a higher level: Thus the European Union, which sees itself as driving force behind climate protection, plans to come to the table at the UN climate protection negotiations in Paris in late 2015 with an ambitous climate protection target. However, according to Christian Hey, secretary general of the German Advisory Council on the Environment, negative developments also have repercussions. In the light of the de facto halt in the expansion of renewables in Spain and other European countries, the European Union seems to have adopted a more cautious approach.

Another important issue discussed at the conference were the different motivations and interests of local communities and states when it comes to implementing ambitious climate protection policies. The positive side effects of such policies (the IPCC refers to 18 potential co-benefits, such as better air quality and less traffic noise) were also discussed. The strength of the multi-level climate policy system lies in its ability to activate these different motives for action. This explains why there have been positive developments towards climate protection in many countries in recent years, despite the lack of a binding framework on global climate protection.

Photo: © UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras