1st Edition
Reconfiguring Global Climate Governance in North America A Transregional Approach
Global climate governance has presented problems that have led to failures, yet it has also opened the door to new transregional governance schemes, especially in North America. This book introduces an environmental dimension into the concept of governance. Almost fifteen years after the climate global governance concept emerged, results worldwide have not been as favorable as expected. This book details previous discussions about the concept of global climate governance and its limits. It highlights how the Kyoto Protocol has a limited design taking into account a national approach to global, regional, and transnational problems, had no obligatory mechanisms for implementation and explains the emergence of new polluters not committed under it such as China and India. Furthermore this book explores other levels of authority such as regional institutions - the North American agreement on trade (NAFTA) and on environment (NAAEC), as well as the regional energy working group (NAEWG). The author puts forward a theoretical proposal for re-territorialization and coordination of policies for climate change into new forms of articulating interests in what she terms transnational green economic regions (TGERs) and tests this on two case studies - the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). This study presents the challenges and opportunities of a transregional approach in North America.
Biography
Marcela López-Vallejo Olvera has a PhD in International Relations from Universidad de las Américas, Puebla (UDLAP). She counts with a MA degree in North American Studies also at UDLAP, as well as studies on Regional Development and Environment at Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla. From 2002 to 2009 she was part-time professor of International Relations at UDLAP and also taught several courses at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP). She has worked at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Federal Ministry of Public Education, as well as for the international lobby firm Burson-Marsteller Mexico. Since January 2010, she is a full-time professor at the School of International Relations at Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP). She counts with several national and international publications on topics such as environment and climate change, energy policy, local diplomacy, global governance and regionalization, especially for North America. Among her recent publications are the books Gobernanza Global en un Mundo Interconectado (UPAEP-UABC-AMEI 2013) and Environmental Policy in North America: Approaches, Capacity, and the Management of Transboundary Issues (University of Toronto Press-forthcoming).
’Global mechanisms for climate governance have not attained significant international cooperation towards curbing emissions, increasing the likelihood of severe impacts from climate change worldwide. This book provides a fresh look at operational and innovative subnational agreements that have proved to achieve cooperation across regions, inspiring a new style of negotiations capable of effective results in the face of climate change.’ MarÃa Eugenia Ibarrarán, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico ’One of the great questions regarding climate change governance in North America - but also elsewhere - is how to achieve a scaling up of multiple and diverse mitigation initiatives, to provide more coordinated and effective policy results. Marcela López-Vallejo locates the seeds of such coordination at the subnational level in the kind of transregional linkages exemplified by RGGI and WCI. What is unique about this analysis is her multi-layered conception of region, one which involves a nesting of governance and policy linkages, social construction and physical connection, as well as economic and energy associations that operate across scales. Through a thorough analysis of these two experiments, López-Vallejo shows us what factors are critical to create the kind of linkages necessary for more synchronized and successful climate change governance - and these lessons are applicable far beyond North America.’ Debora L. VanNijnatten, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
