Chukwumerije Okereke

Conceptualizing Climate Governance Beyond the International Regime

The governance of climate change has traditionally been conceived as an issue of international co-operation and considered through the lens of regime analysis. Increasingly, scholars of global governance have highlighted the multiple parallel initiatives involving a range of actors at different levels of governance through which this issue is being addressed. In this paper, we argue that this phenomenon warrants a re-engagement with some of the conceptual cornerstones of international studies. We highlight the conceptual challenges posed by the increasing involvement of non-nation-state actors (NNSAs) in the governance of climate change and explore the potential for drawing from alternative theoretical traditions to address these challenges. Specifically, the paper combines insights from neo-Gramscian and governmentality perspectives as a means of providing the critical space required to generate deeper understanding of: (a) the nature of power in global governance; (b) the relationship between public and private authority; (c) the dynamics between structure and agency; and (d) the rationalities and practices of governance.

Climate Change and the Emergence of New Organizational Landscapes

There is general agreement across the world that human-made climate change is a serious global problem, although there are still some sceptics who challenge this view. Research in organization studies on the topic is relatively new. Much of this research, however, is instrumental and managerialist in its focus on ‘win-win’ opportunities for business or its treatment of climate change as just another corporate social responsibility (CSR) exercise. In this paper, we suggest that climate change is not just an environmental problem requiring technical and managerial solutions; it is a political issue where a variety of organizations – state agencies, firms, industry associations, NGOs and multilateral organizations – engage in contestation as well as collaboration over the issue. We discuss the strategic, institutional and political economy dimensions of climate change and develop a socioeconomic regimes approach as a synthesis of these different theoretical perspectives. Given the urgency of the problem and the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy, there is a pressing need for organization scholars to develop a better understanding of apathy and inertia in the face of the current crisis and to identify paths toward transformative change. The seven papers in this special issue address these areas of research and examine strategies, discourses, identities and practices in relation to climate change at multiple levels.

Climate Change: Challenging Business, Transforming Politics

Climate change challenges contemporary management practices and ways of organizing. While aspects of this challenge have been long recognized, many pertinent dimensions are less effectively articulated. Based on contemporary literature and insights from articles submitted to this special issue, the guest editors of this special issue highlight some of the challenges posed by climate change to government and business, and indicate the range of options and approaches being adopted to address these challenges.

Regulatory Pressure and Competitive Dynamics: Carbon Management Strategies of UK Energy-Intensive Companies:

Corporate climate strategies are shaped by a complex interplay of various market and non-market factors. This article investigates the impact of two principal drivers—competitive dynamics and regulatory pressure—on the carbon management strategies of some of the most energy-intensive UK-listed companies. Despite significant increase in awareness of its potential strategic importance, so far there is little in the approaches of these organizations to suggest that climate change has strongly altered the competitive field or induced radical transformations in the business models of UK carbon-intensive companies. Instead, strategy appears to consist of a series of hedging practices that derive from perceptions of present and likely future market and political trends in relation to climate change.

Equity Norms in Global Environmental Governance

Contestations over justice and equity in international environmental regimes present striking evidence of the struggle to create institutions for global environmental governance that are based on widely shared ethical standards of responsibility and accountability. Focusing on two key equity normsthe common heritage of mankind (CHM) and common but differentiated responsibility (CDR)this paper highlights four factors that affect the influence of moral responsibility norms in global environmental regimes: (i) source and force of articulation; (ii) nature of issue-area; (iii) moral temper of the international community; and (iv) fitness of norms with the prevailing neoliberal economic idea and structure. Consequent upon the argument that the most important of all these factors is the fitness with the extant neoliberal order, the paper questions the assumptions of the burgeoning constructivist scholarship that tends to overemphasize the independent role of intersubjective beliefs in international politics. Further, it is suggested that the abiding responsibility deficit in institutions for global environmental governance is due mostly to the successful co-optation of equity norms for neoliberal ends.

How can justice, development and climate change mitigation be reconciled for developing countries in a post-Kyoto settlement?

One of the fundamental challenges of international cooperation for climate governance is how to reconcile the objective of stabilizing the level of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere with economic development and international justice (see United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Objective [Art. 2] (United Nations, 1992)). Indeed, this challenge is central to understanding how the climate regime developed between 1992 and 1997, the opposition of the US to the Kyoto Protocol and the key questions that confront policymakers in designing a globally acceptable post-2012 climate regime. This viewpoint outlines the main concepts and issues on the links between justice, development and climate change mitigation, and suggests how these objectives might be reconciled in the treatment of developing countries in a postKyoto climate regime. The aim is to familiarize policymakers, especially those from developing countries, with research, theories and practice knowledge on this topic and, by doing so, to facilitate discussion in the run-up to negotiations on a post-Kyoto deal in 2009 in Copenhagen. The paper is divided into three sections. The first sketches the broad links between justice, development and climate change mitigation. The second considers attempts to reconcile these in the UNFCCCand itsKyoto Protocol (theexisting international climate change governance arrangement), and identifies some of the perceived strengths and weakness of such approaches. The third section provides a summary of possible alternatives and ways forward.

Environmental justice and conceptions of the green economy

Green economy has become one of the most fashionable terms in global environmental public policy discussions and forums. Despite this popularity, and its being selected as one of the organizing themes of the United Nations Rio+20 Conference in Brazil, June 2012, its prospects as an effective mobilization tool for global environmental sustainability scholarship and practice remain unclear. A major reason for this is that much like its precursor concepts such as environmental sustainability and sustainable development, green economy is a woolly concept, which lends itself to many interpretations. Hence, rather than resolve long-standing controversies, green economy merely reinvigorates existing debates over the visions, actors and policies best suited to secure a more sustainable future for all. In this review article, we aim to fill an important gap in scholarship by suggesting various ways in which green economy may be organized and synthesized as a concept, and especially in terms of its relationship with the idea of social and environmental justice. Accordingly, we offer a systemization of possible interpretations of green economy mapped onto a synthesis of existing typologies of environmental justice. This classification provides the context for future analysis of which, and how, various notions of green economy link with various conceptions of justice.

Moral Foundations for Global Environmental and Climate Justice

Aspirations for global justice have, in the last two decades, found their most radical expressions in the context of global environmental governance and climate change. From Rio de Janeiro through Kyoto to Copenhagen, demands for international distributional justice, and especially North–South equity, have become a prominent aspect of international environmental negotiation. However, claims for international environmental and climate justice have generally been deployed in the form of instinctive gut reaction than as a closely argued concept. In this paper, I outline the ways in which issues of international justice intertwine with notions of global environmental sustainability and the basic premises on which claims for North–South equity are entrenched.

Climate policy and business climate strategies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive analysis of the carbon management activities of the cement industry in Europe, based on a study involving the four largest producers of cement in the world. Based on this analysis, the paper explores the relationship between managerial perception and strategy, with particular focus on the impact of government regulation and competitive dynamics.Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on extensive documentary analysis and in‐depth interviews with senior managers from the four companies who have been responsible for and/or involved in the development of climate change strategies.Findings – It was found that whilst the cement industry has embraced climate change and the need for action, there remains much scope for action in their carbon management activities, with current effort concentrating on hedging practices and win‐win efficiency programs. Managers perceive that inadequate and unfavourable regulatory structure is the key barri...

Regional Assessment of Africa

Although there is large spatial variation in rates of change across the 55 nations of Africa, the combined impact of high natural population growth and rural-to-urban migration means that Africa is urbanizing faster than any other continent. At a growth rate of nearly 3.4 % per annum, Africa’s urban population is the fastest growing in the world. Currently nearly 40 % of Africa’s inhabitants live in cities (UN Habitat 2010), which is expected to more than double from 395 million people to 1 billion in 2040. In some cases, it is projected that city populations will swell by up to 85 % in the next 15 years. The Nigerian city of Lagos, home to 8 million in 2000, is anticipated to exceed 16 million by 2015. Several other cities such as Abuja, Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Kano, Kinshasa, Luanda, Nairobi and, Ouagadougou are all expected to grow by more than one million by the end of this decade.