Negotiating Environmental Agreements provides the first comprehensive introduction to their widely practiced and highly regarded techniques."--BOOK JACKET.

"International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. However, decisions on policies to address key issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste transport, and numerous other planetary challenges require individual countries to adhere to international norms. Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements provides an accessible narrative on understanding the geopolitics of negotiating international environmental agreements and clear guidance on improving the current system. Authors Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali expertly observe international environmental negotiations to effectively inform the reader on the geopolitics of protecting our planet. This second edition offers an additional perspective from the Global South as well as providing a broader analysis of the role of science in environmental treaty-making. It provides a unique contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty-making"--Unedited summary from book cover.

Earth Negotiations develops a phased-process model that can enable greater understanding of the process by which international environmental agreements are negotiated. By breaking down the negotiating process into a series of phases and turning points, it is easier to analyze the roles of the different actors, the management of issues, the formation of groups and coalitions, and the art of consensus building. Six discernible phases and five associated turning points within the process of multilateral environmental negotiation are identified and explained. The model is then used to see if there is anything that occurs in the earlier phases of negotiation that affects subsequent phases and if there is anything in the process that may have an effect on the outcome. The overall goal is to determine what lessons can be learned from past cases of multilateral environmental negotiation in order to help both practitioners and scholars strengthen the negotiating process and the quality of its results.

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity. By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people’s actual activities as policy is generated and contested. Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.

Tolba tells the story of the negotiations that led to a number of landmark agreements, such as the Vienna Convention on Ozone and its Montreal Protocol, the Basel Convention on Hazardous Wastes, and the Biodiversity Convention.

The 2015 Paris Agreement represents the culmination of years of intense negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Designed to curb climate change, it was negotiated by almost 200 countries who came to the table with different backgrounds, perceptions and interests. As such, the Agreement represents a triumph for multilateralism in a period otherwise characterized by nationalist turns. How did countries reach the historical agreement, and what were the driving forces behind it? This book paints a full picture by providing and analysing multifaceted insider accounts from high-level delegates who represented developed and developing countries, civil society, businesses, the French Presidency, and the UNFCCC Secretariat. In doing so, the book documents not only the negotiation of the Paris Agreement but also the dynamics and factors that shaped it. A better understanding of these dynamics and factors can guide future negotiations and help us solve global challenges.

A tool to help negotiators of Multilateral Environmental Agreements to prepare strategies and to participate more effectively in the negotiations and focus on environmental issues, their creation of binding international law, and their inclusion.