Introduction
Global environmental governance is characterised by a set of dilemmas concerning capacity, sovereignty, and responsibility.We can see the effects of these dilemmas in disagreements between the North and South in multilateral negotiations. On the one hand, governments from wealthy developed countries have traditionally been the strongest advocates of international agreements to protect the global environment. These countries have typically contributed most to global GHG emissions; they have cleared their own forests; and they have transitioned to less energy-intensive service-based economies after becoming rich through dirty, poorly regulated, production-based development. In other words, wealthy countries’ responsibility for global environmental degradation is great and longstanding. On the other hand, governments from developing countries have long claimed that they cannot afford to protect the environment until levels of poverty are drastically reduced. These countries have contributed least to global GHG emissions, and they claim a sovereign right to exploit their natural resources and pass through dirty phases of development before cleaning up later.What'smore, the largest stores of biodiversity and natural resources can be found in the global South. Of course, there are exceptions and not all countries fit into this neat picture. But, generally speaking, these North–South divisions do exist and have had a significant impact on global environmental governance. The global environment cannot be preserved without the South, but the South claims to have many higher priorities.
As we saw in Chapter 3, the narrative of ‘development first’ was articulated back in 1972 at the first major international environmental conference, the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Stockholm. There India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, told the international community:
We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters? … How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source? The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.
(quoted in Rajan 1997: 25–6)This narrative has proven persuasive and has placed finance at the heart of global environmental governance. This chapter explores different forms of environmental finance, and their effects on deforestation in particular.
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