Anthem EnviroExperts

Reviewed by Elise Harrington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How do different climate governance regimes support or conflict with each other in pursuit of an international climate policy?

by Harro van Asselt, The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance: Consequences and Management of Regime Interactions, Edward Elgar, 2014, 360 pp

Harro van Asselt argues in The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance (2014) that while the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is responsible for many global climate initiatives, other initiatives have developed outside of it and are not directly coordinated with the UN framework. This governance fragmentation is the key focus of his analysis. The book contributes to the growing emphasis on the diversity of actors involved in global climate governance and the importance of examining how formal and informal institutions interact.

While van Asselt emphasizes that his purpose is not to provide “ideal-type solutions” regarding regime interactions, the benefits of policy coherence rather than fragmentation seem to be assumed along with an emphasis on institutional coordination as a solution to regime conflicts. While both the pitfalls and promises of fragmentation are described, the shortcomings are discussed in greater detail than any positive outcomes of fragmentation. Open questions include, does conflict in regime interactions undermine policy goals? Or does overlap provide valuable duplication? The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance provides a foundation for studying such interactions in global climate governance and encourages further analysis of interactions between hard and soft law, the role of non-state actors, as well as among climate regimes at different levels of governance.

Drawing on concepts from international law and international relations, the analytical framework provided by the author examines multiple features of regime interaction, including relationships between hard and soft law, causal mechanisms, intentionality and consequences (conflict, synergy, neutral).

Empirical chapters offer comparative case studies. Each begins with the UNFCCC as the dominant global climate regime, and then compares it to multilateral clean technology agreements (e.g., Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate), other global environmental priorities (e.g., Convention on Biological Diversity) and different branches of international law relevant to climate change (e.g., the World Trade Organization). Van Asselt focuses on the consequences (conflicts or synergies) of the ways in which these regimes interact.

His analysis of regime interactions suggests a number of parallel concerns at the international policy scale, as well as interactions across local and state levels. Van Asselt might have extended the findings from his three regime interaction cases to these parallel concerns, including interactions among more than two regimes as well, but these are not discussed in the present volume.

With the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, regime interactions––in particular those led by non-state actors and subnational governments––may be of even more importance. With greater flexibility due to the pledge and review process, the interactions between soft and hard laws and between regimes established in different sectors may require us to extend our understanding of the impacts of regime interactions for global climate governance.

Reviewed by Yasmin Zaerpoor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An impressively cohesive multidisciplinary overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with Africa’s largest dam.

edited by Zeray Yihdego, Alistair Rieu-Clarke and Ana Elise Cascão, The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the Nile Basin, Earthscan, 2018, 224 pp.

In 2011, Ethiopia announced plans to construct the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile River. Once complete, this hydroelectric dam will be the largest in Africa. The news was met with alarm from Sudan and Egypt, the two countries immediately downstream, which rely heavily on the Nile. Over the past seven years, the three countries (Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan) have been engaged in negotiations in an effort to meet their individual and collective interests while mitigating potential risks. As is the case with most transboundary problems, the issues are complex and without simple solutions. Rarely do you see this type of complexity adequately described.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the Nile Basin, however, is unique in successfully presenting this kind of complexity from multidisciplinary lenses in a cohesive way. Each chapter is (co-)authored by scholars who are actively engaged in the Nile River Basin or in transboundary water management and are experts in their respective fields. Presumably by design, the arc of the book flows seamlessly from describing the historical legal context (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) into the current sociopolitical context (Chapters 5 and 6), before switching to a future-oriented view of the potential economic impacts of the dam (Chapters 7 and 8) and options for the filling and operation of the dam (Chapters 9 and 10).

Remarkably, despite switching from one disciplinary lens to another, the authors manage to maintain a fairly consistent set of messages. The introductory chapter outlines eight major themes of the book, but three are particularly important. First, the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the resulting engagement of the three Eastern Nile countries represents a significant shift in the hydro-politics of the Basin. One shortcoming of the book in this regard is that it nearly unequivocally supports the dam and the upstream countries in challenging the “status quo” of water use in the Nile Basin. This is problematic because the advocacy varies in strength from chapter to chapter, without ever being explicitly addressed or explained. The analysis may seem one-sided to anyone unfamiliar with Nile Basin dynamics, especially as described in the first half of the book.

Second, the book emphasizes the potential benefits that each country stands to gain from the operation of the GERD. These benefits are described from multidisciplinary lenses: e.g., more equitable water use throughout the basin (law); enhanced regional cooperation (politics); catalyst for regional economic growth (economics); and improved water management functions along the Blue Nile (hydrology). Relatedly, the third message of the book is the urgent need for continued cooperation. The GERD has been politicized, arguably by all three countries of the Eastern Nile (and by many others), and is often characterized as a source of conflict. This book challenges that framing by emphasizing the potential gains that can be realized through cooperation.

With a little more work, perhaps in the introduction, the editors could have contextualized the story a bit more. Also, in ending with a chapter on managing risks (rather than a proper conclusion), they missed a valuable opportunity to clearly enumerate the “implications for transboundary water cooperation” (as suggested in the book’s subtitle). Finally, they could have explained more explicitly why an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing such complex problems is so challenging, rare, invaluable and increasingly necessary.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in Nile Basin developments because it presents the current challenges, potential opportunities and issues that need to be resolved before the GERD becomes operational.

Reviewed by Sudhirendar Sharma

Being able and willing to live inexpensively may be a virtue that the majority of people across the globe will have to practice out of necessity.

by Emrys Westacott, The Wisdom of Frugality, Princeton University Press, 2018, 328 pp.

Frugality has been abandoned, and with it, the wise words of the sages, from the Buddha to Socrates and from Thoreau to Gandhi. The idea of simple living is now deemed insufficient, unexciting and even uninteresting by a significant portion of the global population. As the lure of purchasable pleasure entices people into relentless earning and spending, a culture of unceasing consumerism has pulled those with resources away from frugal simplicity. Emrys Westacott, a professor of philosophy at New York’s Alfred University, tries to explain why frugality has not become a global norm––despite so many wise people having championed it over the years.

Westacott sees a deep contradiction in the idea of individuals pursuing happiness within a competitive consumptive society. Competitiveness fuels jealousies. Any attempt to distinguish oneself by acquiring products as badges of social position only creates a false and temporary sense of happiness. In extreme cases the propensity to acquire and hoard can turn pathological, dominating a person’s life until they require treatment for a psychological disorder. Epicurus and Plato were convinced that securing material wealth was unlikely to bring happiness and that living simply was the key to moral purity.

It appears that the idea of frugality has fewer and fewer takers because the concept of simple living has turned out to be quite complex. Pursuing frugality in the current world restricts the pursuit of excitement and adventure in a world loaded with such opportunities. Further, we are living in a time when the economic imperative to grow has meant that a minimum level of economic activity must continue to keep several fellow beings busy so they can make sense of their gainful existence. Despite most of us, at one time or another, feeling some sort of moral pressure to embrace frugality, the world is stacked against us. The Wisdom of Frugality isn’t a polemic urging people to change their lives by embracing simplicity, but rather a broader investigation of both frugal and luxurious living. We are each left to draw our own conclusions, regardless of how confusing the choices may be.

Many people jump on and off three different treadmills: the hedonic treadmill for pursuing happiness, the status treadmill for satisfying consumption, and the working treadmill for generating income. All this on and off come at an enormous cost: physically, mentally and emotionally.

Why can’t people break free of the shackles of false happiness? Westacott acknowledges that our culture is torn between accepting acquisitiveness as a necessary condition of economic growth and denouncing it as an undesirable trait that bespeaks false values. Beyond that, though, there is no further explanation.

Freedom has been central to the idea of the good life offered by philosophers of every generation, but consumerism has reinterpreted this through the lens of false values. In the interconnected world of growing individualism backed by the availability of a myriad of economic choices, argues Westacott, freedom needs to be exercised in the context of contributing to the public good. Given the problems of pollution and global warming, we need to live more frugally and less wastefully in order to protect natural resources. That’s in our own interest and the common interest. Technology may be of some help, but it, too, adds to an ever-increasing demand for more goods and services. Frugality is a possible antidote to over-development, one that the world can hardly ignore.