The State of Global Environmental Governance 2019

Key Messages

• In this book, the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin team reflects on the successes, shortcomings and overall trends of international environmental negotiations in 2019.
• The year saw scientists rise as truth-tellers, with international scientific bodies producing a range of reports on climate change, biodiversity and the environment as a whole.
• The report concludes by looking to a busy environmental negotiations’ agenda for 2020 amid waning political will, rising nationalism and faltering support for multilateralism.

In 2019, a range of international scientific reports on climate change, biodiversity and the environment held dire warnings for the future of our planet. Yet, despite thousands of pages of evidence and rising global protests, intergovernmental political processes were deadlocked on many issues. Policy-makers could not mount a response that matched the science.

In The State of Global Environmental Governance 2019, the globetrotting Earth Negotiations Bulletin team reflects on the environmental negotiations they attended, including the precious bright spots, the troubling misses and the linkages between these international processes.

The report ends with a look ahead: 2020 is expected to conclude negotiations and establish new tools to address biodiversity, marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdictions, and a post-2020 strategic approach to international chemicals management. With mounting pressure for action, the authors hold out hope that countries will regain the momentum recently lost.