Assessing the political feasibility of global options to reduce biodiversity loss

Figures & data

Figure 1. Context and design variables in regime implementation.

Table 1. Overview of agreements.

Scheme	Aim of the scheme	In operation since	Number of countries involved	Ambition of PBL option (where multiple option variants are available, the moderate option is considered)
CBD (we examine only CBD work on protected areas, not the convention as a whole)	Establishment of protected areas (Article 8, convention text)	29 December 1993	193 parties to the convention	Expanding protected area coverage to 20% of all terrestrial ecoregions
	At least halve and, where feasible, bring close to zero the rate of loss of natural habitats, including forests (Aichi target 5)
	Expanding protected area coverage for terrestrial and inland water areas to at least 17%, and for coastal and marine areas to at least 10% (Aichi target 11)
MSC	According to the MSC Integrated Strategic Plan 2012–2017, its mission ‘is to use our certification and ecolabel program to contribute to the health of the world’s oceans by recognizing and rewarding sustainable fishing practices, influencing the choices people make when buying seafood, and working with our partners to transform the seafood market to a more sustainable level’ (MSC 2012, p. 2)	1997	315 fisheries around the world certified or in assessment	To reduce fishing efforts to maximum sustainable yield (MSY) levels, and compensate for the reduction in fish catches by additional aquaculture
	One of the primary objectives for 2012–2017 ‘is to reach 15 percent of global fisheries landings certified to the MSC standard by 2017, and 20 percent by 2020’ (MSC 2012, p. 7)
FSC	The Forest Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC) shall promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests.	1993	The FSC currently certifies forests in 80 countries	The PBL option aims to reduce the logging impact by implementing Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) techniques, and combining this with intensively managed forest plantations to supply 25% of global wood demand by 2050
UNFCCC (the focus here is on the Kyoto Protocol)	The Kyoto Protocol specifies collective emissions reductions of six greenhouse gases by at least 5% (relative to the 1990 baseline) for the Annex 1 countries	21 March 1994	195 parties to the convention, 192 convention parties are party to the Kyoto Protocol	This option aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to about 25 Gt CO2 eq/yr in 2050, with the target of stabilizing GHG concentrations at 450 ppm CO2 eq after 2100 (PBL 2010, p. 99)

Table 2. Overview of barriers to regime implementation.

Rule category	Rule	UNFCCC	MSC	FSC	CBD
Problem structure	Collaboration or coordination problem	Collaboration problem	Collaboration problem	Collaboration problem	Collaboration problem
	Systemic or cumulative environmental problem	Systemic problem	Cumulative problem	Cumulative problem	Cumulative problem
	Systemic problem with important state nonparticipation	Yes	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Regulation costs	High	Low	Low	Low
Actors	Powerful state interest asymmetry	High interest asymmetry	Medium	Medium	Low interest asymmetry
	Important state interest asymmetry	High interest asymmetry	Medium	Medium	Low interest asymmmetry
	Powerful state/actor participation	Medium	n/a	n/a	High
	Important state/actor participation	Medium	n/a	n/a	High
	Participation of high-level ministerial representatives	High	n/a	n/a	Medium
	Economic sectors	High	Low	Low	Low
Regime environment	Embedded in a larger institutional framework	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Negative or positive institutional interplay	Negative and positive interplay	Negative interplay	Negative interplay	Negative and positive interplay
Regime design	Scientific knowledge generation mechanism	Credible and neutral	n/a	n/a	Credible and neutral
	Compliance mechanism	Strong	Medium	Medium	Weak
	Rule precision	High	Low	Medium	Medium
	Legally binding rules	Yes	Voluntary scheme	Voluntary scheme	Yes
	Side-payments	Yes	No consistent side-payments	No consistent side-payments	No consistent side-payments
	Rule differentiation	Yes	Inadvertent rule differentiation	Inadvertent rule differentiation	Yes

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: IPCC.

 Google Scholar