About the GEG Project
Global Enviornmental Governance
The Global Environmental Governance Project seeks to foster informed dialogue and improved policymaking on environmental issues at the international level through research and education. Work on the project takes a variety of forms including the mapping of the activities of international organizations in the environment and the development of databases, analytical examinations of various aspects of governance, preparation of teaching materials, and contribution to various policy processes.
The GEG Project began in 1998 at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy as a series of dialogues among individuals from around the world interested in the future of global environmental governance. A diverse group, consisting of individuals from various countries and disciplines, has continued to gather to discuss approaches to and methods for improving the current response to international environmental challenges. One product of this collaborative effort is the 2002 book, Global Environmental Governance: Options & Opportunities (Daniel C. Esty and Maria H. Ivanova, editors), released at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The need for a new architecture for global governance remains visibly acute. Although the multitude of public-private partnerships announced at the Johannesburg Summit represent a positive development in international and multi-sector collaboration, these commitments cannot substitute for coordinated intergovernmental action at a global level.
Today, the GEG team focuses on how the efforts of many organizations can be coordinated to avoid overlap and waste of resources. As a result, the GEG Project’s main analytical task is to unravel the complicated web of actors working within the current environmental governance system. To this end, the Project has identified twelve environmental issue areas and over fifty international organizations working in some capacity on these issues. Mapping out the current structure of the GEG system reveals both overlap and opportunities for cooperation. Armed with an understanding of the present system, the GEG project seeks to identify areas in need of reform and organizations that may serve as institutional models.