IDGEC PROGRESS REPORT

May-December 2001

Leadership

Oran continues to lead the IDGEC SSC, now he is also co-chair of the Carbon Joint Project. The implementation strategy is quite „strategic“ pushing the flagships ahead with two SSC members responsible for ensuring that the cross-cutting issues are addressed.

Scientific Steering Committee

The SSC was renewed in 2001 with three people: Agus Sari, Madiodio Niasse and Angela Cropper but unfortunately only Agus made it to the SSC meeting in July. It is thus hard to know if the new members have become truly integrated into the group. Syma has previously noted a rather slow response from SSC members when she sends out suggestions etc. but it seems that the latest emails have elicited at least a few engaged responses. Oran sent out an email to all SSC members in early December regarding renewal etc. of membership. One idea for bringing in new people is one of the Finns who were involved in the EU proposal.

Meetings

  • The third SSC meeting in July 2001 was productive, all but three SSC members participated.
  • Upcoming workshop: Institutional Interplay and Forest Governance in Southeast Asia: Impacts of decentralisation, globalisation and the internationalisation of the environment“ Chiang Mai, 25-26 February 2002. This is linked to the APN sponsored project in the PEF.
  • Upcoming workshop: The second PEEZ Workshop taking place immediately before SSC IV at the end of May 2002, at Bogor, Jakarta.
  • SSC IV will be held in Jakarta parallel to the IV PrepCom of the WSSD 1 to 3 June.

Past and future presentations at conferences

  • Oran presented the paper „Can New Institutions Solve Atmospheric Problems?“ at the Open Science Conference, Amsterdam, July 2001. IDGEC also had a poster there.
  • IDGEC has sent in panel proposal/s to the 2002 IASCP meeting in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, June 2002.
  • IDGEC has submitted several panel proposals to the 43rd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, USA, March 23-27, 2002.

Signature Projects

The three flagships seem to be forging ahead, as could be judged from the presentations at the last SSC meeting where the workplan for each was approved. PEEZ is making progress toward the production of several concrete outputs (e.g. an edited volume on the performance of EEZ regimes, shorter pieces on the policy implications of the PEEZ findings). PEF has taken a major step forward with the publication of its scoping report and the development of collaboration with others leading to the submission of a successful funding proposal to APN and an ambitious pending proposal to the EU (which was not funded in the end). In addition to the analytical themes which the Science Plan identifies, a new cross cutting theme of knowledge has been started led by research fellow Virginia Walsh.

Endorsements

The following events/projects have been endorsed:

  • Theory of the Norm and Democratic Governance, Jacques Lenoble, Universite catholique de Louvain
  • Conceptualising Interaction between International and EU Environmental Institutions, Sebastian Oberthür and Thomas Gehring, Ecologic, in collaboration with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, Institute for European Environmental Policy London.
  • Implementing Global Public Policies, A book proposal, Andreas Obser, Wolfgang Reinicke, Oran Young eds.
  • Problems of Institutional Interplay: Implementing Global Public Policies, Paired panel proposal for the 43rd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association
  • "Global Environmental Change and the Nation State" 2001 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, Berlin, 7-8 December 2001

Participation in GEC Cross cuts

  • Carbon Yoshiki Yamagata is setting up a Japan office of the Joint Carbon Project.
  • Food Suparb Pasong, Antonio Contreras, and Louis Lebel will together with Paul Mattieu follow the work of this cross-cut.
  • Water –Madiodio Niasse is one of two IHDP people in the scoping group of the WJP which ensures a strong link to the IDGEC project.

Partnerships

At IDGEC SSC 3, the primary focus in this area involved opportunities for collaboration with the UN; brief discussions of links with other global change projects and university-based programs rounded out the discussion. Oran has been communicating with Bob Constanza regarding shared interests between IDGEC and LOICZ. Syma participated in a side meeting on the oceans theme in the Amsterdam conference and Frank Alkock (IDGEC research fellow) participated at the IGBP oceans meeting in Barcelona in December 2001.

IPO Funding

Funding is secured for the IPO for the time being. But travel funds are limited and they envision to apply for some project like money for certain aspects of expansion of the IPO.

Publications

  • Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, 2001. Biennial Report. Spring 1999-Spring 2001. It is available in electronic and printed form (the latter with very nice layout). It was available in Rio and we have received 100 copies in the Secretariat.
  • Scoping reports for all three flagships are on the webpage.
  • IDGEC newsletter 3 May 2001 (last issue, the listserve and webpage will serve the information function in the future)

Web

The website was restructured during October 2001 with a professional webmaster and it is regularly updated with publications, news articles, job announcements etc.

Network

The IPO has made substantive efforts to expand the IDGEC research network. She raised this as an issue at the SSC meeting and then wrote to the SSC in November with several ideas for how to create and engage a wider IDGEC community. This elicited several encouraging comments from SSC members. Proposals include:

  • Have competitive calls for papers for our flagship workshops..
  • Establish an IDGEC summer fellowship, sponsoring a summer fellow (pre or post doctoral) for a few weeks/months at the IPO.
  • Develop a summer short course on institutional dimensions of global environmental change. The short course could be modelled after CIPEC's summer program or other similar program.

These proposals were then sent out to the whole IDGEC community in asking for their input by the end of January 2002. The IDGEC listserver now includes over 470 researchers from 55 different countries.

IHDP Newsletter

IDGEC related authors has featured in the last Updates. Issue 2001/3: Suparb Pasong on forests and in 2001/4: Agus Sari on the Johannesburg Institutional Agenda.

Open Meeting

Both the chair and IPO were present at the Open Meeting. IDGEC had a panel at the Open Meeting entitled “The Future of the Climate Regime” with papers from Sewell, Yamagata, Ott, Gelobter and Kilaparti Ramakrishna.

Policy outreach

  • The IPO has started a serious discussion during the latter half of 2001 with the SSC on a possible Policy Links Publication Series for which extra funding would be sought.
  • Alf Haakon Hoel was in Paris presenting PEEZ at the UNESCO/IOC Rio+10 conference in early December
  • Merrilyn Wasson has had meetings with key people in the WSSD process at the core of the UN regarding certain institutional topics. She is also involved in the Arafura Timor Seas Initiative which kicks off in the third week of January. This is an amalgamation of non-state and ministerial actors which should result in a regional seas regime.

Sylvia 9 January 2002.