Global Environmental Diplomacy

Global diplomacy is a clarion call for the international community to find tools that commit individual countries to start addressing collective problems such as unsustainable use of environmental resources. Some of these tools exist in the form of the existing and new agreements and conventions. Because protecting global environmental resources lack a central enforcement authority, conservation keep falling short of desired outcomes. Environmental resources such as water, air, forest resources, and agricultural lands face degradation pressures that result in negative externalities that know no boundaries. As a result, millions of people around the world face both declining quality and limited environmental resources to meet their human needs. Rather than having sovereign countries take fragmented, interest-based, and independent approaches to respond to environmental problems, global diplomacy has been used to fill the enforcement gap. This chapter tries to answer two questions: How can global diplomacy prevent the continued decline in quality and quantity of environmental resources? What else can be done through global diplomacy to strengthen existing and new international agreements to effectively manage and reduce rising existential threats resulting from environmental degradation and interest-driven agendas within countries? The chapter puts forward an argument that global diplomacy can create an inclusive platform upon which stakeholders negotiate a common goal of green innovations