The Earth System Governance Project congratulates Prof. Norichika Kanie and Prof. Oran Young with their appointments to the UNEP Major Group and Stakeholders Advisory Group on International Environmental Governance.
By establishing this Advisory Group, UNEP aims at getting relevant inputs from civil society groups from each region in the process of further strengthening international environmental governance (IEG). A change in the international environmental governance system is considered by UNEP as an important response to the ongoing crises related to water, food and energy security as well as climate change and their direct links to environmental degradation. The Advisory Group will utilize the significant knowledge, expertise, and influence of civil society, to spearhead and guide a dynamic and multidimensional process within major groups and stakeholders to communicate key messages to the governmental negotiations and foster constructive engagement of global civil society.
The Advisory Group will also provide systematic input into the processes in the run up and follow up to Rio + 20 in 2012 where sustainable development governance, including IEG, will be a main agenda item. “Governance architecture in the era of growing number and importance of agencies is expected to be one of the most important parts of the debate towards Rio+20, as well as it is an integral part of Earth System Governance Project” says Norichika Kanie, and “I am hoping to serve as a channel of the Earth System Governance community with the ongoing process of reforming international environmental governance architecture”.
Norichika Kanie will represent the major group science in the UNEP Advisory Group. He is an associate professor at the Department of Value and Decision Science, Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, and member of the Earth System Governance Scientific Steering Committee. Oran Young has been appointed alternate member the major group science and for the regional group North America. Oran Young is professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Associate Faculty of the Earth System Governance Project.
Both have been jointly nominated by the Earth System Governance Project and the Secretariat of the International Human Dimension Programme on Global Environmental Change (UNU-IHDP) and have been selected by the Major Group Facilitating Committee to UNEP.
