Owen Temby - Towards Continental Environmental Policy?: North American Transnational Networks and Governance

SUNY series in Environmental Governance:
Local-Regional-Global Interactions

Peter Stoett and Owen Temby, editors

TOWARDS
CONTINENTAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY?

North American Transnational
Networks and Governance

EDITED BY

Owen Temby and Peter Stoett

Published by

State University of New York Press, Albany

2017 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Temby, Owen, 1979 editor. | Stoett, Peter J. (Peter John), 1965 editor.

Title: Towards continental environmental policy? : North American transnational networks and governance / edited by Owen Temby and Peter Stoett.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017] | Series: SUNY series in environmental governance : local-regional-global interactions | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016059170 (print) | LCCN 2017026300 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438467597 (e-book) | ISBN 9781438467573 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Environmental policyNorth AmericaInternational cooperation. | Environmental managementNorth AmericaInternational cooperation. | Environmental protectionNorth AmericaInternational cooperation.

Classification: LCC GE190.N7 (ebook) | LCC GE190.N7 T69 2017 (print) | DDC 333.7097dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059170

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Contents

IRASEMA CORONADO

PETER STOETT AND OWEN TEMBY

SIKINA JINNAH AND ABBY LINDSAY

SUZANNE SIMON

OLIVIA COLLINS AND WILLIAM V. KENNEDY

STEPHEN P. MUMME

ANDREA OLIVE

ANDREW M. SONG, OWEN TEMBY, GAIL KRANTZBERG, AND GORDON M. HICKEY

DEBORA VANNIJNATTEN AND PETER STOETT

ANDREA K. GERLAK

STEPHEN P. MUMME AND CHRISTOPHER BROWN

GEORGE A. GONZALEZ

MARCELA LPEZ-VALLEJO

DANIEL MACFARLANE

IAN H. ROWLANDS

MAT HUFF

PETER STOETT AND OWEN TEMBY

Foreword

IRASEMA CORONADO

Can North America move resolutely towards truly continental environmental policy making? That is the central question examined in this informative and intriguing collection of essays on the stewardship of the North American environment.

Owen Temby and Peter Stoett have collected and coordinated contributions by leading scholars on North American environmental policy. This impressive and highly readable compendium highlights the historical antecedents that have led to the development of cross-border initiatives and other forms of environmental cooperation between the three countries. It also cites examples of where the United States, Canada, and Mexico have cooperated bilaterally or trilaterally across a broad range of environmental issuesfrom water to endangered species, from transborder pollution to concerns about fossils fuels to hopes for a successful continental transition towards clean energy production. If we are to continue to protect our environment and natural resources across North America in a meaningful way, these foundational institutions, policy initiatives, and international agreements can serve as a basis for the vital work we need to do, and urgently.

Thanks to political and economic developments of the past two-and-a-half decades, the North American continent is of a particularly meaningful scale at which to conceive of environmental governance. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect in 1994, has increasingly integrated the economies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Broader trade flows, however, have resulted in greater impacts on the North American environment.

Allow me to illustrate this with a personal anecdote. From 2012 to 2015, I had the privilege of serving as executive director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. During my tenure, I lived and worked in Montreal. My transition from the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso to Canadas largest French-speaking city broadened my awareness of continental environmental issues. In Montreal, it was an eye-opening experience for me to go the local market and see watermelons imported from Mexico by marketers and shippers of fresh fruits and vegetables headquartered in my hometown of Nogales, Arizona. I understood that this high-quality, fresh produce was being transported from the Valle de Sinaloa, up Mexicos Federal Highway 15, to Nogales, Sonora, where, after waiting for hours to cross the border into the United States, they were trucked northward more than 4,000 kilometers to reach the market in Montreal. While it was great to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, especially in the depth of Montreals impressive winter, the environmental impact of that type of journey alone is significant because it produces a substantial amount of greenhouse gas emissions. This kind of economic integration has encroached into other key North American supply chains, such as the one for automotive parts and vehicles, and this too has an impact on the environment.

Fortunately, there is much to learn from the accomplishments of binational and trinational cooperation. For example, the International Boundary and Water Commission and its Mexican counterpart, the Comision Internacional de Limites y Aguas, on the U.S.-Mexican border, and the International Joint Commission, which helps Canada and the United States prevent disputes over their transboundary waters, are institutions that have helped us address issues related to the allocation of water across borders. Yet they still do not fully address environmental issues related to groundwater. Several other transboundary environmental issues similarly receive insufficient attention from international institutions on a binational or trinational scale.

Ideally, the North American Climate, Clean Energy, and Environment Partnership, announced by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. president Barack Obama, and Mexican president Enrique Pea Nieto at the North American Leaders summit in Ottawa on June 29, 2016, will pave the way for deepening and enhancing environment protection in North America. As this volume notes, given the broad international dimensions of environmental crises, the fact that the three countries are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (and the Paris Agreement) further supports the North American trios efforts to achieve each leaders respective domestic goals while meeting their international commitments on the environment. (At of the time of this writing, in December 2016, all three countries have ratified the Paris Agreement.)