1. Subsidiarity as a scaling device in global environmental governance
Subsidiarity as a scaling device in global environmental governance? Lesson drawing from EU policy
David Benson, Andrew Jordan, Irene Lorenzoni
The Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, 19-20th June 2014

2. Introduction Global governance raises (normative and practical)
questions of scale
Global environmental governance = conflicts over scaling
For example, the UNFCCC
In the EU, such conflicts have (mostly) been resolved
Key legal principle for scaling in EU environmental governance = subsidiarity
What can we learn, if anything, from the EU about subsidiarity for global environmental governance?

3. Global environmental (non)governance
Dates from the late 1960s
Three discursive phases
Environmental quality = proliferation of global environmental regimes in the 1970s and early 1980s
Sustainable development = regimes emanating from the 1992 Rio UNCED
Competitiveness = 2000 onward – variable implementation, conflict and institutional fragmentation….

4. UNFCCC
Signed in 1992
Kyoto Protocol in 1997 – greenhouse gas emissions mitigation targets
Non-cooperation – USA leaves in 2001, national ratification in 2005
Copenhagen Conference in no global deal on extending emissions reductions
Paris significant issues over sovereignty
How have other multi-level systems addressed these conflicts?

5. EU environmental governance - past
EEC environmental policy 1973
Conflicts emerge over the scaling of EEC responses
Single European Act - includes the subsidiarity principle in Art. 130 to diffuse conflicts
Treaty on European Union – subsidiarity becomes a key legal principle for EU policy making
‘Hit lists’ and Better Regulation in the 1990s and 2000s

6. EU environmental governance - present
Lisbon Treaty – new subsidiarity wording (but little change)
Current EU environmental acquis – several hundred measures (Jordan and Adelle 2012)
Now expanding into climate-energy policy (Jordan et al. 2010; Benson and Russel 2015)

7. EU subsidiarity in retrospect
Subsidiarity has (to an extent) helped reduce conflicts
over EU scaling – this debate is largely over(?)
Pre-1970s = Althusius conception (lower level scaling)
1970s – 1990s = a catholic social theory conception (EU level scaling)
2000s = cooperative federalism conception (shared scaling)
A continuum of scaling
Single issue transboundary concerns = EU scaling
Cross-cutting SD issues = greater MS flexibility
Limited transboundary issues = MS scale
Could subsidiarity become a ‘scaling device’ for other multi-level contexts?

8. Subsidiarity as a scaling device?
Potential lesson drawing for global governance
The EU’s experience with subsidiarity - some environmental issues should be scaled upwards
Others can involve greater flexibility and lower level scaling
But how effective is this approach as a form of global governance?
EU implementation is variable (Jordan and Tosun 2012)
UN Desertification Convention and Forum on Forests
Also, subsidiarity is subject to discursive construction!

9. Scale = a significant issue in global environmental governance
EU has used subsidiarity to reduce multi-level scale conflicts
Analysis of EU would suggest that scaling can/should vary according to issues (subsidiarity continuum) – but effectiveness is a concern for lesson drawing elsewhere
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