Por Henrique Motta
In the 60s, Tebuginako was a thriving village. The small settlement located in Kiribati, a small island state in the Pacific Ocean, fostered many families who lived comfortably through fishing, harvesting coconuts, and small-scale agriculture. Almost six decades later, the village has turned into a grim place. Most of its buildings have been abandoned, and very few inhabitants remain. The majority of the vegetation has died, and the dead coconut trees make the place look even eerier. Although there is evidence that the village’s demise was primarily caused by the artificial blockage of an ocean lagoon, the Government of Kiribati claims that climate change was a significant factor leading to the current situation (RKIRS, 2012). Rain has become more irregular, coconuts have gotten smaller and rarer, water is salty due to erosion, and fish are no longer abundant.
These hardships brought by climate change are shared by small island states (SIS) worldwide. Its effects have become more noticeable in the second half of the 20th century, and countries from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean are struggling to protect their territories. Hence, several nations with this profile got together to create the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an organization focused on potentializing the voices of low-lying coastal and small island states in addressing climate change. Created ahead of the Earth Summit of 1992, AOSIS is an ad-hoc bloc and has been very active since its creation. Despite states that hold an almost insignificant portion of the world’s population and GDP, the organization played a fundamental part in the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Throughout the 90s, AOSIS achieved many successes in negotiations under the UNFCCC. Therefore, it is an example of how, via the right strategies, states that hold little political weight can influence the global agenda.
To understand how these states have managed to influence the agenda-setting process on climate change, it is important to examine the very process that involves the formation of an agenda. Described in the book Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (1984), John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) has been one of the most widely applied models for agenda-setting. The author questions the reasons why certain issues are addressed by a government and the people around it while others are not. In addition, he seeks to understand why some alternatives are considered while others are pushed aside. Taking this into consideration, he defines agenda as the list of subjects or problems to which governmental officials, and people outside of government closely associated with those officials, are paying some serious attention at any given time (KINGDON, 1984).
The agenda-setting is then divided into three “streams”: problems, policies, and politics, that combine to form the agenda. The problem stream is the most visible throughout the process of agenda-building. It takes place when a crisis, a critical situation, or less dramatic actions, like public feedback, capture the attention of policymakers. The policy stream deals with the alternatives to solve the problem in question. Kingdon argues that several selection criteria are usually employed, such as technical feasibility, budget constraints, and public approval. A more dramatic policy may be accepted if the public sees the need for drastic changes to solve the problem. The politics stream is represented by the factors that lead to a favorable political atmosphere, such as an electoral process or public opinion. In short, governmental agendas emerge when a problem is recognized, a viable solution is presented, and its adoption would be politically adequate at the decision-making time (KINGDON, 2003).
When the three streams are present simultaneously, Kingdon (2003) refers to this condition as a “policy window”. If a policy window is “open”, an individual addressed by Kingdon as “policy entrepreneur” may take advantage of this opportunity, and policymaking may take place.
Despite being tailored for the United States’ domestic context, the Multiple Streams Framework has been generally applied for different contexts worldwide and is a seminal work in agenda-setting theory. Given its dynamic approach and general categorization in this piece, the MSF will be employed to understand how the AOSIS has influenced agenda-setting involving Climate Change.
The problem stream regarding small island countries and Climate Change is clear. SIS have a small territory surrounded by water with limited or non-existent resources, a small population and thus a narrow range of trained workforce, and dependence on many products from abroad. Therefore, they have an intrinsic vulnerability. In the mid-80s, human-driven Climate Change and its most famous symptom, global warming, emerged as a worldwide concern (ASH; CHERIAN; VAN LIEROP, 1999). As awareness about it grew and its problems became more visible, it caught the attention of governments around the world. However, this matter was way more urgent for SIS due to their vulnerabilities, and there was little they could do domestically towards a solution. Therefore, their problem stream was different from what other countries had to face, and they would have to make their case on the international stage. Hence, in 1990, AOSIS was created.
The policy stream for SIS regarding Climate Change involved devising a viable strategy for these countries to have their voices heard on the international stage. Since they have very little global political weight, they have found it very difficult to make an impact internationally on their own (SHIBUYA, 1996). Thus, AOSIS itself was an essential first step for these countries to set a viable course of action. The structure of the organization, which functioned somewhat similarly to a “think tank”, and the numbers of countries involved gave it suitable means to develop a wide range of lobbying networks and enough personal and resources to design efficient strategies for international forums (BRINDIS, 2007).
As for the political stream regards the political atmosphere and how favorable it is to the issue in question. The Stockholm Conference, in 1972, was the first major conference led by the United Nations that addressed environmental issues. It marked the beginning of a series of conferences addressing themes concerning the environment. Climate, however, became a more prominent issue in the mid-80s, when the international mood began to swing towards viewing issues such as Climate Change and biodiversity as topics that had to be addressed globally (SHIBUYA, 1996). Despite some countries who were major polluters with big political weight, such as the USA, not being fully on board in discussing measures against Climate Change, the 90s began with favorable momentum towards this discussion, and the international political landscape was starting to take a greener stance.
Having concluded that the three streams were present during the 90s, it is possible to say that a policy window was open. Therefore, SIS had the conditions to act as a policy entrepreneur to try to secure their interests.
Upon creating AOSIS, Robert Van-Lierop, an African American lawyer and activist who Vanuatu had hired to serve as the country’s ambassador to the UN, became its first chair. He was a fundamental part in the early activities of the organization. In 1991, during the meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for a Framework Convention on Climate Change, Van-Lierop negotiated his way into being nominated as co-chair of the Working Group II, whose main function was to articulate the Climate Change convention’s institutional framework (SHIBUYA, 1996). This was the first time that an island nation has received a leadership position in a United Nations’ forum, and it had a great impact on the visibility of the cause.
The INC session in t1991 was the first of fifth which would eventually lead to the establishment of the UNFCCC, signed at the Rio 92 summit. To succeed during the negotiations, AOSIS’ representatives thoroughly analyzed the proposed framework, choosing to consider a few parts as key areas (ASH; CHERIAN; VAN LIEROP, 1999). These revolved around specific commitments of developed nations, settlements of disputes, and so on. In addition, AOSIS worked under a 12-point negotiation strategy, to ensure that the group’s interests would be properly addressed by an effective convention. The representatives of the Alliance’s member states would negotiate as a block following these shared objectives. Through this strategy, they made sure the positions followed by the group were fully represented, not only within the INC, but also within the respective regional groupings and within the larger Group of 77 (ASH; CHERIAN; VAN LIEROP, 1999). Van Lierop kept an active voice throughout this process, voicing AOSIS’ views whenever possible. Later that year, at the Rio Earth Summit, the UNFCCC was signed and came into force 90 days after. Out of the 12 objectives set by the AOSIS, 10 were included in the final document. This meant their strategy had been a massive success for the organization, and many of their interests were represented in this historic legally binding convention.
Considering what has been brought, it is possible to conclude that the AOSIS is a successful case of how small actors can influence a global agenda and possibly impact the policymaking process. Following the Multiple Streams Framework by John Kingdon, we can see that small island states have been able to work towards establishing a policy stream and a politics stream, taking advantage of the policy window that had been opened by working as policy entrepreneurs through figures like Van Lierop. After these negotiations, the AOSIS remained an important actor in environmental issues around the world. They have sometimes struggled to remain a unified voice but still had active participation in the latest COPs. Therefore, their example shows how small states can be heard if they unify through everyday challenges and rely on their numbers.
References
ASHE, J; LIEROP, R; CHERIAN, A. The role of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the negotiation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Natural Resources Forum, v. 23, n. 3, p. 209–220, 1999.
BRINDIS, D. What Next for the Alliance of Small Island States in the Climate Change Arena? Climate Law Reporter, v. 7, n. 2, 2007.
KINGDON, J. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2a edição. New York: Pearson Education, 1997.
OURBAK, T; MAGNAN, A. The Paris Agreement and climate change negotiations: Small Islands, big players. Regional Environmental Change, v. 18, n. 8, p. 2201–2207, 2018.
SHIBUYA, E. “Roaring Mice Against the Tide”: The South Pacific Islands and Agenda-Building on Global Warming. Pacific Affairs, v. 69, n. 4, p. 541–555, 1996.