Reversing Ecological Degradation: A Way Forward for Global Environmental Governance

Abstract: Environmental governance aims at sustaining earth's ecosystem to be able to cater for the needs of generation unborn as well as protect nature from extinction. However, five decades of environmental governance have yielded abysmal results due to lack of strong institutions to carry out the environmental mandate. Moreover, there is lack of commitment towards environmental negotiations and compliance. There is also little efforts to enforce agreements and regulations while little incentive exists for adherence to these agreements. This paper therefore presents a brief exposition on environmental governance by elucidating its main dimensions and challenges; and proceeds to offer a way forward for environmental governance with insights from multi-level governance, taking into consideration the challenges and (political ecology and ecological economics) critiques of the mainstream.