ABSTRACT
As 2015 began, many agreed that it would be a big year for the environment and sustainable development. At United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York, governments were finalizing negotiations on what would become the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals. This chapter examines the challenges of global environmental governance in a changing international system and how the institutional structure has evolved to meet these challenges. Since the 1970s, the world has seen an unprecedented level of international activity and cooperation on environmental issues. More governments and nonstate actors are active participants in environmental politics than in any other global issue area. In December 2015, for the first time in more than twenty years of UN climate negotiations, delegates from almost two hundred nations adopted the Paris Agreement, an ambitious, binding, and universal agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed at keeping the global temperature rise to well below 2°C.
