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12 Int'l Env't Agreements: Pol. L. & Econs. 1 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/intenve12 and id is 1 raw text is: Int Environ Agreements (2012) 12:1 21 DOI 10.1007/s10784-011-9152-z ( l \ t 1( 11 , 1 1' V 1' l Building better science-policy interfaces for international environmental governance: assessing potential within the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Thomas Koetz - Katharine N. Farrell - Peter Bridgewater Accepted: 8 April 2011 /Published online: 15 May 2011 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract This article addresses implementation failure in international environmental governance by considering how different institutional configurations for linking scientific and policy-making processes may help to improve implementation of policies set out in international environmental agreements. While institutional arrangements for interfacing scientific and policy-making processes are emerging as key elements in the structure of international environmental governance, formal understanding regarding their effective- ness is still limited. In an effort to advance that understanding, we propose that science- policy interfaces can be understood as institutions and that implementation failures in international environmental governance may be attributed, in part, to institutional mis- matches (sic. Young in Institutions and environmental change: Principal findings, appli- cations, and research, MIT Press, Cambridge 2008) associated with poor design of these institutions. In order to investigate this proposition, we employ three analytical catego- ries-credibility, relevance and legitimacy, drawn from Cash et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci 100(14):8086-8091, (2003), to explore basic characteristics of the institutions proscribed under two approaches to institutional design, which we term linear and collaborative. We then proceed to take a closer look at institutional mismatches that may arise with the operationalisation of the soon to be established Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We find that, while there are encouraging signs that institutions based on new agreements, such as the IPBES, have the potential to overcome many of the institutional mismatches we have identified, there remain substantial tensions between continuing reliance on the established linear approach and an emerging collab- orative approach, which can be expected to continue undermining the credibility, relevance and legitimacy of these institutions, at least in the near future. T. Koetz (E) - K. N. Farrell Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Edifici C, Campus de Bellaterra, 08193 Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: koetz.thomas@gmail.com P. Bridgewater UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough PEl 1JY, UK Springer

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