In "Dynamics of the Southern Collective: Developing Countries in Desertification Negotiations," Adil Najam refers to the Earth Summit and how it impacted anti-desertification programs. The 1992 Earth Summit, officially the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), reinforced the "North-South" conceptualization of environmental politics. Using the "North-South" framework, Najam notes that in spite of its geographic and cultural diversity, the conglomerate of G77 nations that comprises the South does share several features in common relevant to global environmental policy. Those features include risk aversion, shared mistrust of the "prevailing world order," and "low expectations," (Najam 128). The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification highlighted some of the commonalities among G77 states.
The G77 did promote desertification as a critical issue in the United Nations, spearheading the Convention to Combat Desertification. This fact made the Convention to Combat Desertification unique as well as historic: for the first time, so-called South nations -- the developing and poor nations -- were championing an environmental cause and leading the related political discourse.
The convention also brought to light differences among G77 nations in terms of perceived risk and benefit. Moreover, the convention revealed schisms between North and South regarding the definitions and policies related to desertification. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was, in short, a polarizing event in global environmental policy history.
Najam traces the problem of desertification itself farther back than Brown does: to the Great Sahelian Drought of 1968 -- 73. However, awareness of desertification as a potentially global area of concern did not blossom until a decade later during the Plan of Action...
Although PACD largely failed, desertification itself became a legitimate area of inquiry and debate. By the time of the Earth Summit, the G77 had discovered together enough common ground and shared power to devise the more thorough Convention to Combat Desertification. So successful was the Convention to Combat Desertification that at some point desertification usurped climate change, biodiversity, and deforestation on the United Nations agenda. The emphasis on desertification seemed superficial at best; the North paid lip service to the issue and diverted responsibility. Funding was of course a key area of contention. Political wrangling, rather than science or expediency, created greater consensus in the United Nations.
The desertification issue empowered the G77 in terms of enabling a stronger Southern alliance against the genuine Northern hegemony. Still, Northern support for the cause was necessary in order to acquire the requisite funding and support for an anti-desertification program. The Southern nations did well to bond together the face of divide-and-conquer strategies that the North tried, but ultimately failed, to induce in order to quell anxiety about desertification.
As an issue that was historically driven by the interests and clout of the G77, desertification is politically meaningful. Najam highlights negotiation strategies that made the Convention to Combat Desertification successful, at least insofar as uniting the South against Northern hegemony. Those strategies include alignment-like behavior, bloc-like behavior, coalition-like behavior, and deal-making behavior.
References
Chasek, Downie, Brown. "Desertification." Global Environmental Politics. 2006.
Najam, Adil. "Dynamics of the Southern Collective: Developing Countries in Desertification Negotiations."
