A new article in PLOS ONE, “Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations and Global Environmental Discourse,” was recently published by a team of co-authors including BNRGI co-director Dr. Gregory Thaler. Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) have become critical players in global environmental politics over the last several decades. Nearly 1,000 ENGOs have participated in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. While ENGOs increasingly influence environmental policy and define environmental issues, a comprehensive understanding of the ENGO sector had previously eluded researchers.
Dr. Thaler, along with lead author Stefan Partelow and co-author Klara Johanna Winkler, analyzed 679 ENGOs in 89 countries. Their analysis included ENGOs’ human and financial resources and ENGO discourse around environmental issues. Analysis confirmed the conventional wisdom that ENGOs from Europe and North American tend to command substantially more human and financial resources than ENGOs from other regions. However, analysis also revealed considerable diversity not fully captured in previous studies. For example, ENGOs include a wide array of groups beyond the high profile conservation organizations with which most people are familiar. Research groups, religious associations, and human rights and development organizations also constitute the ENGO landscape. Additionally, a systemic analysis of ENGO mission statements identified four major environmental discourses: Environmental Management, Climate Politics, Environmental Justice, and Ecological Modernization. Previous studies have underestimated the importance of Environmental Justice and Climate Politics in the environmental policy discourse shaped by ENGOs.
These insights into ENGOs can help us understand a critical component of the environmental policy arena at a time of monumental environmental change.
