Sovereign territorialities and environmental challenges: regional environmental complexes, polycentric regimes, and climate governance in South Asia

Abstract

South Asia is among the most climate vulnerable regions in the world, but its environmental governance is stuck in a state-driven political framework. This paper looks at the conflict of sovereignty and trans-boundary ecological systems in South Asia. It presents suggestions that the challenge of climate change in the region is not only a ‘technical' one of adaptation, but also a ‘diplomatic' one of weak cooperation. It is a structural governance issue that emerges when two logics clash: the tragedy of the commons (where shared ecological systems are "taken for granted" by actors acting at their own level of authority) and the sovereignty dilemma (that states do not wish to be bound by regional institutions due to the fact that territorial sovereignty is the dominant norm for regional politics). The paper builds on the notion that “Regional Environmental Complex” is a term for ecological systems that extend beyond state boundaries and need to be governed beyond the limitations of national planning. These complexes comprise the Himalayan cryosphere, the Indus-Ganga-Brahmaputra river systems, the Indo-Gangetic airshed and the larger delta zone of the Bay of Bengal. The paper links this concept with regime theory and polycentric governance in international policy development, and posits the concept of Regional Environmental Complexes as sub-regional ecological regime complexes within a wider climate regime complex.