These phenomena happened in China deserved being researched in an evolutionary perspective. Energy plans and polices could play very important role in some certain period in past, however, when continuing their functions in future goal of energy saving would face more and more problems if we only rely on them without laws. Combining more and more laws in a comprehensive framework would be more effective for the coming more difficult tasks of carbon emission reduction.

The main reasons explaining why plans and policies are more forceful than laws so far including:(1) Energy conservation bonding together with many economic activities, which National plans can regulate and control effectively than branch laws in the macro level; (2) National plans can restrain public officials simply and directly with accountability system which actually rather deterrent than laws; (3) In past and existing energy low-efficiency situation in China, total quantity control of emission could play a powerful effects than detailed energy restructuring; (4) The plans and policies can set more flexible goals of energy saving than laws according to national developing circumstance.

At the same time, The potential negative aspects of using plans and policies become more and more obvious facing the coming more difficult times of energy saving in China.(1)Command and control methods can be workable in short time but easily rebound in a long time, disordered limiting power happened in many areas to meet the goals of energy saving showing it’s short-sighted; (2)During China National 12th Five-Year plan period, energy saving space and difficulty are much more complicated than 11th Five-Year period, only hard and simple goal could not prove effective than before; (3) Elaborate law designs can be great instrumental to get 17% carbon emission per GDP unit reduction; (4)More and more economic incentive- based and marketing-based methods should be applied in laws and policies coordinated with targets accountability National plans.

The first wave of environmental laws that emerged in the 1970s, at both the national and international levels, arose from recognition of the limited ability of environmental systems to withstand the onslaught of human activities corresponding with technological advance and population growth. Subsequent developments through the 1990s (epitomized by the Rio Earth Summit) represented a maturing of the field through development of legal arrangements to directly address the profound complexity of massive environmental threats, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, at a global level. With few exceptions, however, these efforts have not succeeded in significantly reducing the threats they sought to address. A cause of this failure, running through virtually all national and international efforts, is the underlying assumption that closely intertwined environmental issues can be addressed within the confines of highly fragmented governance systems. This fragmentation includes a vertical (scale of governance) and horizontal (scope of governance authority at a given level) dimension, which encompass both institutional and issue competence elements.

Building upon the trends of globalization in environmental law to more successfully address global environmental threats will require the effective development of linkages among the fragmented pieces of the environmental governance puzzle. Thus, questions of fragmentation and linkage form an under-recognized but essential element of the crossroads at which global environmental law now stands. Improving global environmental governance must involve a more effective approach to overcoming the artificial divides created by the fragmentation that was imbued in environmental law from its earliest origins and which continue to limit its ability to achieve desired results in the context of international politics.

The proposed presentation (and possible paper) will explore the limitations of fragmented governance and identify potential pathways to building more effective global environmental law that responds to the reality of environmental issues linked across geography and topical scope. The presentation builds upon my 2010 IUCN Academy Colloquium presentation by analyzing the relationship of linkage and global environmental law, then drawing upon the global environmental law paradigm (or framing) to construct policy-relevant and forward-looking strategies for more successful environmental governance in the current context of global financial stress. The presentation will thus include both theoretical and practical analysis of the potential for globalization to reinvigorate environmental governance throughout the world.

Environmental law could arguably be considered the primary body of rules in GEG. Yet, in tandem with the globalisation (or transnationalisation) of law alongside a continuously disaggregating GEG effort, numerous other types of legal rules are assuming increased importance in the GEG paradigm. These include, for example, investment law, international organisational law, administrative law, trade law and humanitarian law, among others, and a host of reflexive, informal, non-state (yet law-like) rules such as the Equator Principles, at all levels of governance.

The hypothesis of this paper is that ‘traditional’ (national, regional and international) environmental law alone cannot continue to fulfil all the functions that law must fulfil in GEG. While environmental law will no doubt remain the predominant body of law in GEG, the emergence of a more coherent body of GEG instead requires an extended view of law in the global.

This paper proposes that global environmental governance law (GEGL) is a more suitable phenomenological conception that could cater for the diverse needs of disaggregated GEG. GEGL is an emerging amorphous body of law and it could include any sub-discipline of law to the extent that it is relevant to facilitating GEG or to achieve the objective of GEG. GEGL thus transcends and recasts the traditional disciplinary boundaries within and of law; the traditional geographical delineation of national, regional and international levels with respect to law; and the traditional sources of law into global rhetoric. It also necessitates rethinking the regulatory link between law and the objectives of law in the global environmental regulatory domain. In light of the foregoing, this paper:

• Explains ‘the global’ and its implications for environmental law and governance;
• Describes the disaggregated global architecture of GEG in the context of the global;
• Investigates the role of law in GEG;
• Investigates the globalisation of (environmental) law and the rise of GEGL;
• Proposes broad conceptual parameters for GEGL; and
• Describes what it understands under GEGL.

Despite the fact that the brown agenda falls within the purview of the protection afforded by international, regional and domestic environmental law, a number of judgments of the courts between 2009 and 2012[1] has shown that in South Africa, environmental law still remains largely unexplored in communities' efforts to judicially protect brown (agenda) interests. Curiously, in cases involving poor sanitation, inadequate access to water of good quality, and access to adequate housing and electricity, the affected parties to date, relied in most instances on non-environmental rights and law. This is notwithstanding the fact that South Africa has a very strong environmental law framework embedded in a widely construed enforceable constitutional environmental right (section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996).

In South Africa, local government is together with national and provincial authorities co-responsible for realising the constitutional environmental right of people. It is furthermore constitutionally mandated to provide services in a sustainable manner and to promote a safe and healthy environment (chapter 7 of the Constitution). A very firm constitutional and statutory basis is laid for local environmental governance, generally. As is the case in many other countries, the brown agenda falls within the constitutional mandate and scope of regulatory powers of local government that comprises of 284 municipalities. In fact, at the heart of local environmental governance lies the realisation of brown agenda objectives.

In spite of the relevant constitutional and environmental law provisions and the brown agenda mandate of local government, municipalities have battled in recent years to optimise local environmental governance across South Africa. It is widely acknowledged that at present, local governance (including local environmental governance) is in 'deep distress'. A whole range of political, governance, resource related and other socio-economic complexities is to be blamed. This status quo demands that existing local environmental governance approaches, tools and decision-making institutions be thoroughly revisited.

Against the background of the above, the proposed paper critically evaluates and discusses the recent extension and adaptation of corporate governance approaches, tools and institutions to fit public sector governance, including local (government) governance in South Africa. The paper specifically questions to what extent the implementation of the objectives and mandates of local government contained in the King Report on Governance for South Africa (2009) and the King Code of Governance Principles (2009) (together referred to as King III) is a viable way of improving local environmental governance and more specifically, of seeing by means of governance measures, to the protection of life-supporting brown agenda interests of local communities.

[1] These judgments include, amongst others: Mazibuko v The City of Johannesburg 2010 (3) BCLR 239 (CC); Joseph v City of Johannesburg 2010 (4) SA (CC); Nokotyana v Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality 2010 (4) BCLR 312 (CC) and Ntombentsha Beja v Premier of the Western Cape [2011] ZAWCHC 97.