Environmental Issues

Chapter 22

Environmental Issues

By John Vogler

Introduction

Environmental issues on the international agenda: a brief history

The functions of international environmental cooperation

Climate change

The environment and International Relations theory

Conclusion

Reader's Guide

As environmental problems transcend national boundaries they come to be a feature of interna­tional politics. This chapter indicates that environ­mental issues have become increasingly prominent on the international agenda over the last fifty years, assisted by the effects of globalization. It shows how this has prompted attempts to arrange cooperation

between states, and surveys the form and function of such activity with reference to some of the main international environmental regimes. Because climate change has become a problem of such enormous sig­nificance, a separate section is devoted to the efforts to create an international climate regime. This is fol­lowed by a brief consideration of how some of the theoretical parts of this book relate to international environmental politics.

What are Environmental issues? 

Environmental issues are harmful effects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the natural environment on individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans.

Introduction

Although humankind as a whole now appears to be living well above the earth’s carrying capacity, the ecological footprints of individual states vary to an extraordinary extent. See, for example, the unusual map of the world (Fig. 22.1), where the size of countries is proportionate to their carbon emissions. Indeed, if everyone were to enjoy the current lifestyle of the devel­oped countries, more than three additional planets would be required.

This situation is rendered all the more unsustainable by the process of globalization, even though the precise relationship between environmental degradation and the over-use of resources, on the one hand, and global­ization, on the other, is complex and sometimes con­tradictory. Globalization has stimulated the relocation of industry, population movement away from the land, and ever-rising levels of consumption, along with associ­ated emissions of effluents and waste gases. While often generating greater income for poorer countries export­ing basic goods to developed country markets, ever-freer trade can also have adverse environmental consequences, by disrupting local ecologies and livelihoods.

On the other hand, there is little evidence that glo­balization has stimulated a ‘race to the bottom’ in envi­ronmental standards, and it has even been argued that increasing levels of affluence have brought about local environmental improvements, just as birth rates tend to fall as populations become wealthier. Economists claim that globalization’s opening up of markets can increase efficiency and reduce pollution, provided that the envi­ronmental and social damage associated with produc­tion of a good is properly factored into its market price. Similarly, globalization has promoted the sharing of knowledge and the influential presence of non-govern- mental organizations (NGOs) in global environmental politics. Whatever the ecological balance sheet of global­ization, the resources on which human beings depend for survival, such as fresh water, a clean atmosphere, and a stable climate, are now under serious threat.

Global problems may need global solutions and pose a fundamental requirement for global environmen­tal governance, yet local or regional action remains a vital aspect of responses to many problems; one of the defining characteristics of environmental politics is the awareness of such interconnections and of the need to ‘think globally—act locally’. NGOs have been very active in this respect, as shown in Chapter 19 of this book.

Despite the global dimensions of environmental change, an effective response still has to depend on a fragmented international political system of over 190 sovereign states. Global environmental governance consequently involves bringing to bear inter-state rela­tions, international law, and international organizations in addressing shared environmental problems. Using the term ‘governance’—as distinct from government— implies that regulation and control have to be exercised in the absence of central government, delivering the kinds of service that a world government would provide if it were to exist. You should refer to Chapter 15 for the essential concepts employed in regime analysis, which is com­monly applied in the study of international governance.

Key Points

The current use and degradation of the earth's resources is unsustainable and closely connected in sometimes contradictory ways to the processes of globalization.

There are vast inequalities between rich and poor in their use of the earth's resources and in the ecological shadow or footprint that they impose on it.

The response at the international level is to attempt to provide global environmental governance. In a system of sovereign states, this involves international cooperation.

Environmental issues on the international agenda: a brief history

Before the era of globalization there were two tradi­tional environmental concerns: conservation of natural resources and the damage caused by pollution. Neither pollution nor wildlife respect international boundar­ies, and action to mitigate or conserve sometimes had to involve more than one state. There were also some (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to regulate exploitation of maritime resources lying beyond national jurisdic­tion, including several multilateral fisheries commis­sions and the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (see Box 22.1).

Post-Second World War global economic recovery brought with it evidence of new pollution, leading to international agreements in the 1950s and 1960s cov­ering such matters as discharges from oil tankers. This was, though, hardly the stuff of great power poli­tics. Such ‘apolitical’ matters were the domain of new United Nations Specialized Agencies, like the Food and Agriculture Organization, but were hardly central to diplomacy at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

However, in 1968 the UNGA agreed to convene what became the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) ‘to focus governments’ atten­tion and public opinion on the importance and urgency of the question’. This Conference led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the establishment of environment departments by many governments. Yet it was already clear that, for the countries of the South—constituting the majority in the UNGA—environmental questions could not be separated from their demands for development, aid, and the restructuring of international economic rela­tions. This provided the political basis for the concept

of sustainable development (see Box 22.2, also see Ch. 20). Before this was formulated by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 (WCED 1987), the environment had been edged off the international agenda by the global economic downturn of the 1970s and then by the onset of the second cold war (see Ch. 4).

By that time, new forms of transnational pollu­tion such as ‘acid rain’ were causing concern alongside dawning scientific realization that some environmen­tal problems—the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer and the possibility of climate change—were truly global in scale. The relaxation of East-West tension cre­ated the opportunity for a second great UN conference in 1992. It’s title, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) reflected the idea of sus­tainable development and an accommodation between the environmental concerns of developed states and the economic demands of the South. The 1992 UNCED or ‘Earth Summit’ was at the time the largest international conference ever held. It raised the profile of the envi­ronment as an international issue, while providing a platform for both Agenda 21 and international conven­tions on climate change and the preservation of biodi­versity. The most serious arguments at UNCED were over aid pledges to finance the environmental improve­ments under discussion. Rio also created a process at the UN to review the implementation of its agreements. The Commission on Sustainable Development was to meet at intervals and there were follow-up UNGA Special Sessions and full-scale conferences.
On UNCED’s tenth anniversary in 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) met at Johannesburg. The change of wording indicated how conceptions of environment and development had shifted since the 1970s. Now discussion was embedded in recognition of the importance of globalization and of the dire state of the African continent. The eradi­cation of poverty was clearly emphasized, along with practical progress in providing clean water, sanitation, and agricultural improvements. One controversial ele­ment was the role to be played in such provision by private-public sector partnerships. Ten years later, and in the shadow of a major downturn in the global economy, Rio+20 met in Brazil. It attracted little public attention, but it did resolve to set ‘sustainable development goals for the future’.

While the UN conferences marked the stages by which the environment entered the international politi­cal mainstream, they also reflected underlying changes in the scope and perception of environmental problems.

As scientific understanding expanded, it was becoming a commonplace, by the 1980s, to speak in terms of global environmental change, as most graphically represented by the discovery of the ozone hole’ and the creeping realization that human activities might be endanger­ing the global climate. Alongside actual environmental degradation and advances in scientific knowledge, the international politics of the environment has responded

to the issue-attention cycle in developed countries and the emergence of green political movements. They were fed by public reactions to what was seen as the industrial destruction of nature as exemplified by Rachel Carson’s influential book Silent Spring (1962). There was also a long series of marine oil spills and industrial accidents, which gave rise to popular alarm. The failure of estab­lished political parties to embrace these issues effec­tively encouraged the birth of several new high-profile NGOs—Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature—alongside more estab­lished pressure groups such as the US Sierra Club and the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In the developed world public attention waxed and waned, reviving in the early years of the twenty-first century as the spectre of climate change appeared. Here, as else­where, there were calls for international action and effective environmental governance, but what exactly did this entail? The next section attempts to answer this question by reviewing the functions of international environmental cooperation.

Key Points

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, international environmental politics was strictly limited, but from around 1960 its scope expanded as environmental problems acquired a transnational and then a global dimension.

The process was reflected in and stimulated by the three great UN conferences of 1972, 1992, and 2002, whose most important role was to make the connection between the international environmental and development agendas, as expressed in the important concept of sustainable development.

International environmental politics reflected the issue-attention cycle in developed countries and relied heavily on increasing scientific knowledge.

The functions of international environmental cooperation

International cooperation establishes governance regimes to regulate transboundary environmental problems and sustain the global commons. Regimes encompass more than formal agreements between states, although these are very important (see Ch. 15). Moreover, there are other functions and con­sequences of international cooperation beyond regime formation.

The pursuit of power, status, and wealth is rarely absent from international deliberations. This is often neglected in discussions of international environmental cooperation, even though many of the great international gatherings, and even some of the more mundane ones, clearly reflect struggles for national and organizational advantage. Organizations seek to maintain their financial and staff resources as well as their place within the UN system.

UNEP, for example, despite extensive debates over grant­ing it the higher and more autonomous status of a UN Specialized Agency, remains a mere Programme. Some suspect that much of the activity at international environ­mental meetings is simply to issue declarations convinc­ing domestic publics that something is being done, even if environmental conditions continue to deteriorate.

Transboundary trade and pollution control

When animals, fish, water, or pollution cross national frontiers, the need for international cooperation arises; the regulation of transboundary environmental problems is the longest-established function of international coop­eration, reflected in hundreds of multilateral, regional, and bilateral agreements providing for joint efforts to manage resources and control pollution. Prominent examples of multilateral environmental agreements MEAs) include the 1979 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention and its various protocols and conventions governing such things as the cross-border movement of hazardous waste and chemicals.

Controlling, taxing, and even promoting trade has always been one of the more important functions of the state, and trade restrictions can also be used as an instru­ment for nature conservation, as in the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The use of trade penalties and restrictions by MEAs has been a vexed issue when the objective of environmental protection has come into conflict with the rules of the GATT/World Trade Organization (WTO) trade regime (see Box 22.3 and Ch. 11). Such a problem arose when the international community attempted to address the controversial question of the new biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by developing the 2000 Cartagena Protocol to the UN Convention on Biodiversity. Opponents argued that measures to regu­late the movement of GMOs were an attempt to disguise protectionism rather than to safeguard the environ­ment and human health. Whether the WTO trade rules should take precedence over the emerging biosafety rules was debated at length until the parties agreed to avoid the issue by providing that the two sets of rules should be ‘mutually supportive’. The background to such arguments is a wider debate about the relationship between trade and the environment.

Norm creation

Over the last thirty years the development of international environmental law and associated norms of acceptable behaviour has been both rapid and innovative. Some are in the form of quite technical policy concepts that have been widely disseminated and adopted as a result of international discussion. The precautionary principle has gained increasing but not uncritical currency. Originally coined by German policy-makers, this principle states that where there is a likelihood of environmental dam­age, banning an activity should not require full and definitive scientific proof. (This was a critical issue in the discussions on GMOs mentioned above.) Another norm is that governments should give ‘prior informed consent’ to potentially damaging imports.

The UN Earth Summits were important in estab­lishing environmental norms. The 1972 Stockholm Conference produced its ‘Principle 21’ which combines sovereignty over national resources with state responsi­bility for external pollution. This should not be confused with Agenda 21, issued by the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, a complex forty-chapter document of some 400 pages that took two years to negotiate in UNCED’s Preparatory Committee. Agenda 21 was frequently derided, not least because of its non-binding character, but this interna­tionally agreed compendium of environmental ‘best practice’ subsequently had a wide impact and remains a point of reference. For example, many local authori­ties have produced their own ‘local Agenda 21s’. Under the Aarhus Convention (1998), member governments agreed to guarantee to their publics a number of environ­mental rights, including the right to obtain environmen­tal information held by governments, to participate in policy decisions, and to have access to judicial processes.

Aid and capacity building

Frequent North-South arguments since Rio about the levels of aid and technology transfer that would allow developing countries to achieve sustainable develop­ment have seen many disappointments and unfulfilled pledges. In 1991, UNEP, UNDP, and the World Bank created the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) as an international mechanism, specifically for funding envi­ronmental projects in developing countries. Most envi­ronmental conventions now aim at capacity building through arrangements for the transfer of funds, technol­ogy, and expertise, because many of their member states simply lack the resources to participate fully in interna­tional agreements. The stratospheric ozone and climate change regimes aim to build capacity and could not exist in their current form without providing for this function.

Scientific understanding

International environmental cooperation relies on shared scientific understanding, as reflected in the form of some important contemporary environmen­tal regimes. An initial framework convention will signal concern and establish mechanisms for develop­ing and sharing new scientific data, thereby provid­ing the basis for taking action in a control protocol. Generating and sharing scientific information has long been a function of international cooperation in such public bodies as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and myriad academic orga­nizations such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Disseminating scientific information on an interna­tional basis makes sense, but it needs funding from governments because, except in areas like pharmaceu­tical research, the private sector has no incentive to do the work. International environmental regimes usu­ally have standing scientific committees and subsid­iary bodies to support their work. Perhaps the greatest international effort to generate new and authoritative scientific knowledge has been in the area of climate change, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (see Box 22.6).

Governing the commons

The global commons are usually understood as areas and resources that do not fall under sovereign jurisdic­tion—they are not owned by anybody. The high seas and the deep ocean floor come into this category (beyond the 200-mile exclusive economic zone), as does Antarctica (based on the 1959 Antarctic Treaty). Outer space is another highly important common, its use being vital to modern telecommunications, broadcasting, navigation, and surveillance. Finally, there is the global atmosphere.

The commons all have an environmental dimension, as resources but also as ‘sinks’ that have been increas­ingly degraded. The fish and whale stocks of the high seas have been relentlessly over-exploited to the point where some species have been wiped out and long-term protein sources for human beings are imperilled. The ocean envi­ronment has been polluted by land-based effluent and oil, and other discharges from ships. It has been a struggle to maintain the unique wilderness of the Antarctic in the face of increasing pressure from human beings, and even outer space now faces an environmental problem in the form of increasing amounts of orbital debris left by decades of satellite launches. Similarly, the global atmo­sphere has been degraded in a number of highly threat­ening ways, through damage to the stratospheric ozone layer and, most importantly, by the enhanced green­house effect now firmly associated with changes to the earth’s climate. This is often characterized as a ‘tragedy of the commons’. Where there is unrestricted access to a resource that is owned by no one, there will be an incen­tive for individuals to grab as much as they can and, if the resource is finite, there will come a time when it is ruined by over-exploitation as the short-term interests of indi­vidual users overwhelm the longer-run collective interest in sustaining the resource (see Box 22.4).

Within the jurisdiction of governments it may be possible to solve the problem by turning the com­mon into private property or nationalizing it, but for the global commons such a solution is, by definition, unavailable. Therefore the function of international cooperation in this context is the very necessary one of providing a substitute for world government to ensure that global commons are not misused and subject to tragic collapse. This has been done through creating regimes for the governance of the global commons, which have enjoyed varying degrees of effectiveness. Many of the functions discussed above can be found in the global commons regimes, but their central con­tribution is a framework of rules to ensure mutual agreement between users about acceptable standards of behaviour and levels of exploitation, consistent with sustaining the ecology of the commons.

Enforcement poses difficult challenges due to the incentives for users to ‘free ride’ on these arrangements by taking more than a fair share, or refusing to be bound by the collective arrangements. This can potentially destroy regimes because other parties will then see no reason to restrain themselves either. In local commons regimes, inquisitive neighbours might deter rule-breaking, and a similar role at the international level can be performed by NGOs. However, it is very difficult to enforce compliance with an agreement on the part of sovereign states, even when they have undertaken to comply—a fundamental difficulty for international law and hardly unique to envi­ronmental regimes (see Ch. 14). Mechanisms have been developed to cope with this problem, but how effective they, and the environmental regimes to which they apply, can be is hard to judge, as this involves determining the extent to which governments are in legal and techni­cal compliance with their international obligations. Moreover, it also involves estimating the extent to which state behaviour has actually been changed as a result of the international regime concerned. Naturally, the ulti­mate and most demanding test of the effectiveness of global commons regimes is whether or not the resources or ecologies concerned are sustained or even improved.

For the Antarctic, a remarkably well-developed set of rules, designed to preserve the ecological integrity of this last great wilderness, has been devised within the frame­work of the 1959 Treaty. The Antarctic regime is a rather exclusive club: the Treaty’s ‘Consultative Parties’ include the states that had originally claimed sovereignty over parts of the area, while new members of the club have to demonstrate their involvement in scientific research on the frozen continent. Antarctic science was crucial to the discovery of a problem that resulted in what is per­haps the best example of effective international action to govern the commons. In 1985, a British Antarctic Survey balloon provided definitive evidence of serious thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer. A diminishing ozone layer is a global problem par excellence, because the layer protects the earth and its inhabitants from the damag­ing effects of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. A framework convention was signed about the issue in 1985, followed in 1987 by the Montreal Protocol, imposing international controls over ozone-depleting chemicals. The further evolution of the ozone layer regime offers the paramount example of how international cooperation can achieve an effective solution to a global environmental problem. The problem’s causes were isolated, international sup­port was mobilized, compensatory action was taken to ensure that developing countries participated, and a set of rules and procedures was developed that proved to be effective, at least in reducing the concentration of the offending chemicals in the atmosphere, if not yet fully restoring the stratospheric ozone layer (see Box 22.5).

Key Points

International environmental meetings serve several political objectives alongside environmental aims.

A key function of international cooperation is transboundary regulation, but attempts at environmental action may conflict with the rules of the world trade regime.

International action is needed to promote environmental norms, develop scientific understanding, and assist the participation of developing countries.

International cooperation is necessary to provide governance regimes for the global commons.

Climate change

Unlike the ozone layer problem, climate change and the enhanced greenhouse effect had long been debated among scientists, but only in the late 1980s did suf­ficient international consensus emerge to stimulate action. There were still serious disagreements over the likelihood that human-induced changes in mean temperatures were altering the global climate sys­tem. The greenhouse effect is essential to life on earth. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere insulate the earth’s surface by trapping solar radiation (see Fig. 22.2). Before the Industrial Revolution, carbon diox­ide concentrations in the atmosphere were around 280 parts per million, and have since grown continuously (to a 2011 figure of 391 ppm) due to burning of fossil fuels and reductions in some of the ‘sinks’ for carbon dioxide—notably forests. Methane emissions have also risen with the growth of agriculture (IPCC 2007: 11).

The best predictions of the IPCC are that, if nothing is done to curb intensive fossil fuel emissions, there will be a likely rise in mean temperatures of the order of 2.4-6.4°C by 2099.

The exact consequences of this are difficult to pre­dict on the basis of current climate modelling, but sea level rises and turbulent weather are generally expected. According to international consensus, the avoidance of dangerous climate change requires that global mean temperatures should not increase beyond 2°C. (Thai equates to keeping atmospheric C0₂ concentrations below 550 ppm.) In the first decade of the twenty-first century unusual weather patterns, storm events, and the melting of polar ice sheets have added a dimension of public concern to the fears expressed by the scientific community.

Climate change is really not a ‘normal’ international environmental problem—it threatens huge changes in living conditions and challenges existing patterns of energy use and security. There is almost no dimension of international relations that it does not actually or potentially affect, and it has already become the subject of ‘high politics’, discussed at G8 summits and in high-level meetings between political leaders, although its urgency has been obscured by the persistent problems of the global economy.

To understand the magnitude of the climate prob­lem, a comparison may be drawn with the stratospheric ozone-issue discussed in ‘The functions of international environmental cooperation’. There are some simi­larities. CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are in themselves greenhouse gases and the international legal texts on climate change make it clear that controlling them is the responsibility of the Montreal Protocol. Also, the experience with stratospheric ozone and other recent conventions has clearly influenced efforts to build a cli­mate change regime based on a framework convention followed by a protocol.

The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) envisaged the reduction of green­house gas emissions and their removal by sinks, hoping that a start could be made by including a commitment from the developed nations to cut their emissions back to 1990 levels by 2000. In a US election year this proved to be impossible, and the parties had to be content with a non-binding declaration that an attempt would be made. There was, however, a binding commitment for parties to draw up national inventories of sources and sinks. As this included the developing nations, many of whom were ill-equipped to fulfil this obligation, there was also funding for capacity building. The Convention also locked the parties into holding a continuing series of annual conferences—the CoPs—to consider possible actions and review the adequacy of existing commit­ments, supported by regular inter-sessional meetings of the subsidiary scientific and implementation bodies and working groups. By the second CoP in Kyoto in 1997, the parties agreed a ‘control’ measure—the Kyoto Protocol, involving emissions reductions by developed countries, facilitated by ‘flexibility mechanisms’ (see Box 22.7).

The problem faced by the framers of the Kyoto Protocol was vastly more complex and demanding than that which their counterparts at Montreal had con­fronted so successfully in 1987. Instead of controlling a single set of industrial gases for which substitutes were available, reducing greenhouse gas emissions would involve energy, transport, and agriculture—the funda­mentals of life in modern societies. Whether this must involve real sacrifices in living standards and ‘impos­sible’ political choices is a tough question for govern­ments, although there are potential economic benefits from cutting emissions through the development of alternative energy technologies.

A second difference from the ozone regime experi­ence was that, despite the unprecedented international scientific effort of the IPCC, there was no scientific consensus of the kind that had promoted agreement on CFCs. Disagreements over the significance of human activities and projections of future change have since narrowed dramatically, but there are still those who have an interest in denying or misrepresenting the sci­ence. Mistakes by the IPCC and its contributors have also damaged its authority. There is a further problem in that, even though the effects of climate change are not fully understood, there is enough evidence for some nations to calculate that there might be benefits to them from climatic alterations. Regions of Russia, for exam­ple, might become more temperate with rises in mean temperature (although one could equally well argue the extremely damaging effects of melting permafrost in Siberia). One generalization that could be made with certainty is that it is the developing nations, with lim­ited infrastructure and major populations located at sea level, that are most vulnerable. In recognition of this and on the understanding that a certain level of warm­ing is now inevitable, international attention has begun to shift towards the problem of ‘adaptation to the inevi­table effects of climate change as well as ‘mitigation’ of its causes. Once again, the comparative simplicity and uniformity of the stratospheric ozone problem is evi­dent—the effects of ozone depletion were spread across the globe and affected North Europeans as well as those living in the southern hemisphere.

At the heart of the international politics of climate change as a global environmental problem is the struc­tural divide between North and South (see Chs 8 and 23). For the Montreal Protocol there was a solution available at an acceptable price, delivered through the Multilateral Ozone Fund. Once again, climate change is different. One of the most significant principles set out in the UNFCCC was that of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (see Case Study 1). That is to say that, while climate change was the ‘common concern’ of all, it had been produced as a con­sequence of the development of the old industrialized nations and it was their responsibility to take the lead in cutting emissions.

The achievement at Kyoto was to bind most of developed nations to a set of varied emissions cuts. This achieved at least part of the objectives of the European Union, but it was soon seen to be wholly inadequate in terms of the projected scale of the global warming problem. In return, the Europeans Union accepted the US proposal for the Kyoto mechanisms and has since become their enthusiastic champion. When the Bush administration renounced the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, much of the burden of ensuring that Kyoto eventually entered into force fell upon the EU—and tested the diplomatic capabilities of this new type of international actor and its component member states. The EU also pioneered the world’s first international emissions trading system, both to achieve the EU’s Kyoto target of an 8 per cent reduction in emissions by 2012 and to encourage other countries to join the scheme.

The climate regime has been afflicted by the ‘free rider’ problem. If some countries join together and agree to make cuts that are costly, then others who do not can enjoy the environmental benefits of such action  without paying. Thus, proceeding without the USA has been very difficult, not only because it produces around one-quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions, but also because its failure to be involved affects the will­ingness of others to participate, and particularly the fast-developing economies of the South.

In 2007, at the Bali CoP, the problem of US partici­pation was addressed by a ‘road map’ in which parallel negotiations were set up on the future of the Convention and the Protocol, with the USA absent from the latter. The intention was to achieve a new agreement by the 2009 Copenhagen CoP, and the EU and other developed countries made pledges of future emissions reductions. Hopes were raised by the arrival of President Obama and his commitment to climate legislation in the USA, although not to the Kyoto Protocol. The Copenhagen experience revealed the extent of international structural change reflected in the emergence of the BASIC group of Brazil, South Africa, China, and India as key players in climate diplomacy. They, along with other develop­ing countries and AOSIS (see Case Study 2), contin­ued to demand the retention of Kyoto and substantial development aid to assist with mitigation and adapta­tion. At the same time developed countries backed away from further commitment to Kyoto and the stalemate was reflected in a weak ‘Copenhagen Accord’, which was very far from a new comprehensive and binding climate agreement. China and India offered more efficient use of fossil fuels but not actual reductions in their projected emissions. Two years later, at Durban in 2011, some progress was made with an agreement to conclude a new climate agreement by 2015. This was achieved by the EU in collaboration with a group of ‘progressive’ and least- developed countries and AOSIS. While the EU would continue with a new phase of Kyoto, the other major emitters, including the BASICs, agreed to negotiate on reducing their emissions. It appeared that the strict divi­sion between Annex 1 countries (see Case Study 1) and the rest had been overcome, but the relative lack of prog­ress over twenty years of the UNFCCC’s existence and the exigencies of the continuing global economic down­turn did not provide grounds for optimism. Meanwhile the scientific findings continue to stress the accelerating gravity of the climate problem.

Key Points

Climate change, because of its all-embracing nature and its roots in essential human activities, poses an enormous challenge for international cooperation.

A limited start was made with the Kyoto regime, but this was undermined by the absence of the USA. Although the 2009 Copenhagen Conference was a disappointment to climate activists, the 2011 Durban Platform held out the possibility that North-South differences might be resolved in a new comprehensive climate agreement.

The environment and international Relations theory

The neglect of environmental issues in traditional and realist IR theorizing is exemplified in Hans J. Morgenthau’s famous text, Politics among Nations (1955), which mentions the natural environment only as a fixed contextual factor or a constituent of national power.

However, over the last thirty years the academic study of the international relations of the environment has developed through the attempt to understand the circumstances under which effective international cooperation, for example the ozone regime, can occur. The preceding discussion of climate change shows that this question remains important. Most scholars have used the concept of regime as explained in Chapter 15. Note, for instance, how the defining characteristics of regimes—principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures—can be applied to the environmental cases mentioned in this chapter (see also Ch. 9). Those, such as Oran Young (1994), who try to explain the record of environmental regimes tend to adopt a liberal institutionalist stance, stressing as a key motivating fac­tor the joint gains arising from cooperative solutions to the problem of providing public goods such as a clean atmosphere. One important addition made by schol­ars of environmental politics to the regime literature reflects the importance of scientific knowledge and the roles of NGOs in this area. Whereas orthodox regime approaches assume that behaviour is based on the pur­suit of power or interest, students of international envi­ronmental cooperation have noted the independent role played by changes in knowledge (particularly scientific understanding). This cognitive approach is reflected in studies of the ways in which transnationally organized groups of scientists and policy-makers—often referred to as epistemic communities—have influenced the development of environmental regimes (see Ch. 9) (Haas 1990).

Liberal institutionalist analysis of regime creation makes the important, but often unspoken, assump­tion that the problem to be solved is how to obtain global governance in a fragmented system of sover­eign states. Marxist and Gramscian writers (Paterson 2001; Newell 2012) would reject this formulation (see Ch. 8). For them, the state system is part of the problem rather than the solution, and the proper object of study is the way in which global capitalism reproduces relationships that are profoundly damaging to the environment. The global spread of neo-liberal policies accelerates those features of glo­balization—consumerism, the relocation of production to the South, and the thoughtless squandering of resources—driving the global ecological crisis (see Ch. 20). Proponents of this view also highlight: the incapacity of the state to do anything other than assist these processes. It follows that the international cooperation efforts described here at worst legitimize this state of affairs and at best provide some marginal improvements to the devastation wrought by global capitalism. For example, they would point to how free market concepts are now routinely embed­ded in discussions of sustainable development and how the WTO rules tend to subordinate attempts to provide environmental regulation of GMOs. This argument is part of a broader debate among political theorists concerning whether the state can ever be ‘greened’ (Eckersley 2004). The opposing view would be that within any time frame that is relevant to cop­ing with a threat of the immediacy and magnitude of climate change, the state and international coopera­tion remain the only plausible mechanisms for pro­viding the necessary global governance, and that we shall simply have to do the best we can with exist­ing state and international organizational structures (Vogler 2005).

The other theoretical connection that must be made is to the pre-eminent concern of orthodox IR—security (see Ch. 12). This link can be thought of in two ways. First, it is argued that environmental change contributes to the incidence of internal con­flict and even inter-state war, even though the causal connections are complex and involve many factors. It is already evident that desertification and the degrada­tion of other vital resources are intimately bound up with cycles of poverty, destitution, and war in Africa. However, if we consider such predicted consequences  of climate change as mass migrations of populations across international boundaries and acute scarcity of water and other resources, the outlines of potential future conflicts come into sharper focus (see Chs 20 and 23).

The link between environmental change and armed conflict is essentially an extension of traditional thinking about security, defined in terms of collec­tive violence and attacks on the state (Homer-Dixon 1991,1994). A more intriguing question is whether we should now redefine the idea of security to encompass environmental threats as well as those stemming from terrorism and war (see Ch.12). The UK Chief Scientist once did this by arguing that climate change repre­sented a more significant threat than terrorism (King 2004). As the public becomes more sharply aware of the full magnitude of the climate problem, political discourse begins to ‘securitize’ (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde 1997) the environment—that is, to characterize the environment as a security problem. Because gov­ernments usually prioritize security matters, people wishing to mobilize political attention and resources, and encourage potentially painful societal adaptation, will be tempted to stretch established definitions of security.

Key points

The environment has been a growth area for IR scholars interested in identifying the conditions under which effective international cooperation can emerge.

Scholars differ in the importance that they attach to various kinds of explanatory factors in their analyses of international environmental regime-building activities-crude calculations of the power and interests of key actors such as states, cognitive factors such as shared scientific knowledge, the impact of non-governmental actors, and even the extent to which the system of states is itself part of the problem.

IR scholars are also interested in the extent to which the environment in general and particular environmental problems are now being seen as security issues in academic, political, and popular discourse, and whether this securitization of the environment is something to be welcomed.

Conclusion

This chapter has shown, briefly, how environmental issues have moved from the margins to an increasingly central place on the international agenda. Climate change is now widely perceived to be at least the equal of any other issue and arguably the most important raced by humankind. The rise to prominence of envi­ronmental issues is intimately associated with global­ization due to the strain that this places on the earth’s carrying capacity in terms of consumption levels, resource depletion, and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Globalization has also facilitated the growth of transnational green politics and interventions by N'GOs to raise public awareness, influence international conferences, and even monitor the implementa­tion of agreements by states.

At every stage, two distinctive aspects of interna­tional environmental politics have played a central role. The first is the complex relationship between scientific understanding of the biosphere, politics, and policy, as exemplified by the interplay between the IPCC and the actions of governments building the climate regime. The second is the connection between environment md development, which has been expressed in the

shifting meanings given to the concept of sustainable development and whose acknowledgement has been a precondition for international action on a whole range of environmental issues. Nowhere is this more evident than in debates about the future direction of the cli­mate regime.

The international response to environmental change has been in the form of attempts to arrange global envi­ronmental governance through extensive cooperation between governments. This chapter has attempted to provide some insight into the range and functions of such regime-creating activities, which provide a basis on which the international community is attempting to grapple with the climate problem. The academic community has generally followed this enterprise by concentrating on the question of how regimes may be formed and sustained. More critical theorists will take a different view of the meaning of international cooper­ation (see Ch. 8). Furthermore, the challenges posed to international theory by the global environmental pre­dicament will undoubtedly involve the need to think through the connections between security, climate change, and globalization.

Case Study 1

Common but differentiated responsibilities?

A key principle of the climate change regime, written into the 1992 UNFCCC, was the notion of 'common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities'. This meant that although all nations had to accept responsibility for the world's changing climate, it was developed (Annex 1) nations that were immediately responsible because they had benefited from the industrialization which was generally regarded as the source of the excess carbon dioxide emissions that had caused mean tem­perature increases (refer to Fig. 22.1).

In the 1990s, the USA emitted around 25 per cent of the global total but had only 4.5 per cent of global population. Chinese fig­ures were 14 per cent but with over 20 per cent of the world’s population, while the thirty-five least-developed nations emitted under 1 per cent. Under the Kyoto Protocol the developed countries were expected to make emissions cuts. However, by 2004 it was clear that an effective post-2012 regime would have to involve the fast-growing economies of the South because their 'respective capabilities' had changed. In terms of current CO_: emissions in 2011, six countries were responsible for over 70 per cent of the world total: China 29 per cent, US 16 per cent, EU 11 per cent, India 6 per cent, Russia 5 per cent, and Japan 4 per cent Finding a new basis for an equitable sharing of necessary emissions reductions is fraught with problems: (1) Because GHGs have long and variable atmospheric lifetimes, from thirty up to at least a hundred years, past emissions must also be taken into account Thus developing countries can argue that most of the allowable 'carbon space' has already been taken up by the historic emission of the old industrialized economies and that the latter should therefore, continue to take the lead. (2) Per capita emissions still vary widely between Northern and Southern economies. Treating them in the same way cannot be either just or politically acceptable. (3) A major part of current Chinese emissions are the direct result of the transfer of production of goods from the US and Europe. Who, therefore, bears the responsibility?

Case Study 2

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)

There are a number of key coalitions that operate in climate diplomacy, including the Umbrella Group of non-EU devel­oped countries, the Environmental Integrity Group, which includes Switzerland, South Korea, and Mexico, and the Group of 77/China, which has long attempted to represent the South in global negotiations. Because of the widening differences between its members, the G77/China often fractures into the BASIC countries, the fossil fuel exporters, less-developed mainly African countries, and AOSIS. The Alliance has played a dispro­portionately large role. Set up in 1990, its forty-four members may only represent about 5 per cent of world population but they are driven by an awareness that national survival is at stake. For members such as Nauru, Tuvalu, or Vanuatu, the sea level rise associated with climate change threatens inundation within the foreseeable future. AOSIS is an 'ad hoc lobby and negoti­ating voice' coordinated through the UN missions of its mem­bers. It was influential in the initial decision to set up the Kyoto Protocol and has agitated consistently for a 1,5°C rather than a 2°C threshold plus compensatory arrangements for loss and damage caused by climate change. After the Copenhagen CoP in 2009 AOSIS was involved with the EU, Australia, and a range of other progressive and less-developed countries in setting up the Cartagena Dialogue. This provided a diplomatic basis for the Durban Platform agreed in 2011.

Box 22.1

Chronology

1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling

1956 UK Clean Air Act to combat 'smog' in British cities

1958 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil

1959 Antarctic Treaty

1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring

1967 Torrey Canyon oil tanker disaster

1969 Greenpeace founded

1971 At the Founex Meeting in Switzerland, Southern experts formulate a link between environment and development

1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm Establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

1973 MARPOL Convention on oil pollution from ships

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)

1979 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention (LRTAP)

1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention (enters into force in 1994)

1984 Bhopal chemical plant disaster

1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer The Antarctic 'ozone hole' confirmed

1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster

1987 Brundtland Commission Report

Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer 1988 1988 Establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

1989 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes

1991 Madrid Protocol (to the Antarctic Treaty) on Environmental Protection

1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held at Rio de Janeiro. Publication of the Rio Declaration and Agenda 27. United Nations Conventions on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Biological Diversity (CBD) both signed. Establishment of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

1995 World Trade Organization (WTO) founded

1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC

1998 Rotterdam Convention on Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides

Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in

Environmental Matters

2000 Cartagena Protocol to the CBD on Biosafety

Millennium Development Goals set out

2001 US President Bush revokes signature of the Kyoto Protocol

2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg; Johannesburg Plan of Implementation

2005 Entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol and introduction of the first international emissions trading system by the

European Union

2006 International discussions commenced on the climate change regime after 2012

2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC; Bali CoP produces a 'road map' for climate negotiations

2009 Copenhagen climate CoP fails to provide a new international agreement

2010 Nagoya Protocol to the CBD on access and benefit sharing

2011 Durban climate CoP aims to produce a new agreement by 2015

2012 Rio+20 Conference

Box 22.2

Sustainable development

Over fifty separate definitions of sustainable development have been counted. Its classic statement was provided by the A 987 Brundtiand Commission Report:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (Brundtland et al. 1987:43)

Behind it lay an explicit recognition of limitations to future growth that were social, technological, and environmental. In addressing them, emphasis was placed on needs, and the highest priority was given to those needs experienced by the world's poor. Central to the concept was the idea of fairness between generations as well as between the rich and poor cur­rently inhabiting the planet.

By the time of the 2002 World Summit the concept had been subtly altered:

to ensure a balance between economic development, social development and environmental protection as interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development.

(UNGA, A/57/532/add.l, 12 December 2002)

Box 22.3

Trade and the environment

The issue of the relationship between trade and environ­mental degradation is much broader than disputes over the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and particular multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Globalization is partly shaped by the efforts of the GATT/WTO to open up protected markets and expand world trade. Many green activists argue that trade itself damages the environment by destroying local sustainable agriculture and by encouraging the environmentally damaging long-range transport of goods. The rearrangement of patterns of production and consump­tion has indeed been one of the hallmarks of globalization. Liberal economists and apologists for the WTO claim that if the 'externalities', such as the pollution caused, can be factored into the price of a product, then trade can be beneficial to the environment through allowing the most efficient allocation of resources. In this view, using trade restrictions as a weapon to promote good environmental behaviour would be unacceptable-and, indeed, the rules of the WTO allow only very limited restrictions to trade on environmental grounds (GATT XXg), and certainly not on the basis of 'process and produc­tion methods'. A number of trade dispute cases have largely confirmed that import controls cannot be used to promote more sustainable or ethical production abroad, including the famous 1991 GATT Tuna-Dolphin case which upheld Mexican and EC complaints against US measures blocking imports of tuna caught with the methods that kill dolphins as by-catch. Developing-country governments remain resistant to green trade restrictions as a disguised form of protection for devel­oped world markets.

Box 22.4

The tragedy of the commons-local and global                    

Many writers, including Garrett Hardin (1968), who coined the term 'tragedy of the commons', have observed an inherent con­flict between individual and collective interest and rationality in the use of property that is held in common. Hardin argued that individual actions in exploiting an ‘open access' resource will often bring collective disaster as the pasture, fish stock (common pool), or river (common sink) concerned suffers eco­logical collapse through over-exploitation. Of course, no prob­lem will be perceived if the 'carrying capacity' of the common is sufficient for all to take as much as they require, but this is rarely now the case due to the intensity of modern exploitation and production practices, and recent scientific advances have sharpened humankind's appreciation of the full extent of the damage imposed on the earth's ecosystems. Hardin's solution to the dilemma-enclosure of the commons through privati­zation or nationalization-has only limited applicability in the case of the global commons, for two main reasons: it is physi­cally or politically impossible to enclose them, and there is no central world government to regulate their use.

Box 22.5

The Montreal Protocol and stratospheric ozone regime

The thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer arose from a pre­viously unsuspected source-artificial chemicals containing fluo­rine, chlorine, and bromine, which were involved in chemical reaction with ozone molecules at high altitudes. Most significant were the CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), which were developed in the 1920s as 'safe' inert industrial gases and which had been blithely produced and used over the next fifty years for a whole variety of purposes, from refrigeration to air-conditioning and as propellants for hairspray. There was no universal agreement on the dangers posed by these chemicals and production and use continued-except, significantly, where the US Congress decided to ban some non-essential uses. This meant that the US chemical industry found itself under a costly obligation to find alternatives. As evidence on the problem began to mount, UNEP convened an international conference in Vienna. It produced a 'frame­work convention' agreeing that international action might be required and that the parties should continue to communicate and develop and exchange scientific findings. These proved to be very persuasive, particularly with the added public impetus provided by the dramatic discovery of the Antarctic 'ozone hole'.

Within two years the parties agreed to a Protocol under which the production and trading of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances would be progressively phased out. The developed countries achieved this for CFCs by 1996 and Meetings of the Parties (MoP) have continued to work on the elimination of other substances since that time. There was some initial resist­ance from European chemical producers, but the US side had a real incentive to ensure international agreement because other­wise its chemical industry would remain at a commercial disad­vantage. The other problem faced by the negotiators involved developing countries, which themselves were manufacturing CFC products. They were compensated by a fund, set up in 1990, to finance the provision of alternative non-CFC technologies for the developing world.

The damage to the ozone layer will not be repaired until the latter part of the twenty-first century, given the long atmospheric lifetimes of the chemicals involved. However, human behaviour has been significantly altered to the extent that the scientific sub­sidiary body of the Montreal Protocol has been able to report a measurable reduction in the atmospheric concentration of CFCs.

Box 22.6

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Set up in 1988 under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UNEP, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Charge (IPCC) brings together the majority of the world's climate change scientists in three working groups: on climate science, impacts, and economic and social dimen­sions. They have produced assessment reports in 1990, 1995, and 2001, which are regarded as the authoritative scientific statements on climate change. The reports are carefully and cautiously drafted with the involvement of government repre­sentatives, and represent a consensus view.

The Fourth Assessment Report, published in February 2007, concluded that 'warming of the climate system is unequivo­cal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global sea level’ (IPCC 2007: 4). Most of the temperature increase 'is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations' PCC 2007: 8, original italics). The Fifth IPCC report will be completed in 2013-14.

Box 22.7

The Kyoto Protocol

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change committed the developed countries to make an average of a 5.2 per cent cut in their greenhouse gas emissions from a 1990 baseline by 2012. Within this, different national targets were negotiated: for example, 7 per cent for the USA and 8 per cent for the European Union (EU). This was to be achieved by emissions trading (the EU set up its own sys­tem in 2005) and by complex offsetting arrangements-Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Unfortunately, by 2012, the only major signatory still committed to the Protocol and its extension was the EU.

Questions

What are the possible connections, both negative and positive, between globalization and environmental change?

Why did environmental issues appear on the international agenda and what were the key turning points?

How would you interpret the meaning of sustainable development?

How can regime concepts be applied to the study of international environmental cooperation (also see Ch. 15)?

Can international trade and environmental protection ever be compatible?

Why did the framework convention/control protocol prove useful in the cases of stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change?

How does the 'tragedy of the commons' analogy help to illustrate the need for governance of the global commons?

Describe the 'free rider' problem in relation to the climate change regime.

Can 'common but differentiated responsibilities' continue to be relevant to the future climate change regime?

Consider the possible security implications of the climate predictions made by IPCC.

Further Reading

Barnett, J. (2001), The Meaning of Environmental Security: Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security Era (London: Zed Books). This lively and critical book is for readers who wish to explore the growing connections between environmental and security issues.

Barry, J., and Eckersley, R. (eds) (2005), The State and the Global Ecological Crisis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). A provocative set of essays on the continuing relevance of the state, long forsaken by green activists, but still the fundamental unit of global environmental governance.

Birnie, P., and Boyle, A. (2002), International Law and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press). An invaluable source of detailed information on formal aspects of international environmental cooperation.

Brenton, T. (1994), The Greening of Machiavelli: The Evolution of International Environmental Politics (London: Earthscan). A diplomatic participant's account of the international politics of the environment up to and including the Rio Earth Summit.

Dauvergne, P. (ed.) (2012), Handbook of Global Environmental Politics: Second Edition

(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar). This very extensive collection of thirty essays covering states' governance and security, capitalism, trade and corporations, civil societies, knowledge, and ethics will provide the reader with a more 'advanced' view of current concerns and controversies in the field.

de Sombre, B. (2006), Global Environmental Institutions (Abingdon: Routledge). Provides a concise introduction within a series on global governance.

Elliott, L. (2004), The Global Politics of the Environment (Basingstoke: Palgrave). This

comprehensive and up-to-date text provides detailed and wide-ranging coverage of the field and of the key international agreements.

Rutting, G. (ed.) (2011), Global Environmental Politics: Concepts, Theories and Case Studies (Abingdon and New York: Routledge). This collection pursues many of the themes in this chapter in greater depth.

Newell, P. (2012), Globalization and the Environment: Capitalism, Ecology and Power (Cambridge: Polity Press). Examines the relationship between globalization and the environment from a historical materialist and political ecology viewpoint.

O’Neill, K. (2009), The Environment and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press). An excellent and comprehensive review of the theoretical literature in the field.

Vogler, J. (2000), The Global Commons: Environmental and Technological Governance (Chichester: John Wiley). Uses regime analysis to compare and account for the various international arrangements for the ocean, Antarctic, space, and atmospheric commons.

Online Resource Centre

Visit the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book to access more learning resources on this chapter topic at www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/baylis6exe/