Negative externalities à environmental
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
POLITICS
PAMELA S. CHASEK, DAVID L. DOWNIE, JANET WELSH
BROWN
§ HISTORY OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL
POLITICS
- ¬1980s: global environmental problems as minor issues
in both
o National interest
o International relations
- ®1980s: became a major aspect of world politics
- CAUSES OF BECOMING SIGNIFICANT:
1. Rise of environmental movements in the
industrialized countries
2. Expanded scientific understanding of humanity’s
increasing impact on the biosphere
3. Explosive growth of economic opportunity after
the World War II
4. Appearance of well-publicized global
environmental threats
• Depletion of ozone layer
• Global climate change
• World fisheries’ decline
§ “GLOBAL” ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
- CHARACTERISTICS
1) Significance of veto power
2) State actors affect the political dynamics
in the production, use, or international
trade of a particular product
3) Economic power is more useful than
military power
4) Importance of public opinion & non-
profit NGOs
- Environmental problems do not respect national
boundaries
- Transboundary air pollution, degradation of shared
rivers, pollution of oceans and seas
- Sources, consequences, and actors involved can be local,
regional or global.
o Sources/ consequences transcend more than
one international region.
o Actors involved in creating/addressing the
problem transcend more than one region.
- MAIN ACTORS
1) States
2) International Organizations
3) Environmental NGOs
4) Corporations and Industry Groups
5) Scientific Bodies
6) Important Individuals
- 2 WAYS IN VIEWING GEP
1) Economist
2) Political Scientist
- GEP IN THE ECONOMIST’S POV
o Environmental problems represent negative
externalities.
§ Externalities: unintended
consequences/ side effects of one’s
actions that are borne by others.
Have always existed but with the
rapid growth it became critical.
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o
degradation = tragedy of the commons
o Tragedy of the commons because the
overgrazing of the unrestricted common
lands is the metaphor for the
overexploitation of the earth’s land, air, and
after resources.
§ Without sufficient
knowledge/structures to restrain
them, people will logically pursue
their interest in utilizing the Earth’s
common resources until they are
destroyed like in the tragedy of
commons.
- GEP IN THE POLITICAL SCIENTIST’S POV
1) Commons
2) Shared natural resources
3) Transboundary externalities
4) Linked issues
o Commons: the natural resources and vital
life-support that belong to all humankind
rather than any one country. Either;
1) Geographically limited (Antarctica)
2) Global in scope (ozone layer, climate
system)
o Shared natural resources: physical/biological
systems that extend into or across the
jurisdiction of two or more states.
§ Includes nonrenewable resources
(oil beneath earth’s surface);
renewable resources (animals);
complex ecosystems (regional seas)
o Transboundary externalities: activities that
occur wholly within the jurisdiction of
individual states but produce results
affecting the environment/people in other
states.
§ Includes the consequences of
environmental accidents (Nuclear
explosion, cyanide contamination)
and transnational air pollution,
biological diversity loss, etc.
o Linked issues: cases where efforts to deal
with environmental concerns have
unintended consequences affecting other
regimes and vice versa
§ Link between efforts to protect the
environment and those promoting
economic development/trade
among countries
§ SIGNIFICANCE OF VETO POWERS
- For every global environmental issue, there exists one or
more states whose cooperation is so essential to a
successful agreement for coping with the problem that it
has the potential to block strong international action.
- Veto: blocking—important because powerful states then
cannot impose an agreement to less powerful states as the
latter can demand compensation and other forms of
favorable treatment
o However, richer economic powers have the
ability to provide or deny funding for a
particular regime
- Veto Coalitions: when states oppose to an agreement or try
to weaken it significantly (bargaining & negotiation)
§ STATE ACTORS & POLITICAL DYNAMICS
- Relationship between industrialized countries and
developing countries may provide trade patterns in the
production or export of countries.
 o Example: In the issue of international - Relationship is not fixed but depends on other factors than
hazardous waste trading (industrialized population (ex. Resource extraction). However, the growth
countries exports the waste and developed of human population over the last 100 years significantly
countries are the potential imports) affected he environment and will continue to do so as it
§ ECONOMIC POWER > MILITARY POWER increases the demand while decreasing the resources.
ECONOMIC POWER MILITARY POWER ­ Demand for resources
Can affect the positions of Not really that influential
states & outcomes of ­ Production of waste
bargaining ­ Emission of pollution
Ability o give or withhold
economic benefits like
­ Private consumption expenditures
access to markets/economic Private Consumption Expenditures:
o
assistance the amount households spend on goods and
services
§ PUBLIC OPINION & NGOs
§ Positive Effect: growth in the
- Environmental issues, like human rights issues have
mobilized the active political interest or large numbers of standard of living
§ Negative Effect: aggregate human
citizens in inducing shifts in policies.
consumption of natural resources
- Public opinion through electoral politics and NGOs can
contribute to national negotiating positions and global o CAUSES OF POPULATION GROWTH
§ Fertility trends
bargaining as well as implementation strategies.
a) Economic development
§ MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT
b) Education
- Examined the health of the world’s ecosystem and the
c) Widespread disease
consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being
d) Policies
- Sponsored by UN and other international organizations in
o CAUSES OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION
2001
1. Industrial expansion
§ ECONOMIC GROWTH & ENVIRONMENTAL
2. Infrastructure improvement
EFFECTS
3. High population growth
1) Burning of fossil fuels
b. Coal 4. Urbanization
5. Rising incomes
c. Oil
d. Natural gas o EFFECTS OF ENERGY & FUEL
CONSUMPTION
2) Air and water pollution
§ Positive: people can purchase
3) Release of ozone-destroying chemicals
4) Production of toxic chemicals energy-consuming appliances and
cars
5) Increased natural resource consumption
6) Decreased forest cover § Negative: aggregate human
consumption, energy-related
§ GLOBAL MACROTRENDS
emissions of CO2
- Describes key factors that drive global environmental
politics o EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL
DEGRADATION
1) Population
§ Implications for climate change and
2) Resource Consumption
pollution
3) Waste Production
- WORLD COUNTRIES’ CONTRIBUTION
- “ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT”
o Richest countries use 11x more energy than
o One way to measure the impact of humanity
the poorest ones; compromise only 18% of
à environment
the world population but use half its energy
o Measures humanity’s demands on the
biosphere by comparing its consumption o Developing countries projects 2/3 more
against Earth’s regenerative emissions than industrialized countries as
they remain to be the biggest users of coal
capacity/biocapacity
o EMERGING ECONOMIES
o Measures the cropland, grazing land, forest,
fishing grounds required to produce the 1) Brazil
2) China
food, fiber and timber
3) India
- “ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT”
o Humanity’s annual demand on the natural 4) Indonesia
world exceed the Earth’s biocapacity 5) Russia
6) South Africa
o It takes the Earth 1.5 years to regenerate the
renewable sources that we use & absorb the o UNITED STATES:
waste we produce § Uses 20% of the world’s fossil fuel
resources
§ POPULATION GROWTH & RESOURCE
o CHINA, UNITED STATES, INDIA:
CONSUMPTION
largest total national carbon footprints
- Population Growth ¬® Environmental § NATURAL RESOURCES AND POLLUTION
Degradation - “CARBON FOOTPRINT”
1) Stress on natural resources o Measure of the impact that activities have on
(fresh air, water, arable lands, fisheries) climate change
2) Stress on vital natural systems o Largest aggregate impact humans have on
(ozone layer, climate system) the biosphere
3) Converts forests into agricultural land o Coal: most carbon intensive of fuels
and urban areas
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 1) Primary Footprint: sum of direct emissions of
carbon dioxide
a. Burning of fossil fuels for energy
consumption
b. Transportation
2) Secondary Footprint: sum of indirect emissions of
greenhouse gases during the lifecycle of products
a. Those emitted during production of
packaging like plastic for wattle bottles
- MARINE STRESSES
o Absolute water scarcity, crop irrigation,
overfishing, overexploited fish stocks and
extinction of species
- LAND STRESSES
o Scarce lands à intensive agriculture à
higher levels of irrigation and chemicals à
soil erosion and salinization à
deteriorating water quality &
desertification + increased food prices à
starvation, severe hunger, malnutrition
o NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS:
1) Land degradation
2) Water shortages
3) Increasing demands for food
o Agricultural lands for urbanization demand
for lumber and fuelwood; deforestation;
land-based pollutants
o Deforestation:
§ Destruction of tropical forests for
agriculture
§ Contributed to the loss of
biodiversity
§ Extinction of species and loss of
genetic diversity
o Land-based Pollutants:
1) Synthetic organic compounds
2) Excess sedimentation from mining,
deforestation, agriculture
3) Biological contaminants in sewage
4) Excessive nutrients from fertilizer and
sewage
o Wetlands:
§ Serves as important sources of drinking
water, natural sinks for carbon dioxide,
fish nurseries, natural irrigation for
agriculture, water cleansing systems,
protection against floods and storms
§ Increasingly filled/destroyed to make
way for buildings/farms
§ Ramsar Convention: international
treaty dedicated for the protection of
wetlands
- RISING FOOD PRICES
o Causes: rising demand, changes in weather
patterns, use of food crops for biofuels,
policies including subsidies, intellectual
property rights and patents
§ Biofuel: liquid renewable fuels such
as ethanol and biodiesel can
substitute for petroleum-based fuels
• Can have significant
economic and ecological
benefits but it still
consumes significant
amounts of pesticides,
fertilizer, water and energy
that creates a large carbon
footprint
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§ Weather: extreme weather events
affects international food prices
1) Russian heat wave
2) Brazil dry weather
3) United States drought
- URBANIZATION
o ­ urbanization; ­ air & water pollution; ­
natural resources consumption
o Often strains the capacity of local and
national governments to provide even basic
services to urban residents as municipal
waste systems cannot keep pace with urban
expansion
§ STATE’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES
- Some states are less motivated than others in participating
internationally to combat environmental threats.
- FACTORS:
1) Internal economic & political forces
2) Foreign policy goals
3) Impact of international organizations, NGOs, and
corporations
§ INTERNATIONAL REGIMES
- Regime:
o Essentially international policy, regulatory,
and administrative systems
o Even though states are the dominant actors
in international system, they aren’t the only
actors involved in creation/implementation
o These elements form the entire suite of
principles, norms, rules, and procedures that
govern and guide behavior o the particular
issue
- 2 DEFINITIONS
1) Regime is a set of norms, rules, or decision-making
procedures—explicit/implicit—that produces some
convergence in the actors’ expectations in a particular
issue area.
o May be applied to a wide range of
international arrangements (monetary
relations, superpower security relations)
o Criticism: includes arrangements that are
merely patterned interactions, operational
frameworks and methods to agree to
disagree with no long-term stability
2) Regime is a system of principles, norms, rules, operating
procedures and institutions that actors create to regulate
and coordinate action in a particular issue area of
international relations.
o Principles: beliefs of fact, causation,
rectitude
o Norms: standards of behavior
o Rules: specific prescriptions/proscriptions
for action
o Operating Procedures: prevailing practices
for work within the regime, including
methods for making and implementing
collective choice
o Institutions: mechanisms and organizations
for implementing, operating, evaluating, and
expanding the regime and its policy
- REGIME THEORIES
1) Structural Anarchy
2) Constitutionalists
3) International Law
4) Functionalism
§ STRUCTURAL ANARCHY
- Concern for the impact & mitigation of structural anarchy
and difficulty of establishing international cooperation
- Anarchy: absence of hierarchy, lack of world government/
structures to govern international politics
§ CONSTITUTIONALISTS
- Those who study treaties and formal structure of
international organizations, and from researchers
employing the institutional process approach
concentrating on examining how an organization’s day-t0-
day practices, processes, and methods of operation
influence outcomes
§ INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Extensive common interests exist despite structural
anarchy and scholars and statesmen must learn how these
interests can be realized
- Present in 18th century enlightened optimism, 19th
century liberalism, and 20th century Wilsonian
idealism
- Influenced a branch of legal and political scholarship
concerned with world order and international law that
argued that custom, pattern interaction and the needs and
wants of the civilian populations are important sources of
international law and require the respect of states.
§ FUNCTIONALISM
- David Mitrany
o Scholarly and political focus of international
cooperation must center not on formal
interstate politics but on providing
opportunities for technical (nonpolitical)
cooperation among specialists and
specialized organizations to solve common
problems
§ Such technical cooperation can
begin in increasing
interdependence and spillover as it
presents more opportunities in
organizing government functions
internationally and technically than
nationally and politically—a process
that will slowly erode or bypass
domestic regulators in favor of
global institutions
§ Spillover: technical management in
one area begetting technical
management in another
o Criticisms: inadequate to explain the totality
of actions and outcomes in international
system where politics is always a factor as
states don’t want to relinquish control and
technological determinism hasn’t responded
automatically to all aspects of increasing
interdependence.
o Advantage: influenced some important
theoretical approaches:
1) Neofunctionalist Integration Theory
2) Transnational Relations Theory
3) Turbulent Fields
4) Complex Interdependence
5) Regimes
- NEOFUNCTIONALIST INTEGRATION THEORY
o Ernst Haas
§ Interplay of knowledge, learning,
and politics is critical to
understanding & managing
turbulent issue areas and the
conduct and adaptability of
international organizations created
to address them
o Critiques and extended functionalism
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o Gradual, regional integration is the most
important in understanding and creating
effective international governance
o Added politics and regional encapsulation to
functionalist strategies emphasizing spillover
and managed advancements
- TRANSNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY
o Nongovernmental interconnections and
interactions across national boundaries
o Interdependence can fracture international
politics into distinct issue areas
o States are neither the only important actors
in international politics nor even totally
“coherent” actors
- COMPLEX INTERDEPENDENCE
o Robert Keohane
o Joseph Nye
o Alternative to realism as paradigm for
understanding international relations
- REGIMES
o Should be properly defined, examined, and
explained.
§ If international relations are
increasingly interdependent,
influenced by new types of actors
and interactions, and fractured into
issue areas across which power and
interests vary, then how actors
choose to manage these issue
areas—the regimes they create to
manage them—becomes important
in the study of international
politics.
o Ernst Hass: collective arrangements among
nations designed to create or more effectively
use scientific and technical capabilities.
o Robert Keohane & Joseph Nye: network of
rules, norms, and procedures that regulate
behavior
§ INTERNATIONAL REGIMES
- A set of mutual expectations, rules and regulations, plans,
organizational energies, and financial commitments
which have been accepted by a group of states;
o by creating or accepting procedures, rules or
institutions for certain kinds of activity,
governments regulate and control
transnational and interstate relations
(governing arrangements)
- Rules apply not just to states and international
organizations but also private entities
o States’ responsibility to ensure private
entities within their jurisdiction comply with
the norms and rules of the regime
1) Multinational corporations
2) Bank
3) Timber companies
4) Chemical companies
- made through MULTILATERAL NEGOTIATIONS
o Negotiations occur when states consider the
status quo unacceptable or to prevent
negative consequences & high costs. States
will not go to negotiations if they won’t gain
something or if what they lose is far greater
than what they will gain.
- LEGAL INSTRUMENT/BINDING AGREEMENT
o Convention: most common legal instrument
in GEP
 § May contain all binding obligations
expected or it may be followed by a
more detailed legal instrument
o Protocol: more detailed, elaborates specific
norms and rules
o Framework Convention: if the convention is
negotiating one or more subsequent
elaborating texts
§ Do not impose major binding
obligations—will be followed by
negotiation of one or more
protocols providing specific
obligations
§ Establish a set of general principles,
norms, goals for cooperation on the
issue as well as how members of the
regimes will meet and make
decisions (Conference of the
Parties) + could be with observers
1) Regular
2) Annual
3) Biannual
o Soft Law: nonbinding agreement that can
form the core of a regime to the extent that it
establishes norms that influence state
behavior
§ Agenda 21 (Earth Summit 1992): a
soft law umbrella regime for
worldwide sustainable development
§ Although nonbinding agreements
can influence state behavior, legal
instruments are usually more
effective
- THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO
INTERNATIONAL REGIMES
o These are solely based on a unitary actor
model (states) ignoring the roles of domestic
sociopolitical structures and processes likely
to form complete basis and predict outcomes
of global environmental bargaining.
o A fully complete theoretical explanation for
global environmental regime formation or
change must incorporate the state actor’s
domestic politics.
o “Two-level game”: domestic politics and
international relations
1) Structural
2) Game-theoretic
3) Institutional-bargaining
4) Epistemic community
- STRUCTURAL/HEGEMONIC POWER
o Criticism: not useful in explaining global
environmental regimes
§ United States did not seek to create
many environmental regimes
despite being a superpower
o Primary factor in determining regime
formation and change is the relative
strength of the state actors involved
o Stronger states will dominate weaker ones
and determine the rules of the game
o Strong international regimes are a function
of a hegemonic state that can exercise
leadership over weaker states and absence of
such is likely to frustrate regime formation
o 2 APPROACHES
1) Coercive Power: regimes are set up by
hegemonic states that use their military
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and economic leverage over other states
to bring them into regimes
2) Public Goods: postwar regimes as the
result of hegemonic power’s adopting
policies that create public goods that
benefits to all states who wants to
participate
- GAME THEORY & UTILITARIAN MODES OF
BARGAINING
o Bargaining scenarios depend on the
conditions involved & assumes they are
rational and interconnected
1. Number of parties
involved
2. Nature of conflict (zero-
sum/non-zero-sum)
o Argues that small states or coalitions are
more likely to succeed in negotiating an
international regime because each player can
understand more readily the bargaining
strategies of other players
o Nevertheless, for environmental regime to
succeed, it must include all states that have a
large impact on the issue including possible
veto states
- EPISTEMIC-COMMUNITIES MODEL
o Transnational communities of experts
sharing common values and approaches to
policy problems
o International learning and transnational
networks of experts and bureaucrats on the
basis of scientific research into a given
problem as the factor influencing the
evolution of regimes
- PARADIGMS IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL
POLITICS
o Paradigms: set of beliefs, ideas and values
o Paradigm Shift: contradictions within the
dominant paradigm results to this process of
giving way to a new paradigm
§ Perhaps there is no real dominant
paradigm; multiple paradigms exist
today and compete for primacy
§ However, these paradigms will
reflect the paradigmatic transition
from exclusionist premises to
sustainable development and
precaution
1) Exclusionist Paradigm (dominant)
2) Environmental Consciousness/Limits-to-Growth
Perspective (transition)
3) Sustainable Development (alternative)
4) Globalization (Paradigm Shift)
5) Green Economy Paradigm
6) Environment and Security Paradigm
7) Precautionary Principle
- EXCLUSIONIST PARADIGM
o Dominant paradigm because it dominated
public understanding of environmental
management during a time of rapid global
economic growth for two centuries
§ Excludes humans from the laws of
nature
§ 2 JUSTIFICATIONS
1) State sovereignty
2) Unrestricted access to Earth’s
common resources
o Frontier economics: unlimited resources
of society living on an open frontier
 o System of beliefs about economics
o Free market will tend to maximize social
welfare and there is an infinite supply of both
natural resources and “sinks” where to
dispose the wastes of the former
o Considers the environment irrelevant to
economics
- ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS (1960s-70s)
o 1960s: attacked the dominant paradigm (US
to Europe with the publication of Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962)
§ Attacked it but did not produce a
widely accepted set of alternative
assumptions about physical and
economic realities
o STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE 1972
§ First global environmental
conference in history (United
Nations Conference on the Human
Environment)
§ “Only One Earth”
§ Marked the beginning of NGOs and
IOs dedicated to environmental
preservation
o LIMITS-TO-GROWTH PERSPECTIVE
§ If current trends continued, many
ecosystems and natural resources
would become seriously and
irreversibly degraded and would
result to negative economic
consequences
1) Limits to Growth (Club of
Rome)
2) Global 2000: The Report to
the President
- SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM
(mid-1980s)
o Search for an alternative paradigm
§ Transition to sustainable systems of
natural resource management,
efforts to stabilize world population
§ Intergenerational Equity:
future generations have an equal
right to use the Earth’s resources
o Our Common Future (Brundtland Report)
§ Led to Brundtland Commission
(UN) examining the impact of
environmental degradation and
natural resource depletion on future
economic and social development
§ Sustainable Development:
development that meets the need of
the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs
o 1992 Earth Summit: allowed this paradigm
to gain significant credibility; monumental
effort in the international community
§ AGENDA 21: major output of the
summit; nonbinding agreement of
possible actions for creating more
sustainable societies
• Long-term sustainability
of human society,
including domestic and
social and economic
policies, international
economic relations and
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cooperation on global
commons issues
§ 2 MAJOR GLOBAL TREATIES:
1. UNFCCC
2. Convention on Biological
Diversity
- GLOBALIZATION
o Sustainable development paradigm has not
failed but its ascendancy has stalled because
of this variation of exclusionist paradigm
o Globalization: identified with a number of
trends, including greater international
movement of commodities, money,
information, people and development of
technology, organizations, legal systems, etc
§ Economic Globalization: global
economic
relationships/interrelationship of
markets, finance, goods and
services, and the networks created
by transnational corporations—
liberalization of international
markets, reducing trade and other
national economic barriers,
minimizing regulations on the
market and the like
- GREEN ECONOMY PARADIGM
o RIO + 20
§ United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development (Rio dee
Janeiro 2012)
1) Green economy in the context of
sustainable development and poverty
eradication
2) Institutional framework for sustainable
development
o GREEN ECONOMY
§ One that is low carbo, resource
efficient and socially inclusive
§ Growth in income and employment
driven by public and private
investments in economically
productive activities that also
reduce carbon emissions and
pollution
§ Emphasis on internalizing
environmental externalities in
prices to send the right signals to
producers and consumers –get the
price right
§ Bolivia: opposed this green
economy paradigm; no single
development model should be
imposed to the rights of developing
states to pursue their own
development paths
- ENVIRONMENT & SECURITY PARADIGM
o Environmental degradation and resource
depletion can affect national security
§ Threat multiplier that augment
other conditions to cause violence
§ Environmental factors may not
cause the violence but they push
other factors (poverty, increasing
ethnic & political divisions,
territorial disputes) into violent
actions—can fuel conflict between
and within states and contribute to
poverty and state failure
- PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
o Where there are threats of
serious/irreversible damage, lack of full
scientific certainty shall not be used as a
reason for postponing cost-effective
measures to prevent environmental
degradation (Principle 15 of the Rio
Declaration, 1992 Earth Summit)
o The best policy from an environmental,
human health, and economic point of view is
to avoid producing certain serious
environmental problems in the first
place.
§ This principle has been largely
adopted by many international
protocols, but one must note that it
is not a principle of international
law;
§ It merely evolved from being a “soft
law” to being an “aspirational goal”

CHAPTER II: ACTORS IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL

ARENA
I. STATES
1) Lead state
2) Supporting state
3) Swing state
4) Veto state
o Most important actors as they negotiate the
international legal instruments, create global
environmental regimes, and adopt economic,
trade, and regulatory policies that directly
and indirectly affect the environment
o Primary role in determining outcoes of issues
at stake
II. NON-STATE ACTORS
1) International organizations
2) Treaty secretariats
3) NGOs
4) Multinational corporations
o Help set the global environment agenda,
initiate and influence the process of regime
formation, and carry out actions that directly
affect the global environment
o Influence the policies of individual state
actors

CHAPTER III: THE DEVELOPMENT OF

ENVIRONMENTAL REGIMES: CHEMICALS,
WASTES, AND CLIMATE CHANGE
- 10 IMPORTANT ENVIRONMENTAL REGIMES
1) Ozone depletion
2) Hazardous wastes
3) Toxic chemicals
4) Climate change
5) Biodiversity
6) Whaling
7) Trade in endangered species
8) Fisheries
9) Desertification
10) Forests

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