Environmental Issues

1
Environmental Issues

• Session 12
• October 10, 2005

2
Study Questions

• What are major environmental threats / sources of
  conflicts?
• What are the levels of conflicts?
• Who are the emerging actors?
• What are ASEAN responses?
• How do IR theories predict Chinas behavior in
  environmental conflicts?

3
What are major environmental threats / sources of
conflicts?

• Deforestation
• Maritime Zones (200-mile Exclusive Economic
  Zones)
• Rivers and Dams
• Haze
• I.e. environmental degradation from development
  (industrialization, urbanization, energy demands,
  etc.)

4
What are the levels of conflicts?

• The global level
  developed West vs. SE Asia
• The regional level
  bilateral and multilateral

5
Who are the emerging actors?

• NGOs (INGOs)
• World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB)
• Donor groups (e.g. the Consultative Group on
  Indonesia, CGI)

6
What are ASEAN responses?

• ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Environment (AMME)
• Strategic Plan of Action on Environment (SPAE)
• embraces global norms (e.g. Rio Earth Summit
  1992, World Summit on Sustainable Development
  WSSD 2002)
• common stand in intl negotiations
• ASEAN Vision 2020 -- clean and green

7
3 Phases of ASEAN Cooperation

• 1. Environmental Assets and National Resilience
  (1977-mid 80s) -- Conservation for development
• 2. Responsibility and Stewardship (mid 80s -
  2000) -- Pollution Agenda
• 3. Formalism and Community (2000 - present) --
  sense of common ecosystem and institutionalization
  

8
ASEAN Problems

• NATO No Action, Talk Only deficit
  of implementation
• limited capability on implementation
• priority of near-term economic gain against
  long-term environmental costs
• While emerging sense of regional identity through
  environmental cooperation, yet ASEAN preferences
  for soft / weak regionalism and the ASEAN norm of
  non-interference

9
Theoretical Contributions on ASEAN Cooperation

• Elliott using issue areas to assess regional
  identity
• Cooperation (on implementation weakened by norms
  and material interests)
• key variables ideas and interests
• Which school does Elliott belong to?
• theoretical pluralism

10
How do IR theories predict Chinas behavior in
environmental conflicts?

• Chinas Upstream Threat unilateralism, not a
  member of Mekong River Commission
• Constructivism socialized China will become
  benign / more cooperative
• Realism continued Chinese unilateralism
• How is this case different from Spratly?