Environmental Politics:

1

• Environmental Politics
• Tragedy of the Commons and Collective Goods

2
IR Environmental Politics

• Soft politics vs. hard politics (security
  studies, IPE) interest since 1970-1980s
• Process of international environmental
  negotiations since first earth Summit
  Stockholm, 1972
• Role of non-state actors

3
International Environmental Negotiations

• Many actors with many roles
• Asymmetry of power
• Public opinions
• Common interests for common solution
• Negotiated agreement can be perceived as more
  constraining than advantageous

4
Non Governmental Organizations

• Norm creation
• Environmental NGOs
• Industry interests
• Affect political debate and public perceptions
  but also science and economics

5
Tragedy of the Commons

• R. Carson, 1962 G. Hardin, 1968
• Global public goods
• Collective goods problems

6
Environmental Collective Goods Problem

• Benefits are shared globally but costs must be
  extracted from each state individually
• Need for international regimes (e.g.
  Mediterranean Action Plan - Haas, 1989 )
• Role of epistemic communities NGOs

7
Defining An Epistemic Community

• Specific community of experts sharing a belief
  in a common set of cause-and-effect relationships
  as well as common values to which policies
  governing these relationships will be applied.
• Haas, 1989 384

8
Epistemic Communities

• Scientists or individuals from any discipline or
  profession who have a strong claim to a body of
  knowledge valued by society knowledge
  brokers, Bodansky, 2001 27.
• Different from interest groups or other agencies
  by the combination of a shared set of causal and
  principled beliefs, consensual knowledge and
  common interests

9
Role of Scientists

• Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
  (IPCC), since 1988
• Three Assessment Reports (1990, 1995, 2001)
• Scientists appointed by governments, final
  reports voted on by national delegations
• Working groups examine economics and impacts as
  well as climate science and meteorology

10
Roles of Epistemic Communities

• Elucidate cause and effect relationships,
  provide advice about the likely results of
  various courses of actions following a crisis
• Set the international agenda, contribute to the
  formulation of convergent state policies in
  compliance with regimes
• Help define the self-interests of a state or
  factions within it

11
Global Climate Change

• Global warming slow, long-term rise in the
  average world temperature and disruption of
  ecosystems
• Scientific controversy
• Significant variation in patterns over time
• Depends on data collection, modeling
• Broad agreement on increase in global average
  surface temperature, not over regional effects

12
Greenhouse Problem

• Human industrial activities burn fossil fuels
  creating greenhouse gases
• Greenhouse effect increasing concentration of
  gases trap heat in the atmosphere
• USA worlds largest polluter (25 of emissions,
  4 of world population)

13
Reducing the Greenhouse Effect

• Reduce use of fossil energy without reducing
  economic activity
• NGOs focus on renewable energies (solar, wind
  power)
• Stocking carbon dioxide in ground (COP-10, Dec.
  2004) debate

14
Climate Change Regime - Timeline

• IPCC, 1988 intergovernmental issue
• First Assessment Report, 1990
• Rio Earth Summit, 1992
• UNFCC enters into force, 1995
• Kyoto Protocol, 1997
• Bush withdrawal, 2001
• Ratification by EU, Japan others , 2001
• Ratification by Russia (needed), 2004
• Kyoto Protocol enters into force on 16 Feb. 2005
• Montreal, December 2005

15
The Framework Convention on Climate Change
(Rio, 1992)

• Objective limit greenhouse emissions to 1990
  levels by 2000
• Nonbinding goal
• No success, US objections to commitments

16
Kyoto Protocol, 1997

• MITIGATION
• Commits major industrialized nations to curb
  gases from factories, cars and coal-burning power
  plants to 1990 levels (except USA Australia)
• Objective 5,2 below 1990 levels by 2008-12
• Binding penalties for failures
• Trading of carbon emissions as new commodities
  controversial flexible mechanisms

17
Developing Countries

• Technology transfer (Clean Development
  Mechanisms) vs. concerns over potential limits to
  growth
• Many actors, many concerns
• OPEC, AOSIS
• Green imperialism (India, China)
• COP-10 (Argentina, Dec. 2004) focus on
  adaptation in addition to mitigation

18
Upcoming Challenges

• Successful international environmental
  negotiations? Montreal, 2005 vs. Asia-Pacific
  Partnership on Clean Development Climate
• Two-level game
• Free riding problems
• Recurrent scientific political controversies
• Past and future ecocide (J. Diamond,
  Collapse, 2005)