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“An extraordinarily important book presenting, in one place, a compre- hensive review of the key themes and controversies governing the envi- ronment and international relations … must reading for students, scholars, practitioners, and anyone who cares about the future of our planet.”
Ben Cashore
Professor, Environmental Governance and Political Science, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
“The Environment and International Relationsprovides a clear, intellectu- ally coherent introduction to one of the key issues of our times. This will be a very useful text for undergraduate students and those who want to understand the political complexities of environmental challenges.”
Lorraine Elliott
Senior Fellow in International Relations, Australian National University
“How can we grasp the unprecedented challenges posed by environ- mental issues to the world as we know it? Kate O’Neill steers us with a firm hand through such questions, providing a series of robust analytical frameworks that bring clarity to a subject-matter so complex it can sometimes seem intractable. This is a precious guide for students, policy-makers, and anyone interested in either the environment or inter- national relations.”
Charlotte Epstein
Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney
“O’Neill provides a thorough and easily accessible tour d’horizon of global environmental politics. She provides theoretical, historical and critical insights into how well the international community is coping with problems of global and transboundary environmental threats, and the prospects for a broader shift to a more sustainable future. If readers don’t come away far better informed and concerned about global environ- mental threats they simply weren’t paying attention.”
Peter M. Haas
Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts
“Comprehensive, authoritative and accessible, with this book Kate O’Neill deftly manages to guide the reader, whether new to the area or not, through the dense maze of literature on the environment and International Relations. It deserves to be widely read.”
Professor Peter Newell
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University and School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia
“An accessible and up-to-date introduction, designed to invite further reading and research. Readers will be indebted to Kate O’Neill for the way in which she has read and summarised such a wide range of liter- ature. In my view there is nothing available that gives such comprehen- sive coverage.”
John Vogler
School of Politics, International Relations & Philosophy, Keele University
The Environment and International Relations
This exciting new textbook is an invaluable guide for students of global environmental politics from both political science and environmental studies perspectives. It introduces students to the ways in which the theories and tools of International Relations can be used to analyze and address global environmental problems.
Kate O’Neill shows that potential environmental crisis makes global collective action a necessity. She develops an historical and analytical framework for understanding global environmental issues, and identifies the main actors and their roles, allowing students to grasp the core theories and facts about global environmental governance. Consideration is given to how governments, international bodies, scientists, activists and corpo- rations currently address global environmental problems (including cli- mate change, biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, and trade in hazardous wastes), and to how these actors might work more effectively together.
This book provides a new and innovative theoretical approach to this area, as well as integrating insights from different disciplines, thereby enabling students to engage with the issues, to equip themselves with the knowledge they need, and to apply their own critical insights.
Features:
Builds an innovative theoretical framework, enabling students to apply the tools of International Relations to environmental issues. Equips students to consider how international bodies could work more effectively together. Features end-of-chapter review questions, allowing students to check their understanding. Suggestions for further reading provide guidance on further explora- tion of topics.Kate O’Neill is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Waste Trading among Rich Nations:
Building a New Theory of Environmental Regulation(2000), which won the 2002 Lynton Caldwell Prize for the Best Book in Environmental Politics, and is an Associate Editor of the journalGlobal Environmental Politics.
Themes in International Relations
This new series of textbooks aims to provide students with authoritative surveys of central topics in the study of International Relations. Intended for upper level undergraduates and graduates, the books will be concise, accessible, and compre- hensive. Each volume will examine the main theoretical and empirical aspects of the subject concerned, and its relation to wider debates in International Relations, and will also include chapter-by-chapter guides to further reading and discussion questions.
The Environment and International Relations
Kate O ’ Neill
University of California at Berkeley
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
First published in print format
ISBN-13 978-0-521-84216-7 ISBN-13 978-0-521-60312-6 ISBN-13 978-0-511-47923-6
© Kate O’Neill 2009
2009
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521842167
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org
paperback eBook (EBL) hardback
Contents
Preface pageix
Acknowledgements xi
List of commonly used abbreviations xii
1 Introduction: The environment and international
relations 1
2 International environmental problems 24
3 Actors in international environmental politics 48 4 State-led global environmental governance:
International cooperation and regime formation 71 5 The impacts and effectiveness of environmental
treaty regimes 104
6 Global economic governance and the environment 135 7 Non-state global environmental governance 167 8 Conclusions: The environment and international
relations in the twenty-first century 197
References 212
Index 242
vii
Preface
Studying the global politics of the environment is a complex, sometimes challenging, but always illuminating, task. Those who study this area approach it from many different directions: political science, economics, sociology, law, and ecology, to name but a few. For my own part, I first heard about climate change from my high school biology teacher in the mid-1980s; shortly thereafter, we all found out about the ozone layer as all the hairsprays, deodorants and other aerosol products containing ozone- destroying chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) vanished from store shelves.
As an undergraduate studying economics I learned about“externalities,”
“public goods,”and other ways that unregulated capitalism leads, in the absence of intervention, to environmental damage– including damage that travels across national borders. I carried these interests on to graduate school and PhD work in political science, without really expecting to be able to study them in the context of an advanced degree in international relations theory. This all changed following the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro. The Earth Summit, as it is often called, brought into focus a whole network of international treaties and agreements set up to manage international environmental problems – and proved to be a watershed moment for an emerging academic field of international environmental politics, particularly the study of international cooperation among nation states for global environmental protection. These days, as a professor in an interdisciplinary environmental studies department, and an active partic- ipant in the academic field of global environmental politics, I encounter perspectives outside the political science field that explain the deeply per- vasive nature of global environmental change and advocate a range of political solutions above and beyond international diplomacy.
Today’s students were born into a world with serious and widespread environmental challenges, with literally thousands of international agree- ments, organizations, partnerships, networks, and initiatives attempting to meet these challenges. They also know that many global environmental trends are in the wrong direction, and serious structural and institutional ix
changes are likely to be needed in order to address them. There are no optimal solutions to global environmental degradation, and many will be grappling with these problems for decades to come. All who work in the field of international environmental politics face a constant tension between the normative aspects of our work–we do, after all, want to save the world and the world’s environment for future generations– and the analytical: the need to understand and explain real-world political dynam- ics, which often fall short of anyone’s ideal. This book is informed by the idea that in order to move forward we must understand the shape and dynamics of the governance systems we have now, and it is inspired by the efforts of my students to marry hope to political realities.
Acknowledgements
Attempting to distill a vast and ever changing body of literature into a single volume is no easy task. Many people helped me along this journey.
I’d like to thank John Haslam, Carrie Cheek, Jodie Barnes, and Hywel Evans from Cambridge University Press for their patience, encour- agement, and enthusiasm, as well as three anonymous reviewers for their comments. For reading drafts, helping out with ideas, and general sup- port, thanks to Jörg Balsiger, Elizabeth Havice, Alastair Iles, Sikina Jinnah, Kristen McDonald, Mark Philbrick, Emily Polsby, and Stacy VanDeveer. The online GEP-Ed community is a never-failing source of discussion, literature, and debate, so many thanks to them. My students on my undergraduate and graduate courses were also subjected to early drafts, and have helped transform my thinking about the politics of the global environment over the ten years I’ve been teaching at UC Berkeley.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my husband, Peter, for his boundless enthusiasm and support for this project, and his never-ending quest to shorten my sentences.
xi
Commonly used abbreviations
BINGO Business International Non-Governmental Organization CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
CCD Convention to Combat Desertification CFCs Chlorofluorocarbons
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
COP Conference of the Parties CSA Canadian Standards Association
CSD Commission on Sustainable Development CTE Committee on Trade and the Environment ENB Earth Negotiations Bulletin
FAO UN Food and Agriculture Organization FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FSC Forest Stewardship Council
GATS General Agreement on Trade in Services GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GDP Gross Domestic Product
GEF Global Environment Facility GEP Global Environmental Politics GMO Genetically Modified Organism G77 Group of 77 Developing Countries
IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IEP International Environmental Politics
IGO Inter-Governmental Organization IMF International Monetary Fund
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPE International Political Economy
ISO International Organization for Standards
IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature, now the World Conservation Union
LRTAP Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution MEA Multilateral Environmental Agreement xii
MNC Multinational Corporation
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NGO Non-Governmental Organization NIEO New International Economic Order
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NSMD Non-State, Market-Driven (Governance)
NTB Non-Tariff Barrier
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PEFC Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes, formerly the Pan-European Forest Certification Scheme
POPs Persistent Organic Pollutants SAP Structural Adjustment Program
SBSTTA Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice
SFI Sustainable Forests Initiative SIR System for Implementation Review SPS Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards SRI Socially Responsible Investment STS Science and Technology Studies
TRIPS Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights TWG Technical Working Group
UN United Nations
UNCED UN Conference on Environment and Development UNCHE UN Conference on Humans and the Environment UNCTAD UN Conference on Trade and Development UNDP UN Development Programme
UNEP UN Environment Programme
UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change WBSCD World Business Council for Sustainable Development WCD World Commission on Dams
WEO World Environment Organization WHO World Health Organization
WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development WTO World Trade Organization
WWF Worldwide Fund for Nature, formerly World Wildlife Fund
1 Introduction: The environment and international relations
The question of when, if, and how well national governments cooperate to address shared environmental problems, from climate change to bio- diversity loss to international trade in hazardous wastes, to name but a few, is central to the relationship between international relations theory and the environment. For many years now, the tools of political science, and specifically of the discipline of international relations, have been applied to the complex set of questions around global environmental change and global environmental governance. At the same time, insights from this body of work have informed and shaped our broader under- standing of the workings of international politics, and the emphases and directions of specific theoretical approaches within the academic discipline.
However, if there is one thing that the global politics of the environment have taught us, it is that traditional political science and international relations approaches have limits when applied to problems of such polit- ical, scientific, and social complexity as those associated with global envi- ronmental change. A whole spectrum of perspectives, approaches, and tools from many different disciplines help explain the nature of the global environmental crisis and offer possible solutions. Some of these perspec- tives have their origin in the world of practice and policymaking, others in other social science disciplines. Many of these perspectives lie well outside the traditional disciplinary parameters of international relations theory, but are becoming more central to debates within the field of international–or global–environmental politics.1This book, therefore, analyzes the politics of global environmental governance–its shape, its history, its performance,
1 The definitive distinction between“international”and“global”environmental politics (IEP and GEP) has yet to be drawn. In general, the term“IEP”tends to be used when the work or approaches under investigation derive most directly from international relations theory;“GEP”is a broader, and potentially more interdisciplinary term, allowing for broader sets of theoretical and methodological approaches. While they can be used interchangeably,“GEP”is becoming the more common term as the field itself evolves.
1
and its possible future– through a broad theoretical lens, in the process identifying a field of study that itself is starting to shape the way we under- stand international politics as a whole.
Outline and themes
Three questions guide political science inquiry into the global environ- ment. First, what are the political causes of global environmental change?
Can they be related to collective action problems, as states have little incentive to control the shift of pollution or resource depletion across national borders (and sometimes a positive incentive to allow it)? Or are they shaped more by the structures of a global–and globalizing–capitalist economy, which prioritizes economic growth and free market capitalism over environmental sustainability? Second, what factors account for the rise of global environmental concern, and the ways in which critical actors perceive environmental problems? Why has such concern fluctuated over the years? How do we handle scientific and political uncertainties about global environmental change? Last but not least, what constitutes global environmental governance, and what explains the shape, emergence, and effectiveness of such governance institutions and arrangements? It is this third question, informed by perspectives on the first two, which this book seeks to address.
In many ways, international relations theory helps to illuminate the answers to these questions. With its focus on the roles of power and national interests, of international institutions and rules, and of norms and ideas in international cooperation, it provides powerful leverage in explaining why and how we see the global environmental governance institutions we do, and why some are more successful than others. In other respects, international relations theory (at least in conventional terms) is not enough. For example, the state-centric focus of much inter- national relations theory has traditionally omitted the roles and activities of non-state actors –of environmental movements, corporations, even sci- entists–in influencing existing, and even creating their own, governance institutions. This focus is now clearly changing.
More fundamentally, some scholars question the viability and worth of existing global environmental governance architectures, and argue for dismantling and rebuilding the ways the global community manages environmental problems. Others argue that we have been too blinkered in how we identify and categorize institutions and practices of global environmental governance, and urge attention be paid to politics across scales and issue areas that have not been traditionally part of the global policy agenda. In short, studies of international environmental politics
and governance are dynamic and evolving, creating an exciting field of study that is applied to some of the most urgent environmental, eco- nomic, and social challenges of our time. Understanding these dynamics offers critical insights into the opportunities for, and barriers to meeting, these challenges.
This book, therefore, traces the evolutionary arc of global environ- mental governance since it first emerged as a coherent system in the early 1970s up to the more contested and disillusioned years of the early twenty-first century, focusing both on the evolution of governance insti- tutions and on how the study of global governance has changed. It add- resses how international relations theory has been analyzed and assessed, and has itself been challenged by the emergence of global environmental politics as a serious arena of scholarship within–and outside– the dis- cipline. In particular, this book identifies and assesses differentmodesand sitesof global environmental governance: state, or government-led envi- ronmental cooperation and the creation of multilateral environmental agreements; the emergence of a multitude of “non-state” governance initiatives, such as eco-certification schemes; and how global economic governance, from trade to development aid, has become a critical site of environmental governance.
This chapter introduces the various scholarly approaches within the broad field of international environmental politics. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce global environmental issues, or problems, and actors in interna- tional environmental politics respectively.Chapters 4through 7 focus on the different sites and modes of global governance and its intersection with the environment.Chapters 4and 5 address international environ- mental cooperation, or diplomacy: the negotiation, implementation, and impacts of multilateral environmental agreements. Chapter 6 turns to global economic governance– particularly of trade, finance, and aid– and how it increasingly engages with environmental issues. Chapter 7 describes“non-state”global environmental governance: governance insti- tutions and arrangements set up not by nation states, but by non-state actors.Chapter 8–the concluding chapter–addresses debates over where global environmental governance is going, and how it can be best designed (or designed at all) to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century and beyond.
Global environmental governance: A narrative arc and critical debates
Defined most simply, global environmental governance consists of efforts by the international community to manage and solve shared
environmental problems.2In an article published in 1970 in the influen- tial policy journalForeign Affairs, George Kennan–one of the architects of the post-World War Two world order–wrote about his own vision of global environmental governance, then in its nascent stages (Kennan 1970). Recognizing that“the entire ecology of the planet is not arranged in national compartments; and whoever interferes seriously with it any- where is doing something that is almost invariably of serious concern to the international community at large,”he argued that the existing patch- work of national and international agencies were not up to the task of coordinating and managing the world’s environment. He continues:
One can conceive, then, by an act of the imagination, of a small group of advanced nations, consisting of roughly the ten leading industrial nations of the world, including communist and non-communist ones alike…constituting themselves something in the nature of a club for the preservation of natural environment, and resolving, then, in that capacity, to bring into being an entity–let us call it initially an International Environment Agency…This entity, while naturally requiring the initiative of governments for its inception and their continued interest for its support, would have to be one in which the substantive decisions would be taken not on the basis of compromise among governmental representatives, but on the basis of collaboration among scholars, scientists, experts … true international servants, bound by no national or political mandate, by nothing, in fact, other than dedication to the work at hand.
Kennan was writing with full knowledge of, and indeed in order to advise, the upcoming United Nations sponsored Conference on Humans and the Environment (UNCHE), to be held in Stockholm in 1972. At that point in time, the UN was looking to expand its role into managing global environmental problems. By bringing together government representa- tives from 114 countries, it hoped to lay the groundwork for an architec- ture of global environmental governance that would serve the planet for decades to come.
Kennan’s vision represents a highly technocratic form of global envi- ronmental governance: governance through impartial expertise rather than through the politics of conflict and compromise. The system of global environmental governance that emerged post-Stockholm, however, was far more political, and decentralized. Since 1972, global environmental governance has consisted primarily of the negotiation and implementation by nation states of international (multilateral) environmental treaties and agreements on an issue-by-issue basis, often coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), established at Stockholm.
2 For a discussion of the concept“global governance,”its theoretical antecedents and applicability to contemporary world politics, see Dingwerth and Pattberg2006.
In other words, the dominant driving force of global environmental governance since 1972 has been not technocracy, but international diplomacy.
More than 140 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have been created since 1920, over half of these since 1973 (Haas2001a, p. 316). If one also counts treaty amendments, protocols, and other changes to existing agreements, this number could be far higher: “three or more govern- ments have agreed on legally binding environmental commitments over 700 times”(Mitchell2003, pp. 434–5). Highlights include binding agreements over ozone layer depletion, the protection of biological diver- sity, the trade in hazardous wastes, and the trade in endangered species.
The most high-profile, and contentious, negotiating process has been over climate change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Its fluctuating pro- gress is demonstrative of many of the challenges of international environ- mental cooperation. For example, although it entered into force in 2005, it has suffered from the active withdrawal of the US, and criticism from the environmental community for being too weak to seriously address greenhouse gas emissions.
These multilateral environmental agreements, or regimes, together comprise the dominant mode of contemporary global environmental governance. Yet today the dominance of both the practice and the study of international environmental cooperation is challenged by two different narratives. The first is one of failure. James Gustave Speth, former director of the World Resources Institute, and Dean of Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, offers a representative view:
[The] rates of environmental degradation that stirred the international community [a quarter century ago] continue essentially unabated today. The disturbing trends persist, and the problems have become deeper and truly urgent. The steps that governments took over the past two decades represent the first attempt at global environmental governance. It is an experiment that has largely failed (Speth 2004, pp. 1–2).
This perspective draws on the perceived weaknesses of existing treaty arrangements (Susskind 1994), the intractability of disputes between Northern (rich) and Southern (poorer) countries (Agarwalet al. 1999), the “summit fatigue” that has resulted from the proliferation of inter- national meetings around MEAs (VanDeveer2003), and the extent to which global economic governance regimes “trump” their environ- mental equivalents (Conca2000). The diplomatic process set in train at Stockholm in 1972 has essentially stalled (Conca2005a), and new tools and institutions are needed to address these ever more critical problems at the global level.
A second narrative argues that we have too narrow a view of what counts as global environmental governance, and that we need to look beyond the standard international relations repertoire of inter-state cooperation and diplomacy (Conca2005a,2006; Wapner2003). By examining non- traditional actors–environmental activists, community groups, interna- tional organizations and even multinational corporations, other modes of governance, such as forest certification schemes, transnational advo- cacy networks, and actions across scales– from local to global–we see a picture of global governance that is far more multi-faceted, con- tentious, and potentially more democratic than the dominant model of international environmental diplomacy. This perspective challenges the position of nation states as the primary agents of global governance – and ultimately argues that a more democratic, or participatory, vision of global governance may help us reach a more environmentally sustain- able world. By broadening our field of vision, as students, scholars, or practitioners, we can attain a more complete understanding of the various forces driving – or pushing against – effective global environ- mental governance.
Following the insights from this second debate, this book focuses on three existing modes and sites of global environmental governance:
international environmental cooperation (state-led global environmental governance; Chapters 4 and 5), non-state global environmental gover- nance (including eco-certification schemes, multi-stakeholder partner- ships, and even socially responsible investment initiatives; Chapter 7), and global economic governance (Chapter 6).“Sites”of governance are not literal locations, but rather arenas of governance within the broader structure of global governance in which actors interact and make deci- sions. “Modes” of governance are ways of crafting and implementing environmental regulations and initiatives – whether it be through the negotiation of treaties or the development of private-sector led voluntary certification systems.
We have already outlined the basic shape of “state-led” governance.
The term“non-state governance”refers to a range of governance activities created, implemented and managed by non-state actors: civil society actors, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private sector actors–corporations and business associations–who may or may not work in partnership. In Chapter 7, we examine forest certification schemes as a leading example of non-state governance, as well as other examples. Given the general disillusionment with the effectiveness of international environmental diplomacy, many activists, analysts, and members of the private sector are embracing these schemes as a way to bypass the cumbersome process of international cooperation. Scholarly
interest in these non-state regulatory regimes revolves around the ways in which they are building authority and legitimacy, even while bypassing national governments–traditionally the sole holders of these governance properties (Cashoreet al. 2004), and their ultimate effectiveness, espe- cially given their voluntary nature (Espach2006).
Decisions and rules about trade, foreign investment and global capital movements, and development, particularly in an era of rapid globali- zation, have serious impacts on the state of the global environment. So, increasingly, forums such as the World Trade Organization and the World Bank have had to take on issues of environmental and social impacts of their decisions, and how to respond when their rules conflict with global rules and norms about environmental protection.
I have chosen in this book to focus on arenas of global environmental governance that are characterized by a relatively high degree of institu- tionalization, and which operate from the global level. The concluding chapter touches on less visibly institutionalized modes of global environ- mental governance that are emerging onto the international scene. In the meantime, we begin this journey by sketching the scholarly perspectives and debates, both within and outside international relations theory, that guide our understanding of these developments.
Scholarly perspectives on international environmental politics
The emergence of the environment as an area of study within inter- national relations scholarship mirrored real world political developments.
Many early works in the field appeared in the early 1970s, but during the 1990s, the field began to come into its own. Books, journals, university courses, list-serves, and conferences – all the hallmarks of a successful academic discipline– now provide forums for ongoing debates within the field. In some ways, the field began as a subset of international relations theory, whereby the politics of the global environment pro- vided a useful set of cases for developing and testing hypotheses about the nature and durability of international cooperation. Now, however, the field has grown in scope to embrace many different social science perspectives and methodologies. The following sections of this chapter discuss the relationship between international relations theory, social science theory, and the global environment, addressing the following themes:
How the basic tools of, and perspectives within, international relations theory help us understand the dynamics of global environmental change and governance.International relations and environmental politics
Theory provides a way of thinking about and analyzing the world in systematic ways. It helps us describe, explain, and predict real world events.
The broad field of international relations, with its focus on interactions among nation states, has generated many theoretical approaches, concepts, and tools for understanding international environmental politics.
Most essentially, international relations theory is concerned with the dynamics of international conflict and cooperation among nation states.
In the aftermath of World War Two, many scholars in the field focused on the dynamics of the Cold War between the East (the Soviet Union) and the West (the United States and Western Europe). This period also saw a growing interest in international political economy (IPE)–the economic interactions among nation states, including trade and financial relations, issues of debt and dependency, the role of international organizations and international law in managing both the global economy and collective security–and, ultimately, the global environment.3
Works explicitly on international politics and transboundary environ- mental problems began to appear in the 1970s (e.g. Pirages 1978;
M’Gonigle and Zacher1979). Over the 1980s and 1990s the field itself consolidated around two trends. First, the 1970s and 1980s were active decades on the international political scene. The 1972 Stockholm Conference ushered in a flurry of diplomatic activity coordinated by the new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Treaties– on trade in endangered species, on ozone-depleting substances, on hazardous waste trading, ocean dumping, biodiversity, climate change, and so on – were being mooted, signed, and often ratified by nation states, providing a new and fertile field of study for political scientists.
Second, many international relations theorists had shifted towards closer study of international cooperation–the intentional coordination of policies and adjustment of behaviors among nation states to address collective
3 For some more general discussions of the evolution of international relations theory, see Rowlands2001, Gilpin2001, Karns and Mingst2004, Burchillet al.1996, and Baylis and Smith1997. On theories of international cooperation, see O’Neillet al.2004.
problems – as a durable and influential phenomenon (e.g. Keohane 1984; Krasner1983). These scholars questioned a dominant assump- tion of the discipline: that cooperation among rival states was purely transitory and reflective only of state interests. Interest surged in con- ditions facilitating the formation of international governance regimes, their functions, durability, impact, and how they managed to overcome collective action problems associated with cooperation under anarchy.
In turn, emerging structures of global environmental governance pro- vided a rich set of cases for the study of international cooperation. To quote an early and influential statement of the global environmental problematique from an international relations perspective:
Can a fragmented and often highly conflictual political system made up of over 170 sovereign states and numerous other actors achieve the high (and historically unprecedented) levels of cooperation and policy coordination needed to manage environmental problems on a global scale? (Hurrell and Kingsbury1992, p. 1).
Three traditions within the mainstream of the field–realism (or neo- realism), liberal institutionalism, and cognitivism, based respectively on power, institutions, and ideas–provide insights into problems and politics of international environmental cooperation. They share, in many ways, perceptions of the international context, or system, and the identity of key actors, but differ extensively in the emphasis they give to different explan- atory variables. The key common factor they share is that the international political system isanarchic, and that the primary actors within this system aresovereign nation states. By “anarchy,”international relations theorists mean the absence of a sovereign world government: nation states answer to no higher authority than themselves. They do not mean that the system is chaotic, nor do they have a strong connection to classical political theories of anarchy, or“self-governing”communities. Within this system, states– or countries–are considered sovereign territories: governments rule over their citizens, territory, and resource base, and except under limited cir- cumstances, interference from other states is considered an act of war.4
Realist and neorealist theorists of international politics hew most closely to these basic assumptions (Waltz1979; Keohane1986; Powell 1991).
For these theorists, international anarchy is unmitigated: states have little or no incentive to work together to solve joint problems, and their atti- tudes towards each other have been conditioned by a history of inter- national conflict, not one of international cooperation. They are motivated primarily by rivalry and the pursuit of relative power, most particularly
4 For more on the concepts of anarchy and sovereignty, see Milner1991; Krasner1988;
Spruyt2002.
power in military or economic terms. In fact, it is this pursuit of relative gains, vis-à-vis other states, that drives interactions between them. This makes lasting cooperation–other than the formation of strategic military alliances – extremely unlikely, except when cooperation is driven and maintained by one single, powerful state, or hegemony, for as long as it is willing and able to do so. For example, the US in the post-World War Two years took on this role, setting up and maintaining the global free trade regime (e.g. Kindleberger 1973; Snidal1985). For realists, state actors–being the ones that hold the reins of military and economic power – are the only actors who matter. Other types of international actor–international organizations, NGOs, etc.–are purely peripheral.
Liberal theorists–or, in their latter-day variant, neoliberal institution- alists–see a slightly different sort of world, one that is more amenable to cooperation (Baldwin1993; Keohane1984; Krasner1983; Keohane and Nye2001). They posit that states are, in fact, far more interdependent than most realists, or neorealists, recognize. In a world where countries depend on one another for mutual peace and prosperity, there is a strong incentive to work together to achieve joint, or absolute, gains for the international community. Strong variants on liberal theories in interna- tional relations do, in fact, see a very important role for international law in creating an international community of nation states and other actors, rather than a world occupied by autonomous and rivalrous states (Bull 1977).
For theorists in the neoliberal institutionalist tradition, anarchy is a problem in that the absence of a sovereign authority makes it easy–and desirable–for states to cheat on mutual agreements. Thus, a single state can free-ride on an international agreement, and receive the benefits from it without paying any costs of adjustment. Under this scenario, no state cooperates, hoping instead to free-ride on the actions of others. Therefore, neoliberal institutionalists look for ways to mitigate these problems. They see international cooperation succeeding when states can work together to realize joint gains, and when institutions are set up that can monitor compliance, increase transparency, reduce the transactions costs of cooperation, and prevent most, if not all, cheating. They assign non- state actors, such as the United Nations, or non-governmental organiza- tions important roles in fostering such transparency, and making durable cooperative agreements much more likely.
The third approach,“cognitivism”(sometimes called constructivism), introduces ideational and normative elements into the equation.5Both
5 Cogntitivist approaches are often divided into“weak”and“strong”variants. Weak cogni- tivism, or constructivism, fits more into the“explanatory”school of theory than its relative,
realist and neoliberal institutionalist traditions tend to assume that states are out to maximize their individual utility (be that in relative or absolute terms), and that their preferences, or interests, are fixed in advance, or determined by internal factors, such as powerful interest groups (as we shall see, themselves an important force in shaping international environ- mental politics). Cognitivism, instead, examines how states respond to, and how international cooperation is shaped by, the introduction of new information or ideas, or by international norms – shared conceptions of appropriate behavior (Nadelman1990; Finnemore and Sikkink1998;
Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Klotz 2002). These approaches tend to assign a far more influential role in international politics to non-state actors than do realists or even institutionalists, arguing they are more than sup- porting players. Instead non-state actors are frequently the shapers and carriers of these new ideas or norms.
At one level, new ideas or norms may change the way states calculate costs and benefits of different courses of action. But, at another, these ideas and norms can work to change states’own perceptions of their interests or roles in the international system. Slavery is an example frequently used in the literature. At the start of the nineteenth century, slavery was widely accepted as a legitimate practice by many nations. However, over the course of that century, political ideas about democracy and the intrin- sic equality of human beings began to gain influence, promulgated by the Abolitionist movement, which had important roots in Great Britain, but soon spread to become one of the world’s first transnational social move- ments (Keck and Sikkink 1998). The moral pressure exerted by these activists, and some influential and wealthy allies, gradually led to the abolition of the institution of slavery in the industrializing world (although not without the cost of a devastating Civil War in the USA). These days, any state that legally permits slavery within its borders is considered a pariah, violating what has become an important international norm.
Each of these three mainstream traditions in international relations theory contributes to our understanding of international environmental cooperation in different ways. Many argue that realism and later traditions of neorealism, with their focus on the “high politics” of international peace and security, and their general skepticism about cooperation, have little to contribute to understanding the politics of the global environment.
There certainly is no “hegemonic” state willing to create and maintain
“strong”cognitivism, which takes a strongly critical approach to international politics.
While weak cognitivism“focuses on the role of causal beliefs in regime formation and change,”strong cognitivism focuses on how the same variables–knowledge, norms, and beliefs–may transform actors’conceptions of themselves, their roles in the international systems, and their relationship with other actors (Hasencleveret al.2000, pp. 10–11).
environmental cooperation. Yet, many argue that this dismissal under- estimates the importance of power politics in international environmen- tal cooperation (e.g. Rowlands 2001). Certainly, military power in the strictest sense is a poor predictor of cooperative outcomes in the environ- mental arena. But, by adopting different perceptions of power, including control over natural resources or more intangible variables such as leader- ship and leverage, we can begin to understand particular patterns of bargaining and cooperative outcomes in IEP. Such outcomes include, for example, the influence of southern countries in environmental nego- tiations and why, when leadership is exercised by particular (often small) countries, we see stronger agreements than might otherwise have been put in place.
The neoliberal institutionalist perspective has been the most influential in the field of IEP, and many IEP theorists have emerged from, and speak to, this tradition. Global environmental degradation, more than many international problems, highlights the interdependence of nation states.
Yet, international coordination needs to be strong and organized to realize mutual gains: why should one state voluntarily move to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions if others will not? To that end, international cooperation is not only desirable, but necessary to overcome collective action problems, and mitigate the negative effects of interdependence.
International institutions, reinforced by environmental activist groups, play a critical role in raising international concern, reducing the trans- actions costs of cooperation, and monitoring and enforcing resultant agreements (Haas, Keohane, and Levy 1993). Therefore, neoliberal institutionalist approaches make powerful contributions to understand- ing why states cooperate over environmental problems and why we see the sorts of cooperative agreements we do.
Finally, cognitivist theories, focusing on the importance of ideas and norms, have also influenced our understanding of international environ- mental cooperation. For example, one influential approach developed by Peter Haas examines how transnational “epistemic communities” of scientists have been able to influence cooperative outcomes by transmit- ting shared ideas of causes and responses to problems to government representatives (Haas1990b). Examination of international environmental norms, and their influence on state preferences and on the course of global environmental governance, is as yet in relative infancy (though see Ringius 2001; Bernstein 2002; Epstein 2006). Yet, evidence is growing that shared norms of sustainable development, for example, are influencing global governance in most environmental issue areas, and that these norms are shaping environmental policies and approaches at national and local levels as well.
The contributions of the environment to international relations theory
International environmental problems and politics have significantly informed and reshaped contemporary international relations theory.
First and foremost, international environmental negotiations constitute a rich set of cases for developing and testing hypotheses about the for- mation, durability, and impacts of international cooperation. In practice, international cooperation consists of the negotiation by nation states– with or without coordination by an international body such as the UN–of international governanceregimes, the basic building blocks of global envi- ronmental governance. The term“regime”covers the rules, organizations, and basic norms and principles involved in the global governance of an individual issue area.6Therefore a regime will include,inter alia, treaties negotiated by states, the organizations set up to govern those treaties, and the decision-making processes that govern future negotiations within the issue area. It also includes less formal, more prescriptive norms–shared understandings of“acceptable”behavior or ultimate goals–which, while they may not be written down on paper, often exert significant influence on the behavior of regime members.
Theories of regime formation examine the factors that contribute to successful or unsuccessful negotiating outcomes, including the interests and preferences, and relative bargaining leverage of state representatives, characteristics of individual issues, and the role of domestic and transna- tional“non-state”actors–such as environmental activist groups or busi- ness interest groups–in influencing the eventual outcome (seeChapter 4).
The incorporation of environmental case studies into theories of regime formation brought a wealth of additional insights into why we get the international agreements that we do (Young1989,1991; Mitchell1994;
Susskind 1994). Environmental issues are frequently characterized by complexity, uncertainties, and long time horizons. Even allocating respon- sibility for causing environmental degradation is frequently difficult.
While some scholarly work examines how issue area characteristics affect bargaining (Mileset al.2002), other scholars focus on the configuration and roles of domestic interest groups in influencing national bargain- ing positions (Schreurs and Economy1997; DeSombre2000; Raustiala 1997), and their direct engagement with policymaking at the international bargaining table (Betsill and Corell2001; Pulver2002). Compared with other international issue areas, environmental negotiations have been far more open to non-state actor participation.
6 For overviews, see Krasner1983; Downie2005; Hasencleveret al.1997.
A second area in which the environment has made a critical contribu- tion to understandings of international cooperation is through expanding the field of inquiry to theeffectiveness and implementationof international regimes (Zürn1998; seeChapter 5). This area of international coopera- tion–why and how international cooperation actually works–had been relatively under-studied in international relations theory, in part because dominant assumptions within areas of the discipline still focused on the puzzle of what made states get together and cooperate in the first place.
IEP has made great strides in defining effectiveness, developing methods for studying effectiveness, and building case studies that indicate when, how, why, and to what extent international environmental regimes influ- ence the behavior of states and other actors, and actual environmental outcomes (Bernauer1995; Young1997; Downs2000; Haaset al.1993).
In part, this work is driven by theoretical questions, and in part by normative concerns held by many in the field about whether or not the regime-building approach actually works. Much of this work focuses on behavioral impacts of environmental regimes (e.g. Weiss and Jacobson 1998). In other words, do states actually comply with the terms of an international environmental agreement? As more data emerges on envi- ronmental changes and outcomes, scholars are focusing more on goal attainment and problem-solving: are the goals of international agree- ments being met, and are those goals appropriate for solving the problem (Mileset al.2002; Mitchell2001)?
Third, and building on the theme that international regimes and other forms of cooperation are in fact durable, and long-lasting, features on the international political scene, recent work in IEP has begun looking at questions ofregime change, linkage, and density(Young1996;
seeChapter 5). How do international environmental regimes change over time? Do they grow stronger or weaker as new amendments or protocols are negotiated? To what extent do international regimes overlap or even conflict with each other? What conflicts or synergies should be minimized or exploited? What happens when more than one international regime has jurisdiction within a single issue area? Some work in this area exam- ines linkages between different environmental regimes–for example, the extent to which loss of biodiversity is influenced by climate change rules (Rosendal 2001). Other work examines linkages and conflicts between environmental regimes and regimes in other areas of global governance.
For example, some scholars have turned their attention to whether or not the rules associated with the World Trade Organization (WTO) may con- flict with environmental regimes, particularly those – such as the Basel Convention on hazardous waste trading– which actually ban or severely restrict certain types of trade (O’Neill and Burns2005; seeChapter 6).
Other research themes cut across these different phases of environ- mental cooperation. An important research theme in IEP analyzes the dimensions, relative power dynamics, and outcomes of disputes – or differences – between countries of the wealthy North and the poorer nations of theSouth(Najam2004; seeChapters 3and 4). Southern coun- tries have found a powerful voice in international environmental negotia- tions, and have utilized sources of bargaining leverage that do not exist to the same extent in other negotiating forums. These include powerful alliances and a critical role in protecting existing natural resources or preventing future pollution. Much of the world’s natural resources, including critical sites of biodiversity, are located in southern countries– and given possible trajectories of population growth and industrialization, their participation is critical to the success of most international environ- mental agreements. Southern countries have also been able to make powerful normative claims against the North, which has historically been responsible for most global pollution and resource consumption.
They have been instrumental in turning international attention away from purely environmentalist goals towards adopting sustainable development– development that does not discriminate against future generations– as the main underlying norm of international environmental negotiations.
They have also been successful in including measures for environmental aid and technology transfer in most international environmental agree- ments. Thus, work in this area examines North–South differences at the bargaining table (Najam2004; Susskind 1994), differential obligations under environmental treaties, and the politics of international environ- mental aid and building national capacity to address global environmental problems (VanDeveer and Sagar2005).
Another major strand of work within the field examines the roles and influence of“non-state”actorsin IEP (O’Neillet al.2004; seeChapters 3,4, and 7). Much of this work challenges the assumption that nation states are the only actors of note on the international political scene. While states certainly retain sole voting and implementation powers under inter- national law, non-state actors–actors not part of any government–have found an active voice in the negotiation and implementation of“tradi- tional”global environmental governance regimes, and, as we shall see, are beginning to construct governance regimes of their own. From non- governmental organizations and activist groups, such as Greenpeace or the Third World Network, to multinational corporations, such as Royal Dutch Shell or Chevron-Texaco, and international organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank, the field of international environ- mental politics has proven fertile ground for examining a wide range of questions. To what extent are non-state actors actually supplanting state
actors in performing key global governance roles, from shaping through to the implementation of policy programs? How has the rise of transnational activist and business networks changed the ways in which international politics is conducted–or even understood? How do we understand the influence of non-state actors on global environmental governance, the channels through which they exert such influence, and the relative influ- ence of non-state actors, across issue areas and across actor types?
Scientific, technical, and other forms ofknowledgefundamentally shape our understanding of, and responses to, environmental problems (see Chapters 3 and 4). IEP has taken a lead role within international relations theory in examining the role of knowledge, ideas, and experts (often scien- tific) in international politics. Scientific understandings of the causes, impacts, and the range of solutions for global environmental problems– particularly those not easily seen in the short term–have been critical in galvanizing political concern and shaping particular policy outcomes. Yet, the need for scientific knowledge and expert opinion is by no means unique to the environmental arena. Other international policy regimes– from the global economy to arms control, and even human rights, have been built on input from different expert communities, including econo- mists and legal experts as well as scientists. Writers in this field have explored questions of who these“experts”and expert communities are, and how they affect the international policy process (Haas 1990), how scientific or technical knowledge is taken up (or not) into the international policy process, the emergence of international scientific advisory panels and other organizations (Kandlikar and Sagar1999), and the implications of the“politicization”of science for scientific and political communities.
Recently, international policy makers have also turned to“local”(indig- enous, traditional) knowledge, and local knowledge holders for input into policy decisions (Martello2001). Both the biodiversity and desertification conventions have incorporated mechanisms for the participation of local– especially indigenous– communities, who may hold specialized, place- based knowledge that will aid in developing appropriate and effective management tools for these critical resources.
A final research agenda within the IEP field addresses connections between environment degradation and war, conflict, and violence between or within states. As the environmental impacts of war, from destruction of agricultural lands and vital ecosystems to the use of weaponry (chemical, biological, radioactive) with long-term environmental consequences, have become more severe, a body of scholarship has arisen that studies these impacts and responses (Weinstein2005; Brown2004). With implications for international relations theory on the causes of war and conflict, another group of scholars examines the conditions under which environmental
degradation may lead to violent conflict between and within nations (Homer-Dixon1991,1994). Others, from a political ecology perspective, seek to untangle the relationship between conflict, communities, and the state and/or global capital (multinational corporations, international financial institutions) in situations where access to and ownership of resources–water, forests, land–is a contentious issue (Peluso and Watts 2001; Conca 2006). By extension, some analysts make the case for an expanded definition of security, to include a sustainable environment, global and local (Sachs2003; Cavanagh and Mander 2002; Dodds and Pippard2005).
Critical theory in international environmental politics: Political economy, globalization, and political ecology
The field of international environmental politics cannot be defined by international relations theory alone. Theoretical approaches from other social science disciplines and fields, from sociology to science and tech- nology studies to political ecology, challenge key assumptions of main- stream understandings of global environmental governance. They offer a broader range of explanations of causes and impacts of global environ- mental change and the politics of the global environment.
Many of the theoretical approaches within international relations theory that we have already looked at are often referred to as“problem-solving” or“explanatory” theories: they take the shape of the world or the basic structures of world politics as given, and explain outcomes or make policy prescriptions within that framework. By contrast, the approaches exam- ined here are often referred to as“critical,”or“normative”. Critical theo- ries challenge the notion that existing world orders are immutable, and ask instead how they came into existence, and how they may be changing.
Normative theories posit a particular point of view: they seek to show how the worldoughtto be.7Critical theories have a strong tradition in environ- mental studies (Wapner2008).
Political economy (alternatively, neo-Marxist, historical materialist, or, more recently, neo-Gramscian) theorists challenge both the centrality of the nation state and the underlying principle of anarchy in understand- ing and explaining international politics (Cox1986; Wallerstein 1974;
Linklater1996; Levy and Newell 2002). Instead, they see international politics shaped by the forces of global capital, which have generated a hierarchical international system. While some states form the wealthy
7 For an excellent overview of these different approaches, see Burchill and Linklater1996, particularly the introduction, and chapters by Linklater and Paterson.
core, others (often formerly colonized states) are relegated to the far poorer periphery. In this approach, state interests are subservient to those of global capital (and, by extension, global capitalists, including transnational corporations). To that end, international cooperation, and other forms of global environmental governance, serve mainly the interests of the wealthy capitalist nations, and the corporate interests they depend on, a constellation of power and interests, creating a particular form of“global hegemony”(Linklater1996, p. 133, citing Cox1993). Against the global hegemony, social and political movements (e.g. environmental or labor activists) form opposing “counter-hegemonic” forces (ibid.; see also Wirpsa2004).
Some globalization theorists take this analysis a step further, radically decentering the role of states in international politics.8 One variant focuses on the rise of global civil society– “politics above and below the state” –as a critical, democratizing development in international politics (Wapner1996,2000; Khagramet al.2002). Another centers its analysis more squarely on the agents of global capitalism, or neoliberal global- ization, including international financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. In this framework, these have in effect supplanted sovereign nation states as the central actors in international politics, through controlling critical financial and knowledge resources, with profound implications for the global environment (Goldman2001; Cavanagh and Mander2002).
Finally, other approaches draw inspiration from green political theory and theories of global political ecology (Paterson 1996, 2001). Green political theorists, like many globalization theorists and historical materi- alists, challenge the existing structures of the international system, but, in this case, posit alternatives based more on ethics of sustainability, justice, and ecosystem harmony (e.g. Eckersley1992; Low and Gleason1998).
Global political ecologists put issues of global justice and inequality first and foremost (e.g. Shiva1993, and other essays in Sachs1993). This work draws our attention to underlying problems of over-consumption, parti- cularly in the wealthy North, and growing global inequalities between rich and poor as a major, but unaddressed, driver of global environmental degradation.
These perspectives challenge the mainstream international relations understanding of global environmental governance in several specific ways. For example, while mainstream international relations theorists tend to classify global environmental problems specifically as those that
8 For overviews of globalization theory, see Heldet al.1999; Cavanagh and Mander2002;
Clapp and Dauvergne2005.
cross international borders or affect the global commons, globalization theorists do not make the same distinction between domestic and global environmental problems. Rather, they are concerned with environmental problems that are driven by forces of globalization and global capital, at whatever level they occur. These two broad approaches also differ in their framing of the political causes of global environmental degradation, whether as a collective action problem resulting from an anarchic interna- tional system, or as a set of problems arising from a deeply embedded system of global capitalism. This debate in turn leads to differences over the sorts of solutions that best address global environmental degradation, and the most effectivesitesof global environmental governance. Should we continue to rely on inter-state diplomacy, or should we instead address the actions of international economic institutions or multinational corpo- rations directly? Should action be located primarily at the global level, or should it reach down to include local communities and actors?
Within the mainstream of international relations, the global environ- ment is framed as a set of collective action problems. In the absence of an international sovereign authority, states have little incentive to curb behavior that affects the environment of other states or the global com- mons. Thus framed, the central problem for policymakers is to create cooperative mechanisms that will overcome the incentive to cheat or free-ride on collective agreements, create enough incentive for states to participate in international negotiations, and protect the principle of state sovereignty over their own natural resources, while at the same time making at least some environmental progress.
By contrast, many critical theorists posit alternative framings of the causes of global environmental problems. Environmental problems are also strongly rooted in the emergence since the 1950s of a system of global capitalism (and until the late 1980s, its mirror opposite, global socialism) that is both deeply politically embedded, and inimical to social and environmental concerns (Paterson2001a, 2006; Vogler2005). Leading states (national governments) are deeply implicated in the development and maintenance of this system, and, to at least some degree, have shifted control over the economic processes that most significantly affect the global environment to the agents of global capital. Therefore, solutions that merely involve cooperation between nation states are unlikely to be more than superficial (akin to rearranging the deckchairs on theTitanic).
Not surprisingly, this analysis yields a different set of solutions to the problem of global environmental governance. These include the radical decentralization of global environmental governance (building initiatives from the ground up), harnessing the transformative potential of transna- tional activism and global civil society, and the construction of private
governance regimes: alliances between civil society and global capital aimed at exploiting the potential for a free-market system to take advant- age of technological and other opportunities to be more environmental.
Sometimes these solutions propose active contestation of the status quo, sometimes working with existing players, but most involve bypassing the state, and other governmental actors.
Are international relations and global political economy/ecology per- spectives mutually exclusive? They certainly start from very different views of the world. One centers on nation states and their interactions, structured by the anarchic nature and conflictual history of the interna- tional system, the other on the broad structures of global capitalism, the set of power relations they foster, and the actors they empower. Both do, however, focus our attention on global institutions – be they environ- mental, political, or economic–and on the dynamics of underlying power relations among different international constituencies, and focusing on one to the exclusion of the other runs the risk of missing important aspects of global environmental politics.
Next steps
In the early years of the twenty-first century, both the theory and practice of global environmental governance entered a state of flux. Many have expressed disappointment with the failure of mainstream global environ- mental governance–international environmental diplomacy–to meet the hopes and expectations of the early 1970s. Even supporters of multilateral environmental agreements and international environmental law began to look for ways to create linkages and new institutional arrangements to strengthen existing global environmental governance, up to and including a new World Environment Organization.
Others began looking beyond the convention halls and meeting rooms, to potentially new, perhaps more participatory modes of governance. The emergence of a transnational protest movement in the late 1990s, which focused its attention first of all on the international financial institutions, but soon extended its tactics to the climate change negotiations in The Hague, put issues of social legitimacy, accountability, and participation front and center in discussions of global governance (O’Neill2004; Fisher and Green 2004). This movement has found voice in both the parallel conferences of NGOs and civil society groups around world environ- mental summits, and at the World Social Forum, an annual meeting of social groups from around the world, loosely formed counter to the World Economic Forum, the annual meeting of the wealthy at Davos, Switzerland (Smith2004).
Some of the same civil society actors who engaged in protests against the World Trade Organization or the World Bank began also to target large, highly visible multinational corporations, not simply to express outrage or to expose environmental or labor standard violations, but to work with them, to take advantage of their desire to be seen as good environmental citizens. This process of cooperation has led to the creation of various voluntary, non-state governance schemes (such as forest or chemicals certification) that have received a lot of recent attention.
Further, attention is focused on local sites of activity and resistance around global environmental issues. From communities facing down multinational mining or oil companies to Inuit and Pacific Island peoples threatening to sue governments who do not address climate change issues, to cities around the world implementing programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is clear that global and local environmental politics are becoming increasingly connected. An important discourse that links global environmental discourse to basic human rights has emerged that challenges the more technocratic notion that sustainable development is best achieved through technological innovation and economic efficiency.
Finally, in many countries, industry, activists, and governments are turn- ing to technological sol
