International Cooperation and Competition:

Environment, Resources, Population

May 15, 2013

Addressing environmental problems often involves international action given the nature of the problems– long-term, often crossing international borders, solutions require cooperation, costs and benefits of dealing with the problems not evenly distributed.

Environmental Problems

While cooperation is often necessary to resolve environmental problems, attempts at cooperation are often complicated not only by the general problems associated with united action (distrust, lack of information, problems in selling cooperation domestically, but also due to another feature: environmental problems often are embedded in a situation known as the “Tragedy of the Commons”

Environmental Problems and the Tragedy of the Commons

A Tragedy of the Commons situation arises when:

Resources are owned and controlled collectively

They are exploited individually The costs of exploitation are spread out

among all owners such that the cost of one actor’s exploitation of the resource is less to that exploiter than is the utility of exploiting further, even though the utility of everyone is decreased.

Tragedy of the Commons: Definition

In the absence of state or international action, fisheries are subject to Tragedy of the Commons problems that weigh against self-constraint and voluntary cooperation:

Fishing grounds commonly held Individual boats, companies, fleets or

countries exploit them The actors benefit from catching each

additional fish, though collectively the impact of everyone catching an additional fish tends to radically reduce the resource.

Fisheries

Move from collective ownership to “individual” ownership: Law of the Seas allows states to establish exclusive economic zones around their shores that would enable them to a) restrict fishing to own nationals and b) regulate that fishing

UN Sponsored Agreements to Limit FishingVoluntary agreements by which states agree to gradually move fisherman away from fishing as a livelihood by providing them with subsidies not to fish.

Solutions

At times, nations have attempted to move past ad hoc responses to such problems to create venues in which more comprehensive strategies might be agreed. In doing so, use the concept of sustainable development:

“Economic growth that does not deplete resources and destroy ecosystems so quickly that the basis for economic growth is itself undermined”

Thus assuming: Universal interest in ongoing growth and development That this shared interest provides enough of a reason

for nations to agree to bear (by sharing) the costs of not depleting resources and destroying ecosystems in pursuit of growth– a type of rationalist analysis.

Sustainable Development

Earth Summits: large conferences held in 1972, 1982 and 1992 that brought together world leaders to discuss environment problems, to think about cooperative solutions and to make commitments (though short of binding treaties) to implement solutions

Commission on Sustainable Development: created by 1992 Earth Summit to monitor states’ compliance with promises made at these summits. No power to enforce– only to gather information and report publicly on compliance or non-compliance

Summits and Organizations Devoted to Sustainable Development

Address problems in the following areas that are caused by human actions:

Changes in Atmospheric ConditionsAddress loss of BiodiversityIncreases in Pollution

Aspects of Sustainable Development

Probability that temperatures could rise by between 3-10 degrees F

Melting of polar ice caps Rise in level of seas Potential to affect many different countries, though

how they are affected differs:◦ Low lying areas subject to flooding and complete

immersion◦ Changed weather patterns causing more extreme

weather (droughts, prolonged elevated temperatures, more tornadoes, hurricanes/cyclones

◦ Clearer and new shipping lanes◦ Access to more natural resources

Example: Global Climate Change

How to effectively deal with climate change, given the sources are in different countries?

How to distribute costs of solutions given Tragedy of the Commons problems?

How to distribute costs given the unevenness of current economic prosperity?

How to distribute costs given unevenness of economic development and prior history of economic development?

How to distribute costs given that the largest users are often:◦ Developing countries that are poor◦ Rich, developed countries that are powerful

How to obtain agreement for states to bear these costs given the fact that an individual state may not cooperate and still get the benefits of the reduction green house gases if all other countries bear the costs (free rider problem)

Problems

These problems arise because most of the human causes of climate change stem from the burning of fossil fuels. This process creates carbon dioxide, methane gas and chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide, all of which reflect back escaping heat waves.

The burning of fossil fuels (mainly oil and coal) is important to the creation of energy that makes industrial activity possible

Replacing such fuels is costly Cutting back on the use of such fuels without

replacing them (i.e., reducing economic activity) is costly.

Sources

Framework Convention for Climate Change (1992 Earth Summit): nonbinding promises to reduce greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Goals not fulfilled– voluntary because US not willing to commit itself in treaty form to reductions by a specified date.

Kyoto Protocol (1997): created formula for signatory countries to reduce greenhouse emissions over a 10 year period. Put most of the burden on the industrialized (northern) nations. Not ratified by US because it did not distribute costs more evenly, particularly with regard to reducing emissions coming from the PRC– here it was domestic players who either would directly bear the burden (particular industries) or indirectly (political figures whose constituents would be hurt) that were key to the rejection of the treaty.

Attempts at International Solutions

Copenhagen Summit (2009): nonbinding agreement among participating states to take measures that would limit temperature rises to 2 degrees or less

Cap and trade in Europe: market-based solution in which states cap the amount of greenhouses gases that can be emitted. Those industries that reduce their emissions can trade (sell) those reductions in the form of carbon credits to those who cannot reduce: thus providing an economic incentive for individual firms to reduce. Not as effective as has been in other areas.

International Attempts

Where attempts to tackle global warming have been largely unsuccessful, the attempt to reduce the emissions of CFCs, which reduce the level of protective ozone at high altitudes, has been.

Montreal Protocol (1987): 22 industrialized nations agreed to reduce CFC emissions by half by 1998. Accellerated in 1990 and 81 countries agreed to eliminate all such emissions by 2000.

Contrast: CFC’s and Ozone Depletion

Internal cap and trade policies in US Fund created to help industrializing

countries transition Availability of accessible and cheap

alternatives Emissions came from a limited number of

industries that could adopt an alternative Emissions not essential to overall economic

activity, as is the case with the burning of fossil fuels

CFC Success

What can we say about international cooperation and agreements by contrasting these two cases?

Contrast

Pollution in one country can move to another by means of rivers and atmosphere

Acid rain: pollution in one country can come down in another country through rain. Addressed through some regional agreements in North America and Europe

Toxic and nuclear waste: 1989 UN agreement to regulate and in some cases prohibit the export of such waste to other countries. But many industrializing countries did not sign, with some regimes seeing the disposal of such waste as a source of revenue.

Legacy problems: some successor nations of the Soviet Union must deal with the leftover pollution problems of the Soviet era: Chernobyl in the Ukraine, Aral Sea in what are now Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Mostly dealt with in individual countries through regulation, cap and trade.

Problems of Pollution

Can be caused by MNCs: Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India

Can be caused by airborn pollution, water pollution that cross boundaries.

Radiation that crosses boundaries (Chernobyl)

Person to person transmissions that result in international epidemics: AIDS, various types of flu, polio, TB

International Dimensions of Diseases

Lack of medical supplies and expertise in less developmed nations

Cost and Availability of Drugs:◦ Created and sold by large MNC’s based in industrialized countries◦ Profit driven, making many beyond means of poorer people◦ Intellectual property rights that make creating copies illegal

Movement of people Information Solutions:

◦ Agreements with drug companies to provide drugs at a lower cost◦ Agreements to allow copies to be made at lower costs◦ Private or international entities that provide funds for the

provision of drugs and preventative materials (mosquito nets, birth control devices, medical supplies, medical expertise)

◦ Efforts by WHO to provide information and prevention activities, though sometimes opposed by important actors

◦ Attempts to facilitate the sharing of information and common protocols for screening travelers for illnesses

Particular Issues