The Global Environment in the Twenty-first Century: Prospects for International Cooperation EDITED BY PAMELA S. CHASEK xi + 465 pp., 15 tables, 14 figs., 23.5 × 15.5 × 2.5 cm, ISBN 92 808 1029 4 paperback, US$ 34.95, Tokyo, Japan; New York, US; Paris, France: The United Nations University Press, ... (original) (raw)
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Environment and Globalization Five Propositions
This work is a product of the "Environment and Governance Project" of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. This research was conducted independently by IISD with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Denmark. Globalization.qx 1/24/07 11:05 AM Page i
Pollution, resource depletion, habitat management, and climate change are all issues that necessarily transcend national boundaries. Accordingly, they and other environmental concerns have been a particular focus for international organizations from before the First World War to the present day. This volume is the first to comprehensively explore the environmental activities of professional communities, NGOs, regional bodies, the United Nations, and other international organizations during the twentieth century. It follows their efforts to shape debates about environmental degradation, develop binding intergovernmental commitments, and—following the seminal 1972 Conference on the Human Environment—implement and enforce actual international policies. Wolfram Kaiser is Professor of European Studies at the University of Portsmouth and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. His recent publications include Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations (2014, with J. Schot). Jan-Henrik Meyer is Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the University of Copenhagen for the research project “History of Nuclear Energy and Society” (HoNESt). He has been an Associate Professor at NTNU Trondheim, a Rachel Carson Fellow at LMU Munich and a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Portsmouth. Series: Volume 11, Environment in History: International Perspectives Subject: Environmental Studies 20th Century History Area: LC: TD170.2 .I559 2016 BISAC: POL044000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/Public Policy/Environmental Policy; SCI026000 SCIENCE/Environmental Science; HIS037070 HISTORY/Modern/20th Century BIC: RNK Conservation of the environment; HBLW 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 CONTENTS Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: International Organizations and Environmental Protection in the Global Twentieth Century Wolfram Kaiser and Jan-Henrik Meyer Chapter 1. From Nature to Environment: International Organisations and Environmental Protection before Stockholm Jan-Henrik Meyer Chapter 2. Environmental Problem-solvers? Scientists and the Stockholm Conference Enora Javaudin Chapter 3. Developing World Environmental Cooperation: The Founex Seminar and the Stockholm Conference Michael W. Manulak Chapter 4. Only One Earth: The Holy See and Ecology Luigi Piccioni Chapter 5. Sometimes it’s the Economy, Stupid! International Organizations, Steel and the Environment Wolfram Kaiser Chapter 6. Making the Polluter Pay: How the European Communities Established Environmental Protection Jan-Henrik Meyer Chapter 7. (Re-) Thinking Environment and Economy: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Sustainable Development Iris Borowy Chapter 8. Towards ‘Sustainable’ Development: The United Nations, INGOs, and the Crafting of the World Conservation Strategy Stephen Macekura Chapter 9. Protecting the Southern Ocean Ecosystem: The Environmental Protection Agenda of Antarctic Diplomacy and Science Alessandro Antonello Chapter 10. Controlling the Agenda: Science, Policy and the Making of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change David G. Hirst Conclusion: Setting Agendas, Building Institutions, and Shaping Binding International Commitments Wolfram Kaiser and Jan-Henrik Meyer Bibliography Index
Global environmental governance: options & opportunities
2002
Governance is the greatest challenge facing the international commu nity. In fact, only if the nations of the world cooperate in establishing institutions and rules in support of the global common good will the phrase "international community" have practical meaning. Otherwise, sovereign nations will live, and very likely die, not in a community at all but in a Hobbesian jungle. The overarching common goal can best be defined in the negative: avoiding catastrophe for the planet. Because of humankind's mastery of technology, we now have the capacity to destroy ourselves. We can do so today and quickly, in a thermonuclear war; or we can do so tomorrow, more slowly but no less completely, through the ruination of our environment. This book addresses that danger and what it will take to avert it. In their thoughtful, rigorous, comprehensive, and readable chap ters, the scholars and practitioners assembled here discuss options and opportunities for better management of our ecological interdepend ence. The authors, all in the forefront of their fields, draw on several areas of scientific expertise, including international law, economics, biological sciences, and environmental policy; they also represent a variety of national perspectives spanning five continents. Yet they share a conviction that traditional national policy and international diplomacy are no longer sufficient, either in pace, scope or substance. Retarding and reversing the damage that we are already inflicting on our environment requires an unprecedented, coordinated, long-term effort involving ambitious, innovative, and flexible coalitions of state and non-state actors, especially non-governmental organizations that tap into the resources, knowledge, and activism of citizens. Making the case for environmental governance is an intellectual challenge as well as a political one. Hence the opportunity-and the obligation-of leading institutions like the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies to contribute to the debate. The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization is proud to have sup ported this venture. Those of us involved in the founding of the Center in 2001 have stressed that globalization is not a policy or an option. It's not good or bad. It's not something to be for or against. It's a fact of life-something to be understood and managed. Yet global ization is, for better or worse, subject to human behavior. We can max imize the positive aspects of globalization, diminish the risks, and counter the threats. In that sense, we've often said, globalization is like the weather, which not only manifests the forces of nature but shows the effects of human profligacy and short-sightedness. This book tackles head on that aspect of globalization-including what it has to say about the weather, how it's changing, and how we, the international community, can change the way it's changing. Readers will have a chance to join the authors in better under standing the problem of global environmental degradation and there by being part of the solution, which is global governance.
The 21 st century global society is already a fact: it is developed on the basis of key-documents adopted under the aegis of the UN, designed to implement the " sustainable development " pattern, instead of the " consumer-type of society " obsolete pattern. Agenda 2030, as a recent UN document, provides legal and conceptual tools for the creation of new types of visionary legal terms, such as " global eco-diplomacy " , " global eco-politics " , " eco-sovereignty " , " eco-nations " etc. The necessity to adjust all the fields of policy and legislation (at infra-national, national, regional and international fields) to the growing demands of environmental and planet protection leads to exploratory studies about new forms of international law and about new evolutions of its basic principles. According to the doctrine, the phrase " common goods " entails the idea of human community, with this type of goods destined to " serve a common aspiration of the human beings towards the improvement of the human condition " 2. The doctrine considers that peace, preservation of natural resources, the planetary ecosystem are part of the " common goods " category. As shown by the doctrine, this concept refers to fields beyond the national jurisdiction of the states, outside the sovereign control of the states, either due to the effects of an international agreement (legal status of Antarctica), or due to the actual impossibility of being the object of a state sovereign control (atmosphere, free sea) 3. Progressively, the international theory of regimes, the theory of durable development, as well as the non-institutionalism theory saw a tendency to consider that " planetary common goods " require normative regimes, global institutions and global solutions for the preservation of their quality, for the use of future generations, with certain authors discussing about the existence of such deficiencies, in the present 1 The present article represents only the personal opinion of the author and it does not involve in any form any other natural person or legal entity. All the rights over the present text are reserved. The quotations from the present text are made by mentioning the author and the complete source.
Globalization and its impact on world environment
The processes that we now think of as “globalization” were central to the environmental cause well before the term “globalization” came into its current usage. Global environmental concerns were born out of the recognition that ecological processes do not always respect national boundaries and that environmental problems often have impacts beyond borders; sometimes globally. Connected to this was the notion that the ability of humans to act and think at a global scale also brings with it a new dimension of global responsibility—not only to planetary resources but also to planetary fairness.