The Global Politics of the Environment

327 Pages·1998·34.645 MB·English

by  Lorraine Elliott (auth.)

The Global Politics of the Environment
Also by Lorraine Elliott
INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS: Protecting
the Antarctic
PROTECTING THE ANTARCTIC:Australia and the Minerals
Convention
The Global Politics of
the Environment
Lorraine Elliott
© Lorraine Elliott 1998
All rights reserved.No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted savewith written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and PatentsAct 1988,
or under the terms ofany licencepermitting limitedcopying
issued by the Copyright LicensingAgency,90Tottenham Court
Road, London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the
author ofthis work in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1998by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-63367-0 ISBN978-1-349-26033-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-26033-1
A catalogue record for this book isavailable
from the British Library.
10 9 876 543 2 1
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Copy-edited and typeset by Povey-Edmondson
Tavistock and Rochdale, England
For Matthew, Loren, Louise and Benjamin
Contents
Acknowledgements x
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
Structure of the Book 4
1 From Stockholm to Rio 7
Before Stockholm 8
The United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment 11
Stockholm to Rio: The In-Between Years 13
United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development 17
Conclusion 25
2 The Transboundary Agenda:Conservation and Pollution 27
Introduction 27
Protecting Wildlife and Conserving Living Resources 28
Transboundary Pollution: Dispersal and Displacement 37
Managing Hazardous Waste 44
Conclusion 51
3 The Emergenceof a Global Agenda 52
The Global Commons of the Atmosphere: Ozone
Depletion 53
The Global Commons of the Atmosphere: Climate
Change 60
Global Heritage or Sovereign Resources: Biodiversity 73
Global Heritage or Sovereign Resources: Deforestation 80
Common Interest and Global Burden Sharing:
Desertification 89
Conclusion 94
vii
viii Contents
4 The State and Global Institutions 96
Introduction 96
The Inadequate State? 98
International Environmental Law 100
Institutional Reform 105
The United Nations 107
Moving Beyond Reform: The Critical Position 117
5 Non-State Actors: Science, Commerce and Global Civil
Society 120
Scienceand Environmental Governance 120
Business, Industry and Environmental Governance 123
Global Civil Society 129
Non-Governmental Organisations: Movements to Save
the Planet? 131
Conclusion 145
6 Voices from the Margin: Women andIndigenous Peoples 147
Holding the Keys: Women and the Environment 147
Humanity's Hope? Indigenous Peoples and the
Environment 157
7 The International Political Economy ofthe Environment 169
North and South 169
Whose Common Agenda? 173
Common but Differentiated Responsibilities 176
Sustainable Development 179
8 Strategies for Sustainable Development 192
Enhancing the Flow ofResources to Developing
Countries 192
Debt and the Environment 204
Trade and the Environment 207
Market-Based Financial Mechanisms 215
Conclusion 217
9 Environmental Security 219
Introduction 219
Militarising Environmental Politics: The Environment
and Security 220
Contents ix
Demilitarising Security: Securing the Environment 231
Revisiting Environmental Security 240
10 The Global Politics of the Environment 242
Problem-Solving and Critique 243
Evaluating the Contemporary World Order 248
Future Conditional? 253
Further Reading 258
Bibliography 262
Index 300
Acknowledgements
The process of writing an international account of global environ
mental politics has led me to incur debts to colleagues around the
world. Many ofthese debts have arisen not justin the writing of this
specific book, but in the willingness of many to spend time talking
with me about global environmental politics generally, providing a
supportive community of scholars and enabling me to test ideas
through seminars, conference papers and publication. They have, at
all times, been encouraging of my work even as they required me to
strengthen my own arguments when, as happens, they called me to
account for my views.They may not have realised, at the time, that
they were contributing in various ways to the development of the
ideas that appear in this book, and perhaps neither did I.
In various ways,then,and forvarious reasons Iwouldliketo thank
Marc Williams, Julian Saurin, Matt Paterson, Ian Rowlands, Dave
Scrivener, Peter Newell, Mark Imber, Hugh Dyer and John Vogler;
Lois Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin; Gwyn Prins; Kristalina Geor
gieva; Helen Freeman (and the staffat WorldWIDE); Ann Tickner,
Maureen Molot, Kim Nossal, Martin Rudner, Stuart Harris, Kate
Manzo,Joe Camilleriand Andy Mack;and AliBos,Adam Cunning
ham, Deb Foskey and Johanna Sutherland (the last four, my post
graduates, all of whom are working on environment-related issues).
The writing ofthis book has beenwovennotjustwithmyresearch on
a range of environmental issues and problems but also with my
teaching on this subject matter. Thanks are due therefore to the
undergraduate and honours students who have taken my global
environmental politics courses over the last four years.
Sue Fraser did a sterling job of checking and, where necessary,
chasing up references, a task which required her to read through the
whole manuscript (for which I am very grateful: she bears no
responsibility for any errors). Steven Kennedy has been a strict but
supportive publisher and his encouragement has been central to the
completion of this book. I should like also to acknowledge financial
support from the Australian National University New Staff Grant
scheme and the Australian Research Council Small Grants for some
of the research on NGOs which appears in this book.
x