International Environmental Agreements

environmental issues such as air pollution, deterioration of the ozone layer, climate
change, and ocean pollution are transboundary or global in nature, countries cannot
achieve desired results by acting alone. Countries have increasingly recognized this
and have developed a wide range of international environmental agreements to
enable them to work together on global environmental issues.
Governments around the world face the challenge of managing a growing body of
increasingly complex international environmental agreements. According to other
national audit offices, the assessment of the implementation, compliance, and
effectiveness of these agreements is complicated and often plagued by various
problems. Despite their growing importance, little is known about many countries'
implementation of, and compliance with, these agreements. An international
environmental agreement or sometimes environmental protocol, is a type
of treaty binding in international law, allowing them to reach an environmental goal.
In other words, it is "an intergovernmental document intended as legally binding
with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural
resources. An agreement between two nations is known as a bilateral
environmental agreement. If the agreement is made among three or more nations,
it is called a multilateral environmental agreement (MEA). Such agreements,
primarily produced by the United Nations, cover subjects such
as atmospheric policies, freshwater policies
 hazardous waste and substance policies, the marine environment, nature
conservation policies, noise pollution and nuclear safety .
The use of multilateral environment agreements began in 1857, when a German
agreement regulated the flow of water from Lake
Constance to Austria and Switzerland . International environmental protocols
came to feature in environmental governance after trans-boundary environmental
problems became widely perceived in the 1960s. Between 1857 and 2012, a total
of 747 multilateral environmental agreements have been concluded. Following
the Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference in 1972, creation of international
environmental agreements proliferated
Protocols can take flexible approaches to improve effectiveness.[One example is
the use of sanctions: under the Montreal Protocol, signatories were forbidden to
purchase chlorofluorocarbons from non-signatories, in order to prevent any
windfall benefits. Funding has also been used to overcome North-South conflict:
members of the Montreal Protocol created a fund of $240 million to redistribute
the costs of transition. Differential obligations as seen in the Kyoto Protocol can
also encourage wider participation. While protocols appear to be the
ultimate top-down mode of governance, having "scant provisions for public
participation, it is widely thought that the influence of transnational networks has
been growing Public opinion is relevant, as concern must exist to prompt action
and dedication of government resources.
 Non-governmental organizations also fulfill certain roles, from gathering
information and devising policies to mobilizing support. Science plays an
important part, although Susskind asserts that sometimes this role is diminished
by uncertainty, disagreement, and the rise of "adversary science.The business
community can also be involved with positive outcomes. How we view the
effectiveness of protocols depends on what we expect from them. With little
administrative force or actual power, protocols succeed in increasing government
concern, enhancing the contractual environment, and heightening capacity
through transfer of assets. Yet as long as sovereignty is intact, environmental
protocols will not affect changes in the face of state or public apathy, guarantee
national action, or materialize overnight. International environmental agreements
reflect key government policies on important environmental issues, and Canadians
should know what has, or has not, been achieved as a result of these agreements.
We looked at five international environmental agreements to determine if the
responsible federal departments know to what extent specific objectives of the
agreements are being achieved. We noted that the departments have varying
degrees of information on whether they are achieving the environmental
objectives and results of their respective agreements. In the case of the
International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, the various
federal pollution prevention programs and activities do not provide Transport
Canada sufficient information on the status of ship oil pollution in Atlantic waters
within Canadian jurisdiction.
Most of the following agreements are legally binding for countries that have
formally ratified them. Some, such as the Kyoto Protocol, differentiate between
types of countries and each nation's respective responsibilities under the
agreement. Several hundred international environmental agreements exist but
most link only a limited number of countries. These bilateral or sometimes
trilateral agreements are only binding for the countries that have ratified them
but are nevertheless essential in the international environmental regime.
Including the major conventions listed below, more than 3,000 international
environmental instruments have been identified by the IEA Database Project .