The Emergence of Global Environmental Politics

Before the 1980s, most governments considered global environmental issues unimportant to
their national interests and international politics. Then environmental movements in affluent
countries and well-publicized global environmental threats that affect all humankind—such as
ozone layer depletion, climate change, and hazardous fishery declines—raised global
environmental issues in world politics.

Many byproducts of economic growth—burning fossil fuels, air and water pollution,
hazardous waste, release of substances that destroy stratospheric ozone, production of toxic
chemicals, increased use of natural resources, and decreasing forest cover—put cumulative
stresses on the physical environment that now threaten human health and economic
well-being.

Population, resource consumption, and waste production affect environmental stress. An

ecological footprint compares human consumption to the earth's biocapacity to measure this
impact. The ecological footprint includes all crops, grazing land, forest, and fishing grounds
required to produce food, fiber, and timber and absorb wastes.

Source : International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics 2015

Introduction :
● Environmental degradation is a global phenomnon. Environmental indicators are
worsening almost everywhere. In China and India, hundreds of millions of people
drink and breathe polluted water and air. Acid rain, which has declined in North
America and Western Europe, is rising in East Asia and other developing countries,
endangering ecosystems and agriculture. The "Asian brown cloud" of smog covers the
Pacific to the Americas. Most oceans have overfished coastal seas, including regional seas
in developed and developing nations. Polluting runoff from continents degrades marine
habitats, decreasing coral reefs and creating ocean "dead zones" along all continents.
Species are disappearing and declining everywhere. Climate change causes rising global
temperatures, droughts and floods that threaten agricultural productivity, more severe
weather events, new threats to species unable to adapt to environmental changes and
pollution, declines in marine ecosystems due to warming waters and ocean acidification,
and immeasurable dangers from sea-level rise, especially for poor low-lying regions,
countries, and habitats. These are some of the world's growing environmental issues.

Defining global environmental politics:

● Global environmental politics is a field of scholarship and practice. It is about how
governments, diplomats, and other actors influence the global environment, including
local and regional environments, and how scholars, students, and activists examine and
comprehend them. Global environmental politics refers to the various ways politics is
used to change or protect the environment. Thus, environmental politics vary by
location and issue. Importantly, global environmental politics is about the politics of
the environment on a global scale.

The “global” in global environmental politics:

● The levels of environmental change are often interconnected. Global climate change
caused by carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions directly affects local
communities and individuals. Global issues may have local causes. However, even local
environmental challenges can be global. Addressing local water and air pollution in
poor countries may require financial or technological aid from affluent countries or the
international community, such as a UN agency or INGO.
 ● These varying levels of environmental change, and the various levels of causality, impact
and response, highlight the role of politics at all levels.
● Thus, in using the term “ global environmental politics” we mean to encompass local,
national, transnational, regional, international and geographically global environmental
issues and related political activity.

The “environment” in global environmental politics :

● The environment in global environmental politics is about the human dimensions of
the natural environment which equates to government policies and the relationships
between those policies and the behaviors of individuals and industries. It includes
international cooperation, often resulting in environmental treaties.
● Simply put, the “environment” in global environmental politics is roughly equated to
“ecology” – natural systems, including humanity and all its influences – but with the
important caveat that we are interested in the human–environment relationship, often
in the context of governance.

The “politics” in global environmental politics :

● “Politics” can refer to the struggle for and distribution of power, and thus resources,
within and among national communities.
● Thus global environmental politics is largely about how government policies contribute
to environmental problems, policies, regulations and their effects. It is about how
environmental resources and pollution are distributed in society, and the role that
power and influence play in that distribution. More commonly, the politics in global
environmental politics is about international cooperation related to the environment.
● Although global environmental politics routinely involves governments in some way, it
often involves non-state actors trying to influence government policies in ways that
affect the environment.

The field of global environmental politics encompasses both practice (or praxis) and study (and
analysis) of politics and policies related to the environment.

The practice of global environmental politics :

 ● The practice of global environmental politics includes those activities of governments
that relate to the environment in some way. This could include the work of
environmental ministries, especially when their work affects what happens in other
countries. It would also include the roles and activities of political leaders (presidents,
prime ministers) and legislatures relevant with the environmental policies, laws, and
regulations which they deliberate, formulate, and implement. Thus, global
environmental politics include all actors striving to influence and shape government
environmental policies and their responses to environmental legislation. Thus, special
interests, such as corporations and environmental advocacy groups, try to influence
environmental legislation in countries as part of global environmental politics.
● The practice of global environmental politics includes the actors working across
national borders. Global environmental politics includes environmental diplomacy and
complex international environmental negotiations on fisheries, whaling, ocean
pollution, hazardous waste trade, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change.
Indeed, some scholars of global environmental politics focus almost exclusively on
international environmental politics, including the roles of important or powerful
national actors (such as the United States and China), foreign policy processes
(including the roles of influential politicians or diplomats and their relationships with
colleagues nationally and internationally), and the impact of international organizations
and regimes (such as the United Nations and the constellation of international
agreements and new practices associated with, say, biodiversity and especially climate
change). For some scholars, global environmental politics is essentially about what
governments do at home and abroad to respond to or prevent environmental changes.

The study of global environmental politics :

● Global environmental politics seeks to analyze and explain the actions of governments
and other environmental actors, particularly in relation to international affairs and
transboundary environmental challenges. For most scholars this involves analyzing the
practice of global environmental politics, finding explanations for what happens, and
conveying this knowledge to others, often to the practitioners being studied. Many
scholars publish policy papers to influence governments, international organizations,
and other entities, such as corporations, to adopt more environmentally friendly
policies. Most scholars seek the "truth" behind environmental policies and share their
findings with the scholarly and policy communities. Other scholars and researchers seek
to protect the environment and natural resources through their research and
campaigning. Some scholars, such as "climate skeptics" and "climate deniers," utilize
their research to oppose environmental regulation.