Transcript The Politics of Our Environment

The Politics of Our Environment
World Politics
Lecture 9
Key points from last time
• Migration is an age old process and will therefore
remain as a key political issue
• Migration challenges key concepts in IR –
particularly the concept of sovereignty
• Migration is driven by the globalisation of
economic activity; by conflict; and by climate
change
• Despite being useful in political rhetoric, the antiimmigration narrative is way off the mark
– Migration has been a largely positive process –
economically, socially & culturally
Society / Nature
• Nature seen as:
– ‘external’ to society (a separate ‘other’)
– To have intrinsic qualities (fixed and unchanging)
– To be all encompassing (global ecosystem, shapes all
people equally)
• Air, Water & Land pollution / scarcity / change
• From this, it becomes possible to:
– Identify ‘objective facts’ about nature and the environment
– Explain the ways in which societies are affecting (or being
affected by) nature and the environment
– Generate moral /scientific evaluations of society-nature
relations
– Formulate POLICY designed to alter the ‘balance’ between
society & nature
The commodification of Nature – how did it happen?
• 1. Anthropocentrism: human needs and interests are
of over-riding moral and philosophical importance
• 2. Scientific rationality / technology: emphasis on
human ingenuity and technology to make use of
(‘overcome’) nature…..
• 1 + 2 underpin the Liberal view of Nature
– John Locke (1632-1704) – human beings are the ‘masters
and possessors of nature’
– Nature is a resource to satisfy human needs
– Nature is only invested with ‘value’ when it is transformed by human
labour, or when harnessed to human ends
– Thus, nature is assigned an economic value and drawn into the
processes of the market economy
‘The period
during which
human activity
has been the
dominant
influence on
climate and the
environment.’
Potential case studies I
• Pollution
– Air, water, land
• Biodiversity
– Animal and plant species – lions and herders sharing
land….
• The food chain
– Production methods (fertilizers; antibiotics)
– Mono-cropping - rice, wheat, corn & potatoes are
responsible for more than 60% of human energy
intake; Cavendish bananas & the Fusarium wilt
– Genetically modified organisms
Potential case studies 2
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Flooding in the UK
Fukushima
Lake Baikal
Smog in China / India – the ‘airpocalypse’
The burning of Indonesia’s forests
VW cheating on emissions figures
Migration forced by Climate Change
Environmental Justice…?
Distributive Justice:
“how various benefits and
burdens should be
distributed.”
Corrective Justice:
“is about
punishment and
compensation.”
Participatory Justice:
“ensures the fair distribution
of rights to take part in
collective decisions that
affect ones’ interests.”
He said he’d be back….
Nature
‘Earthrise’ 1968
Social Nature?
• This body of literature
begins to emerge from
the mid-1970s as a
critique of the literature
associated with a
division between
Society & Nature (i.e.
the liberal position)
– Knowing nature
– Engaging nature
– Remaking nature
Knowing Nature – challenging the liberal orthodoxy
• 1. David Harvey’s critique of Malthusian ‘limits-to-growth’
(i.e. over-population and the ‘scarce natural resources’
argument)
– David Harvey, “Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science”, Economic
Geography, 50(3) 1974, 256-77
– ‘western’ scientific knowledge being used to disguise a political
agenda aimed at population control in poor countries
– The ‘real problem’ was not the amount of resources in the world,
but their uneven distribution amongst the global population
• 2. ‘Natural’ disasters: tend to impact most heavily on the
disadvantaged in society; responses dominated by ‘technofixes’ (walls, containment-chambers, machines, chemicals
etc.) – rather than by measures addressing social inequality
(New Orleans / Tohoku Earthquake etc.)
Engaging Nature – exploring the relationship between humans & nature
• The physical characteristics of nature are not fixed;
they are contingent upon social practices
– Literature on ‘famine’
• Amartya Sen: droughts ‘trigger’ famines, but they don’t cause
them. Famines very often occur in situations of food surplus.
Lack of ‘entitlements’ (wealth) prevents famine victims buying
the food they need in their own communities
– Literature on ‘Third World Political Ecology’
• Legacies of colonialism: uprooting of traditional use of resources
in favour of cash crops etc. Dependence on colonial / world
‘markets’ and exposure to price risk
– ‘Environmental Injustice’ in the developed world
• Toxic risk borne disproportionately by the poor, by racial
minorities. Proximity to polluting industries / waste disposal sites
etc. – because these communities can’t afford to fight their legal
battles – recycling of electronic devices
Remaking Nature – science and risk
• This literature points to the ‘physical
reconstitution’ of Nature – and its associated
risks
• Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, (1992)
– ‘manufactured’ risks like acid rain, pesticide dispersal
– There is no ‘boundary’ between ‘society’ and
‘nature’ which has become ‘blurred’. ‘Nature’ has
become ‘internal’ to social process.
• Industrial capitalism ‘produces’ nature for profit
– e.g. Genetically Modified Organisms; tree plantations;
adventure tourism
The Emergence of the Green Movement
• By the 1970s the environmental costs of commodification /
industrialisation / resource extraction had fostered the
emergence of Green Politics
– This on the back of ecological literature such as:
• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
• Murray Bookchin, Our Synthetic Environment (1962)
• Kenneth Boulding (1966) – the ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship
Earth’
• TNCs (and, eventually, ‘Globalisation’) in particular came in
for criticism – for extracting natural resources…
– without contributing to ‘development’
– free from regulation designed to curtail pollution
• Suggested by the Love Canal incident (1978); and the Bhopal chemical
plant disaster (1984)
• and by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion (1986)
Shallow Ecology
• Limits to growth:
– environmental degradation ultimately threatens
prosperity and economic performance
– Therefore a need for sustainable development – i.e.
‘getting rich more slowly’
– How to internalise ‘externalities’?
• Through ‘Green Capitalism’: taxing businesses for the
pollution they cause, and the waste & emissions they
produce
• Through ‘Green technology’: ‘clean’ coal; drought-resistant
crops; ‘hybrid’ cars
• Through International Regimes: systems of transnational
regulation that help overcome the ‘tragedy of the commons’
– Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons (1968)
Climate Change
• ‘Climate’ = long-term or
prevalent weather
conditions
• Climate Change used to
be known as ‘Global
Warming’ – but this was
too frightening &
politically loaded
– The ‘denial lobby’ was
often funded by US oil
companies
– The ‘sceptics’ question the
link between human
activity & global warming
‘Shallow Ecology’ at Work
• Rio ‘Earth Summit’ the first global effort to reach an
agreement (1992)
– Called for ‘developed’ states to take the lead in restoring
emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000
• Kyoto Protocol (1997)
– Binding targets for 41 developed states to limit or reduce
their emissions by 2012
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To at least 5.2% below their 1990 levels
National targets varied (EU 8%, US 7%)
Introduced the notion of emissions trading
But: the EU had called for much deeper cuts, while the US failed
to ratify the treaty. Limiting the cuts only to developed countries
(India & China, in particular) compromised the process
– By 2005 global carbon emissions rising 4x faster than
they were in the 1990s
1946
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling
1950
World Meteorological Organization established
1959
Antarctic Treaty
1972
UN Conference on the Human Environment (precursor to UNEP)
1973
Convention on International trade in Endangered Species (CITIES)
1982
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
1985
Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone layer
1987
Brundtland Commission Report (‘sustainable’ development)
1987
Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer
1988
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established
1992
UN Conference on Environment & Development (Rio ‘Earth Summit’)
1997
Kyoto Protocol (to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)
2009
UN Climate Change Conference (Copenhagen Summit)
Copenhagen (2009)
• Copenhagen Accord
– Drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil & S. Africa
• Commitments to ‘take note of’ the Accord
– Pledge to prevent global temp rises in the future of more than
2°C above pre-industrial levels
– Developed countries to provide $30bn to developing countries
between 2010-2012
• To allow the latter to cut emissions and adapt to climate change
– Developed countries to submit plans to the UN for inspection
& monitoring
– Developed countries / emerging economies to supply reports
on emissions that can be subject to verification
– By 2020 developing countries will be receiving $100bn / year
from developed countries, more than half of which should
come from private sources
Paris (2015)
• No agreement yet on whether to aim for 2
degrees of warming or 1.5
• Carbon cuts - ‘climate neutrality’ or
‘decarbonisation’?
• Money transfers – how much; in what form;
on what; how to assure legitimacy?
• Oversight / review – at the moment every 5
years from 2023/4
Why is cooperation so difficult? 1
• Collective goods vs national interests
• What benefits all in general may not benefit each
individually
• Clean air may be a collective good, but the temptation is
always to ‘free ride’ – to let some other state pay the costs
of clean up etc.
• Costs to developed states are higher – and they’re the ones
controlling the negotiations – participatory justice…?
– All of which leads to a very low ‘floor’ of protection
Why is cooperation so difficult? 2
• Developed vs developing states
– Outsourcing of production means that developing
countries produce emissions on goods consumed in
developed countries
– ‘burden-sharing’: developing countries point to the
historical legacy to claim that developed countries
should pay more of the costs – corrective & distributive
justice…?
• Thus developing countries should not have to ‘pay’; or they
should pay a significantly smaller proportion of the costs
• BUT: developed countries argue that they cannot be held
accountable for the mistakes / policies of earlier generations –
and call for a ‘clean sheet’
• Developed countries have already reaped the benefits of
‘cheap pollution’ – whereas developing countries are being
denied these benefits without having either the money or the
expertise to develop ‘clean technology’
Conclusion?