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Environment
Collective goods and regimes
Collective goods are hard to
provide
 Free rider problem
 Everyone has individual incentive to
“consume”
 Collective welfare suffers
 “Tragedy of commons”
– Garrett Hardin
– A neo Malthusian argues that individual
rationality will doom the collective good
Tragedy of the Commons
Averting the tragedy?
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Legal-coercive*
Positive sanctions*
Privatize*
Educate
Institutions*
Unilateral action*
(Often solutions are a mix of two or more)
Legal-coercive
 Regimes & Conventions
– For example: CITES
 Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species
 There is a legal framework, but
punishment is indirect and must be
wielded by states, typically through
economic sanctions
Process of regime building
4. Strengthening
3. Bargaining
2. Fact finding
1. Issue definition
1. Issue definition
 Agenda created:
– by one or more states
– by an IGO
 eg 1977 Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS)
conference sponsored by UNEP
– by an NGO
 Framework Climate Change Ctee has a long list
2. Fact finding
 Sometimes coordinated by IGO
 May be challenged and bargained
– UNEP set up coordinating committee to
evaluate scientific research on ozone
3. Bargaining
 Outcomes depend on strength of
coalitions
 Most issues have a leading group & veto
group
 If consensus not reached: regime may go
ahead without key players … but weak
– eg Climate Change and US “veto”
4. Strengthening
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Continuous process
Science may help
“Protocol” to set targets/timetable
Convention
Review Conference may push for stronger
action
Ozone Depletion
 1985 Vienna Convention strengthened by
 1987 Montreal Protocol
– “far-reaching restrictions”
– “precautionary principle”
 Industrial countries agreed to cut CFCs in
half by 1998
Strengthening ozone regime
 1990 London : full end to CFCs and HCFCs
by 2000
– interim multilateral fund $240m for LDCs
 1993 Bangkok: phase out bromide
 1995 Vienna: methyl bromide
Still strengthening
 1997 Montreal: 9th review of protocol
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celebrating 10th anniversary
but 1996 Antarctic hole bigger than ever
illegal trade in ODS ozone depleting substances
worries about underfunding
Why strong ozone regime?
 Solutions simple
– cut cfc production
 Clear compliance mechanisms
– monitor production and trade
 1/5 CFC trade in black market in 1995
 Effective leadership
– UNEP Tolba
 External shocks or crises
– Image of ozone layer + cancer rates
Image of ozone depletion
Climate Change issue definition
 A weaker image
 Clearly
exponential
 But proof of
human cause?
Climate regime?
 No simple solutions
– CO2 emissions linked to overall economic
activity
– Have to challenge assumptions of capitalist
growth
 Modest targets and uneven compliance
Climate change politics
 Global climate, but sovereign interests
 Lead group: EU
 Two veto coalitions:
– LDCs
 [especially India & China]
– JUSCANZ
 Japan, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
 BBC chart on emissions
Kyoto 1997: Weak
Conference of Parties [COP] to Framework
Convention on Climate Change
 industrialized countries to cut by 5.2%
from 1990 levels between 2008-2012
– Range of targets
 +8% for Australia, -8% for Europe (on average)
 Trading in emissions credits allowed
 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
– Allows companies to get credits for clean
energy projects in LDCS
 Carbon sinks
– Credits for forests!
Kyoto -> compromise
 No LDCs commitments to reduce emissions
 No reporting, enforcement, penalties
 Reductions agreed were too low to have effect!
 No Rules/cap on emissions trading
Kyoto eroding
 George Bush pulled US out
– March 2001 newsclip
– US voluntary approach (Pew Centre)
 Russian ratification needed to give Kyoto
legal status
– Framework Convention on Climate Change
ratification “barometer”
CITES Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species
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Latin treaty text
Common name search
Appendix I,II,III
Lists of Parties
Biannual Conference
– Sample proceedings
 Article VIII
measures
– penalize
trade/possession
– confiscation
– reimburse
– record
– report
Criticism of CITES
 Ineffective
 Drives trade underground
 “Reserves” are like zoos
– Tourism cost-benefit
Example of bargaining: ivory
 1988 WWF and
Conservation
international called for
world ban
 NGOs wanted elephants
on Appendix I
 Sustainable: 50m tons
ivory per yr
(consumption 770m
tons/yr)
CITES Ivory Aftermath
 Japan expected to veto, but complied
under pressure from NGOs, US & EU and
cut all imports
 Ivory prices plunged 90%
 Southern Africa not an effective veto
coalition: market forces led to change
 Some illegal trade persists
Whales
 weak initial regime
permitted virtually
unregulated
exploitation of an
endangered species
 Now “global
conservation regime”
despite veto coalition
led by Japan
International Whaling
Commission
 IWC began as a “Whalers club”
– Secret meetings
– “Quotas” allowed kill rate to double 1951-62
 World Council of Whalers
– No consensus on facts
 IWC “science” committee supported kills
 Meanwhile, blue whale almost extinct
Action
 US lead state
– Impelled by own 1969 Endangered Species Act
– Declared 8 species endangered in 1970
 1972 moratorium at Stockholm conference
 IWC defeated similar proposal 6-4 (4
abstentions)
– Veto coalition: Norway, Japan, USSR, Iceland, Chile,
Peru
 Non-whaling states were recruited onto IWC
– Created ¾ majority needed for IWC ban
Veto coalition action
 commercial whaling ended by 1987/88
 But Japan, Iceland & Norway began “scientific” hunt
 No US response
– no sanctions on Japan (trade reprisals?)
– No sanctions on Iceland (USAF base Reykjavik)
 Consumer action achieved halt until 1991
 USSR continued as before, with false reports
Regime strengthened?
 1994 IWC meeting: long-term ban on
whaling below 40 degrees south
– Sanctuary for 90% estimated 3.5m remaining
great whales
 Japan and Norway defy ban
– 1997 Norway killed 5x as many as in 1992
– Japan hunting in Antarctic sanctuary
– 300 minkes a year “scientific” catch
 Sales of $50m in 1997!
Regime change
 1997 Ireland proposed ending ban and
bringing commercial whaling back under
“Revised Management Procedure”
– Allow catches up to 1% estimated population
– Whale population estimates
 NGOs worried that Irish plan would increase
commercial whaling
– Urged moratorium for 50 yrs
Dilemma
 To endorse
commercial whaling
and reduce kill
 Or to ban it, while
whale kills are still
rising
Climate Links
 IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
– Speech by Chair at 20th Session Feb ‘03
– Reports
 BBC quiz!
 UNFCC
Other Links
 UNEP
– conventions
 WMO
– World Me. Org
 WWF
– World Wildlife Fund
 Greenpeace
 Sierra Club