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he Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9
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Page 1: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

The Politics of Our EnvironmentWorld Politics

Lecture 9

Page 2: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.
Page 3: 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 anti-immigration narrative is way off the mark– Migration has been a largely positive process –

economically, socially & culturally

Page 4: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 5: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 6: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

‘The period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.’

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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

Page 11: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

Potential case studies 2

• 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

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Environmental Justice…?

Distributive Justice:“how various benefits and burdens should be distributed.”

Participatory Justice:“ensures the fair distribution of rights to take part in collective decisions that affect ones’ interests.”

Corrective Justice:“is about punishment and compensation.”

Page 17: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

He said he’d be back….

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Nature

‘Earthrise’ 1968

Page 19: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 20: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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 ‘techno-fixes’ (walls, containment-chambers, machines, chemicals etc.) – rather than by measures addressing social inequality (New Orleans / Tohoku Earthquake etc.)

Page 21: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 22: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 23: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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)

Page 24: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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)

Page 25: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 26: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

‘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

• 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

Page 27: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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)

Page 28: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 29: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 30: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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

Page 31: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

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’

Page 32: The Politics of Our Environment World Politics Lecture 9.

Conclusion?