Geography 2412 Lecture Notes

Chap. 18: Policy Approaches and Institutions for Managing the Environment

Trends?

This chapter first goes over general global environmental trends, seeing positive:

·       Population growth is slowing

·       Growing ability to feed all people

·       Improved agricultural practices around the world that reduce erosion

·       Some progress in reducing air (especially NOX and SOX) and water pollution, and limiting use and release of some toxic chemicals, like DDT.

But it also lists several negative trends we can’t seem to reverse, e.g.:

·       Global warming

·       Tropical deforestation

·       Biodiversity decline (species loss)

The book then goe son to examine the international institutions that can further the agenda of sustainable development and env protection. What are the more formal social institutions? What do we have to work with? What Mechanism?

  • International institutions and mechanisms: growing but still weak
  • Non-Governmental Organizations (nat’l and intern’l): vanguard of the environmental movement, increasingly important on international level.
  • National institutions, agencies, etc.: formal expression of environmental concerns in legislation and administration, at all levels of government...

International Institutions

Why international approach?: It is pretty obvious that the global environmental problems cannot be addresses effectively by one nation-state or one people, though unilateral action is still an important aspect of overall environmental policy..

What mechanisms?

–       International Whaling Treaty / Commission

–       Long-Range Air Pollution

–       Great lakes; Danube; Fisheries; Acid Precip.

–       Convention on Trade in Endangered Species

–       Montreal protocol on CFCs

–       Global warming / Greenhouse gases (FCCC then Kyoto Protocol)

Multi-lateral / International MOUs, Treaties, etc.: like the International Whaling Treaty / Commission ; Long-Range Air Pollution; the US-Canada treaty on the Great Lakes; and literally dozens of fisheries agreements around the world. These are not all purely env. protections, they are sometimes just the necessary tool to keep a resource alive (e.g., fisheries which have common-property problems of lots of demand and limited resource and limited central authority to control access).

Convention on Trade in Endangered Species: OK, even if most nations in the world do not enact the equivalent of the ESA, some nations can effect species protections by agreeing not to accept trade in that species.

Montreal protocol on CFCs: often cited as the most successful international treaty---limited and then later banned production of CFCs that thin the ozone layer. Also cited as a model for the greenhouse gas treaty. BU substitutes for CFCs were available, and only a few corporations and few countries produced the materials.

Global warming / Greenhouse gases (FCCC then Kyoto Protocol): we’ve talked a lot about this and you examined some aspects of it in recitation. Movement toward a convention on GHGs got impetus with the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the so-called Earth Summit in Rio. After dozens of meetings and negotiations, a majority of the world’s nations agreed to a convention that was formalized into targets and time-tables for reductions at a meeting in Kyoto. I think this might be the international env agreement with the single largest number of nation participants.

But, do they work? Treaties c na be broken and there is no international judiciary and police force r that can enforce them. The Kyoto protocol for example depends on  the nation-states doing what they say they will do. Peer pressure is the main enforcer, the UN has no police power.

The UN Environment Program

So, we have some agreements among nations on the environment, but little in the way of standing governmental structure for protecting env at the international level. As close as we come is a rather weak org, the UNEP. It conducts research, collects data, and acts to host and foster environmental diplomacy (e.g., it took the lead on Kyoto.)

After UNCED it also became the home of several standing programs aimed at making international progress on:

•        UNEP Global Initiatives:

–       Sustainable Development (UNCED–1992 / Agenda 21)

•        Commission on Sustainable Development

–       Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC)

•        Kyoto Protocol (1997)

–       Biodiversity (CBD)

Biodiversity and similar efforts have not progressed as far as the FCCC or Kyoto.

Intern’l NGOs:

Increasingly important players are the non-governmental groups, mostly advocacy, but also direct action (GreenPeace) and educational. Orgs like CARE for the Earth; WWF; and international arms of NGOs like The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club.

Scientific: There’s also a growing tradition of international scientific bodies taking some role in at least analyzing, if not advocating for, environmental problems. One is the IUCN: Intn’l. Union for Conservation of Nature that maintains the equivalent of an endangered species list for the world. They have not regulatory or legal power, but they become the standard reference for nations, other NGOs, and international efforts like UNEP’s the Biodiversity program.

Geography 2412 Lecture Notes

U.S. Environmental Management Institutions

Most developed countries now have a administrative and legislative framework in place for managing and protecting the environment, some further developed than the US, some less well developed. The US framework includes all levels and branches of government.

Federal:

Three Branches

Legislative: write the laws, like the ESA, Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act, etc.

Executive: implement the laws, by creating agencies, like the EPA, and giving them the job of enforcing/implementing the law.

Judicial: test legality of law and execution: make sure the executive agency actually does what the law requires, and sometimes even assess the constitutionality of the law itself.

Federal agencies: You’ll be familiar with most of these, like the US Dept. of Agriculture which administers dozens of environmental laws and regulations, including those for soil erosion, and, through its Forest Service, a sub-agency, resources like timber and energy on public lands, wilderness, watersheds, etc.

Some have a bigger role than others. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established after passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1976 to implement the act’s various provisions (e.g., environmental impact assessments) and to administer past acts like the clean air and water bills.

Standing agencies, like the US Fish and Wildlife Service concerned originally mostly with wildlife refuges and migratory animals. FWS, sometimes get larger mandates, in this case the FWS was given the job by the administration to implement the Endangered Species Act.

State agencies: Some states have a similar set of agencies, like a forest and a park service, and, of course, the states also have legislative and judicial branches. But key to our concerns, the states manage wildlife , the allocation of water (though water quality is managed by federal law in cooperation with the states), and have a big role in public health associated with pollutants (e.g., it was with the state of NY that the residents of Love Canal first pleaded for clean-up or other solutions).

Local agencies: Counties and municipalities are taking on more environmental responsibilities, Some, like Boulder city and county have large open land resources, managed for wildlife and recreation. This is also where most land use and land development decisions are made. The feds have little say over private land use, and only a few states have state-wide land use laws (e.g., Oregon and Vermont), so every Walmart, subdivision, and office park you see (whether they are environmentally benign or problematic) has been permitted by local planning). Local gov is also the key point of treatment of waste water, under federal rules.

NGO’s: Operate at all levels.

Environmental advocacy/litigation: some groups try everything: education, lobbying, and litigation when they see fit.

Recreation/sporting groups: there’s a growing environmental advocacy among the hu8nting and fishing clubs, though still come tension, say, between mainline enviro orgs and, say, mountain bike clubs.

Planning groups: because land use is mostly regulated at the local scale, and because it often affects people’s backyards, many local groups form up around land and development issues, and while much of their concern is social, some of it is about environmental quality..

Neighborhood and special interest groups: temporary groups form around specific issues, like water transfers in Colorado, or the group of homeowners in Love Canal that formed to press their concerns with the state and feds.

Trade and commodity groups (e.g., Chemical Manufacturers Association): these groups have become more active in recent years. Always big players especially in lobbying, they now do more education and litigation on environmental issues.