International Equity and Global Environmental Politics

Power and Principles in US Foreign Policy

Paul G. Harris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351737234
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This title was first published in 2001. Discussing the implications for the world of embracing - or failing to embrace - international environmental equity, as a core global objective is an essential exercise, which this book undertakes with diligence and vigour. Written in an accessible style, this is essential reading for students of international relations and world politics, global environmental policy and environmental policy and American foreign policy.

PART I

CONSIDERATIONS OF EQUITY IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS

1 Introduction: Environment, Equity, and U.S. Foreign Policy

During a press briefing in mid-1993, State Department counselor Timothy Wirth (soon to be under secretary of state for global affairs) declared that the Clinton administration was determined to reestablish the United States as the world’s environmental leader: “the United States once again resum[es] the leadership that the world expects of us. [S]ee the changes that we have made related to environmental policy coming out of the disastrous events in Rio just one year ago at the UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development]…. Just a year ago, the United States was viewed as a country not fulfilling its responsibilities, and now we are, on these most difficult issues, once again out in the lead.”¹

That same year, Vice President Al Gore, speaking before the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, said that the United States and other developed countries “have a disproportionate impact on the global environment. We have less than a quarter of the world’s population, but we use three-quarters of the world’s raw materials and create three-quarters of all solid waste. One way to put it is this: A child born in the United States will have 30 times more impact on the earth’s environment during his or her lifetime than a child born in India. The affluent of the world have a responsibility to deal with their disproportionate impact.”²

In 1994 President Bill Clinton told the National Academy of Sciences, “If you look at the rate at which natural resources are disappearing and you look at the rate at which the gap between rich and poor is growing, if you look at the fact that the world’s population has doubled [in only 40 years], it is clear that we need a comprehensive approach to the world’s future. We put it under the buzzword of sustainable development, I guess, but there is no way that we can approach tomorrow unless we are at least mindful of our common responsibilities in all these areas…. already one-third of [the world’s] children are hungry, two of every five people on Earth lack basic sanitation, and large parts of the world exist with only one doctor for every 35,000 or 40,000 people. Reversing these realities will require innovation and commitment and a determination to do what can be done over a long period of time….”³

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early 1995, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said that the United States can no longer escape the consequences of environmental degradation, unsustainable population growth, and destabilizing poverty beyond U.S. borders. He said that these issues threaten America’s continued prosperity and its security, and that countries suffering from persistent poverty and worsening environmental conditions are not only poor markets for U.S. exports, but also likely victims of conflicts and crises that can only be resolved by costly American intervention. Thus, Secretary Christopher said, “the Clinton Administration is dedicated to restoring America’s leadership role on sustainable development—an approach that recognizes the links between economic, social, and environmental progress. … Supporting the developing world’s efforts to promote economic growth and alleviate chronic conditions of poverty serves America’s interests.”⁴ The previous year Christopher asked Congress for foreign assistance funding to support “child survival, poverty lending, and micro-enterprise programs to help the poorest of the poor acquire sufficient food, shelter, and capital to become productive and healthy members of society and to provide for their children. … Humanitarian assistance programs will always be part of our foreign policy because they project the values of the American people. They also reinforce our interest in sustainable development.”⁵

These attitudes prevailed throughout the Clinton administration’s tenure. Reflecting this, in July 1999 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that Americans “cannot be secure if the air we breathe, the food we grow, and the water we drink are at risk because the global environment is in danger. … The United States has the world’s largest economy [and] the best environmental technology. And our society is by far the largest emitter of the gases that cause global climate change. So we have both the capacity and the obligation to lead.”⁶ She repeated these comments a year later in a speech for “Earth Day.”⁷ In September 1999, President Clinton said that Americans “have a big responsibility because America produces more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world.”⁸ These statements were reinforced by officials at various levels in the foreign policy bureaucracy.

While they are usually couched in terms of U.S. national interests, these statements nevertheless reflect growing concern about environmental changes and a nascent acceptance of international equity—a fair and just distribution among countries of benefits, burdens and decision-making authority associated with international relations—as one of the objectives of U.S. global environmental policy. This book argues that this acceptance of international equity objectives, albeit limited, is unprecedented in U.S. foreign policy, explains the reasons behind it, examines why the United States has failed to accept international environmental equity more robustly, and speculates on its future implications for U.S. interests and world politics.

In contrast to the Clinton administration’s posture, the U.S. government under George Bush (and indeed Ronald Reagan) was extremely skeptical of the value of the whole United Nations Conference on Environment and Development endeavor, and opposed many of the equity provisions adopted by the conference or attempted to dilute them.⁹ Yet even the Bush administration had agreed to provisions for international equity in the London amendments to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and by the time Bush attended the 1992 Earth Summit his administration’s opposition to international equity considerations had softened substantially.

The U.S. acceptance in the 1990s of international equity as a goal of global environmental policy, albeit quite modest, is unusual by historical standards. The U.S. government has traditionally sought to deny responsibility for international inequities, especially insofar as they relate to financial commitments by the United States, and the U.S. government has been especially unwilling to seriously consider the demands of developing countries for more equitable treatment in international economic relations. Yet, in conjunction with increasingly well-understood and salient changes to the global environment, the U.S. government has softened and occasionally reversed its traditional opposition to matters of international equity.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the agreements coming from it, which are the main objects of this analysis of U.S. policy, were unprecedented events in international relations. Previous efforts to advance international equity norms in the environmental policy field, such as in the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as more general calls for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), had little success. In contrast, the UNCED agreements and conventions signed at the June 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro elevated norms of international equity to prominence in the environmental issue area. What is more, it is possible that the provisions for international equity that were included in the UNCED agreements—if taken more seriously in coming decades—could signal a substantial shift in the conduct of international relations generally, not only in the environmental field.

Questions Addressed in this Book

This book looks at U.S. international environmental policy in the context of the UNCED process, including: (1) the negotiations leading to the 1989 UN General Assembly Resolution 44/228 establishing UNCED; (2) the preparatory committee (prepcom) negotiations dealing with the UNCED Declaration and Agenda 21; (3) the UNCED meeting held in June 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (the “Earth Summit”), where associated international environmental agreements were signed; (4) the international deliberations regarding the world’s forests leading to the UNCED statement on forest principles; (5) separate negotiations, including the intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) meetings, for the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Biodiversity Convention; and (6) subsequent international negotiations dealing with interpretation and implementation of these agreements.

In short, the book is concerned with the whole UNCED process, specifically from the late 1980s to the Earth Summit. It also examines with somewhat less focus the subsequent UNCED follow-on negotiations to show especially how United States policy has dealt with the equity provisions of agreements and conventions signed at the Rio convention. The UNCED process is ongoing and evolving; this book focuses on the formative stages of that process, especially as it relates to international equity and U.S. foreign policy, but it also looks a how and why U.S. policy has evolved since Rio. The specific primary questions this book seeks to answer include the following:

•To what extent have the U.S. and other governments accepted international equity as an objective of global environmental policy?

•What explains the U.S. government’s acceptance of international equity as an objective of its policy in the global environmental field?

•Why did the U.S. government under President Bush not go further in accepting international equity as an objective of U.S. global environmental policy? Why did the Clinton administration go beyond the Bush administration in accepting international equity as an objective of global environmental policy? Why was the Clinton administration unable to act more robustly to promote international environmental equity?

Additional future-oriented questions addressed in this book include these:

•What are the practical policy implications and normative implications of the U.S. government’s acceptance of international equity as an objective of its global environmental policy? That is, what effect might the partial U.S. embrace of international equity as an objective of its global environmental policy have on future U.S. definitions of its interests? How might this affect American influence in international environmental politics and international affairs generally?

•Should considerations of international environmental equity figure more prominently in American policymakers’ calculations of U.S. national interests and global power?

As a prelude to answering these questions, the next chapter discusses the concept of international equity, which is defined in this book as a fair and just distribution among countries of benefits, burdens, and decis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword by Neil Summerton
• Preface
• Part I: Considerations of Equity in International Environmental Politics
• Part II: International Environmental Equity and U.S. Foreign Policy
• Part III: Equity, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Future of Global Environmental Politics
• Index
• About the Author