Global Environmental Politics

Concepts, Theories and Case Studies

Gabriela Kütting, Kyle Herman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351716635
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Global Environmental Politics is the perfect introduction to this increasingly significant area. This fully revised and updated new edition combines an accessible introduction to the most important environmental theories and concepts with a series of detailed case studies of the most pressing environmental problems.

Features and benefits of the book:

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• Explains the most important concepts and theories in environmental politics;
• Introduces environmental politics within the context of political science and international relations theories;
• Demonstrates how the concepts and theories apply in a wide variety of real world contexts;
• New case study chapters on the role of technology, the role of China, endangered species, biodiversity and the politics of conservation, the politics of food, forests, and the politics of waste;
• Each chapter is written by an established international authority in the field;
• Fully up to date with the latest topics such as climate change negotiations, transnational governance, new indicators for sustainable development goals and much more;
• More in-text support, such as end of chapter web links and discussion questions.

This exciting textbook is essential reading for all students of environmental politics and will be of key interest to students of international relations and political economy.

Part II

Case studies

Climate change

7

Science, international cooperation and global environmental politics

Paul G. Harris

Among all of the myriad global environmental issues, climate is by far the most complex – scientifically and politically. It presents profound dangers to people, other species and the biosphere in the long term. The politics of climate change have been tortuous and slow, particularly at the international level. Over several decades, climate change has moved from being a minor issue in international relations to being one of the most high-profile global issues. It is by far the most prominent challenge in both the practice and study of global environmental politics.

As climate change has become better understood and more prominent in the media and public discourse, so too have predictions about its impacts on human societies and nature. Major impacts of climate change are already being experienced around the world (IPCC 2014). These range from noticeable sea-level rise along many coastlines to more powerful storms, droughts and spread of deadly pathogens. Climate change is now a significant concern for almost every government, many major international organizations, industries of every variety, thousands of nongovernmental organizations and indeed millions of people around the world. Climate change is now high politics.

Governments have negotiated agreements to study climate change and to start putting in place policies that limit the ‘greenhouse gas’ pollution that causes it. However, despite the high profile of climate change and actions around the world to address it, the responses of states and other actors, including individuals, have failed to keep up with the increasing pace of change. While policies to address climate change are many and varied, and increasingly these policies are starting to curb greenhouse gas pollution, they are grossly inadequate. Only radical action can avert dangerous climate change (Barkdull and Harris 2015). But such radical action would require changes to the status quo – changes to who wields political influence, changes to who controls economic resources and changes to the way that most people, particularly in the developed world, live their lives. The science of climate change has been disputed, its solutions challenge powerful vested interests, its policy implications mean requiring industries and individuals to do things differently. All of these attributes make it a formidable political challenge. For students of global environmental politics, a fundamental question is whether climate change has become just too difficult to solve – or just too political.

As a case study in global environmental politics, climate change is nothing if not byzantine. This chapter aims to reveal some of the complexity of the problem while also shedding light on several major and recurring attributes of the problem.¹ It summarizes some of the scientific findings on climate change and notes how climate science has been politicized. It describes how governments have negotiated a regime of international agreements and institutions intended to address climate change collectively and individually. It is not possible in a book chapter to find a solution to climate change – after all, such a solution has eluded diplomats, politicians, activists and experts for decades. But this chapter may help to identify some obstacles to more effective action on climate change and some potential pathways that might lead toward such action.

Climate change science: environment and politics

The term ‘climate change’ is now widely used to refer to unnatural human-caused (anthropogenic) large-scale environmental changes brought on by the emissions of greenhouse gases. The idea that actions by humanity could bring about changes to Earth’s climate system is not new. Hypotheses about the ‘greenhouse effect’ – global warming precipitated by the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – were proposed in the nineteenth century. Much more recently, particularly since the mid-twentieth century, as observed climatic conditions became more noticeably abnormal, the problem gained prominence among both scientists and governments.

Carbon dioxide, the most influential greenhouse gas in aggregate, is produced in massive quantities through the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – and by the cutting and burning of forests, as well as other land-use changes. Human activities are adding carbon to the environment at unprecedented rates. The most prominent manifestation of climate change is warming of the atmosphere and oceans, from which many of the worst impacts follow. For example, warming of the oceans and atmosphere leads to rising sea levels as seawater expands and glaciers recede, sending their meltwater into the sea. Other changes, such as ocean acidification and the cumulative effects of other forms of pollution and environmental degradation, are among many other effects of climate change arising from greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental pollution and its consequences

Human-induced global warming was, until quite recently, viewed as an issue of the future – a problem for future generations, future governments and future citizens to address. But it is now evident to scientists that ongoing environmental changes, such as widespread droughts and extreme warming of the Arctic, are consequences of global warming and contemporaneous climate change. The impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems and on human societies will be increasingly severe, particularly in parts of the world where geographic vulnerability and poverty make adaptation to changes difficult or impossible. Importantly for understanding the global politics of climate change, the problem is intimately connected to nearly all economic activity and is particularly wrapped up with modern lifestyles and consumption habits, thereby connecting the science of the global environment to how people live and work – and to what governments, industries and people care about the most.

Over the last three decades, scientists have radically improved their knowledge of climate change. They have developed a nuanced understanding of how greenhouse gas pollution is affecting the environment on land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere. Very importantly, debates among scientists about climate change are now about the details of the problem; there is no longer significant scientific doubt that human activities are to blame for global warming and myriad manifestations of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of experts created by governments in 1988 to study climate change, declared in its latest scientific assessment that

Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century.

(IPCC 2013: 17)

The IPCC defines ‘extremely likely’ as 90–100 per cent probability (IPCC 2013: 142) – about as certain as the scientific community can be when making statements about a complex environmental issue.

Sources of scientific information on climate change are ubiquitous, leaving many concerned citizens facing the problem of deciding which sources of information to rely upon. The most authoritative official reports on the causes and consequences of climate change come from the IPCC, most recently its fifth assessment report (IPCC 2013, 2014). The IPCC is an official international body created for, and by, governments, and as such it tends to reach conclusions based on consensus. Consequently, its findings have tended to under-estimate the pace and scale of climate change, as well as the resulting adverse impacts. Generally speaking, based on reports from the panel over nearly 30 years, whatever conclusions the panel reaches and warnings it may give about future climate change, things are likely to be worse. Consequently, the panel’s assessments are best viewed as a lower baseline for understanding and action. Nevertheless, the IPCC’s findings have, for decades, been routinely challenged by ‘climate skeptics’ and ‘climate deniers’ as overstating the problem (see below). Politics has often turned scientific reality on its head.

According to the fourth assessment report of the IPCC, after 1970, greenhouse gas emissions increased globally by 70 per cent, with carbon dioxide in particular increasing by 80 per cent, especially after 1995 (IPCC 2007: 37). The panel concluded in its fifth assessment report that ‘atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions …’ (IPCC 2013: 11). The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2011 reached 391 parts per million (ppm) compared to 280 ppm prior to the Industrial Revolution (IPCC 2013: 11) – and in 2013 it surpassed 400 ppm, the highest in recorded human history (NASA 2013). Plants and the oceans absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide; oceans alone absorb about a third of it. This is important to bear in mind because atmospheric warming would be much greater were it not for the environmental ‘sinks’ of carbon.

Atmospheric warming has become especially pronounced in recent decades: each of the last three decades has been warmer than the prior one, consistently and repeatedly exceeding historical averages (IPCC 2013: 5). The oceans have warmed substantially, too. Indeed, global warming would be much worse were it not for the oceans absorbing much of the ‘greenhouse’ heat (IPCC 2013: 8), much as they have absorbed the carbon dioxide creating this heat to begin with. Ocean warming results in sea-level rise due to thermal expansion and from the melting of ice on land. Ice around the world has been decreasing markedly, with the glaciers of Greenland warming and sending enormous quantities of meltwater into the sea. Furthermore, Arctic sea ice has been markedly reduced, as has snow cover in many areas, allowing the sun to warm those areas and thereby adding to yet further warming of land and sea (IPCC 2013: 9).

According to the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (IPCC 2014: 4–13), every part of the natural world, both on land and sea, has been affected by climate change. Water systems have been particularly affected, for example, with diminished snowfall reducing runoff in some locations while melting glaciers have increased it in others. Species on land and in the sea are shifting their ranges, with, for example, some land animals moving toward higher elevations and fish moving away from areas of the oceans that are unusually warm. Some species have gone extinct, and others are likely to do so. Crop yields are being affected, mostly adversely, thereby reducing food security. Human health is being affected directly by climate change. For example, more people are dying from heat stress and more are being affected by diseases spread by pathogens, such as mosquitoes, that benefit from warming. Extreme weather events have become more common. Increased heat waves, wildfires, droughts, severe storms and floods are causing suffering to humans and other species. These and other climate-related changes are multiplying the dangers posed by existing risks for communities and individuals. In the case of risks to people, they are especially high for those individuals and communities that have limited ability to cope, namely the poor. People in areas of conflict face added vulnerability due to the impacts of climate change. These and similar changes will continue to increase in the future.

Tables 7.1 and 7.2 identify a number of key risks from climate change described by the IPCC.

Table 7.1 Selected sectoral risks

Freshwater resources	• Water scarcity and flooding will increase alongside warming • Competition for reduced water resources to increase
Terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems	• Species face increased risk of extinction • High chance of ‘abrupt and irreversible’ changes to these ecosystems
Coastal and marine systems	• Adverse impacts of sea-level rise, such as flooding and erosion • Migration and loss of marine species • Ocean acidification to adversely affect species, notably in polar and reef ecosystems
Food	• Major crops (rice, corn and wheat) negatively impacted • Food security to suffer due to scarcities, rising prices
Rural areas	• Water scarcities, food insecurity and reduced agricultural incomes, especially among the poor
Economics	• Rising costs to cope with climate change • Reduced incomes due to climate impacts • Losses accelerate with greater warming • Reduced economic growth and increased poverty
Security	• Increased displacement and involuntary migration • Increased risks of violent conflict • Potential threats to national security from territorial changes, boundary impacts, effects on fish stocks and so forth

Source: Adapted from IPCC (2014: 14-20).

Politicization of climate science

The basic science of climate change is straightforward. Observational research confirms scientists’ hypotheses and computer models are now quite accurate. (We know this because scientists use their models to go back in time and predict subsequent environmental conditions that have been confirmed by environmental measurements and observations.) This does not mean that uncertainties are gone; far from it: climate change is so complex that details will always be the subject of analysis. For example, there is great uncertainty about potential impacts of ‘positive feedback’ loops, such as the potential runaway warming that could result from methane emissions from melting tundra (and, worryingly, possibly from melting methane hydrates beneath the sea). What is very clear from the science is that the consequences of many uncertain impacts will be bad. Thus, the scientific uncertainty is not that climate change is happening and is at the root of future hardships, but instead that scientists have not yet determined fully how bad the many bad impacts will be – whether they will be very bad or utterly catastrophic. Many scientists believe the latter, but this is not yet the consensus. In short, the reality of global warming and its basic causes and consequences, along with the same for broader climatic changes, are now established. Questions now are about the details.

Table 7.2 Key risks for individuals and communities

...

‘death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods’ in coastal areas and on islands affected by storm surges, flooding and rising seas

‘severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods’ for people in major cities due to flooding

‘extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services’ (e.g., emergency and health services, basic necessities such as water and electricity)

‘mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat’, notably among the poor and those who work outdoors

‘food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems’ due to rising temperatures and weather extremes, notably among the poor

‘loss of rural livelihoods and income’ due to falling agricultural output and shortages of water, especially for those most dependent on the land (e.g., farmer workers and pastoralists)

‘loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide’ for coastal and fishing communities

‘loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods’

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• I Concepts and theories
• II Case studies
• Index