Will Countries Cooperate Effectively to Slow the Rate of Global Warming - Essay Example

Will countries cooperate effectively to slow the rate of global warming Countries cooperation The essence of cooperation in the world is necessitatedby several factors which require world dwellers to have some basic concern for each other. Cooperation is needed for the good of every citizen in the world as the resources present are too scarce to be utilized to an individual's satisfaction. Not only the resources but other factors such as space are required due to the fact that individuals around the world need to respect others and observe the sovereignty of the nations around the world. The need for cooperation is not only for purposes of peace but for global issues such as the environment. This is the subject matter of this study where we examine the possibility of the world uniting to ensure global warming is slowed down. The ancient individuals realized this need to protect their resources as they new that overuse would lead to extinction which would obviously lead to the suffering of the entire society. A study of the ancient African nations shows that the societies would circle their fields and ensure that these areas were only used by the members of that particular area. This was one way of ensuring that their resources were safeguarded against misuse by the other societies. Having ensured that the societies safeguarded their resources which at the time included grazing land and water resources, there was need to ensure that the members of society properly utilized their resources with every member being mindful of the other. This again led to the societal definition of the use of property to ensure that the resources lasted long enough to meet the individual requirement. The need necessitated control of possessions by controlling the number of cattle that an individual owned. The need for an individual to own additional cattle was subject to discussion by the rest of the community. The individual it should be noted was only allowed to own additional cattle if the environment could cater for the additional cattle. Thus, the rule of supply and demand was long applied where the demand was necessitated by the cattle number and the supply was the natural endowments. This shows the need for cooperation in ensuring that the society benefited in a time when civilization was not anywhere in the vicinity and when individuals never interacted beyond the societal level. Besides, these societies in Africa had no idea of such earlier scholars such as Karl Marx who had first pointed out the need to cooperate in the use of collective property. The rules were passed because the human character has all along known to be self-centered in the sense that others needs are secondary to their own need. The other thing is that humans are generally competitive and what they compete for is scarce thus the need to control the scarce resources. As no such thing would be achieved through participation of isolated individuals, then the need to have individuals cooperate has always been key in ensuring that these resources are preserved and sparingly used for all of us and those to come. In the view of James Madison an 18th century economist, the scarcity of resources has necessitated the need to have a federalist government which stands for the need of the entire society and which ensures the unity and association of all individuals for their own good. He further observes that were all men angels, there would be no need to have a government as we would all be considerate of each other. However, the existence of even a single non angel would obviously necessitate the existence of a government. The actions of the non angels have this effect that they will always try to get the entire property to build a competitive advantage and on realization of the intention by the rest, they will obviously join in the competition for the resources. Thus, the need for the government to create a workable distribution system that balances the needs and interests of the individuals. From this illustration, there are two apparent things; for cooperation to be achieved, the needs of people have to be considered against the resources available and since these individuals cannot be trusted to control their own interests, then there obviously needs to be a controlling body. (Esty pp.128).This controlling body is not the limited institutions in the ancient society but in today's context they are the governments, regional institutions and global institutions which are all aimed at ensuring that the resources are balanced. Countries benefit collectively and the propagation of self interest is curtailed. The achievement of cooperation in the recent world is dependent on these institutions as they remain most influential in making decisions for the good of the entire world. The achievement of this though is only possible if an economic and political bonding is achieved. However, for these conditions to be started, there are conditions which need to be met and examined so as to ensure they succeed in their respective goals. Besides, it would be necessary to look at conditions where these fail and where they succeed. These concerns need to be examined to build awareness if not to foster associations. Political bonding is not easy to achieve as countries exercise different political ideologies that hamper political bonding. However, the economic bonding has taken considerable steps towards uniting the world as countries seek to take great and tremendous steps towards achieving economic ties. This is further strengthened by the existence of global trading blocks which have sought to ensure that there are favorable trade terms to help boost the association of countries. The first step towards achieving this was the formation of the General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which sought to boost trade between the member countries. The GATT was later on to be replaced by the World Trade Organization WTO. (Norman pp. 48) The use of these is the start of the exploration of ways to unite the world and the various ways to achieve cooperation. The first way of doing this is examining the workings of these two organizations and the various principles they apply that would be a contributory factor in uniting the world. Working of WTO. The organization's success can be attributed to its founding principles of reciprocity and non discrimination. Reciprocity: this is whereby a country offers to reduce its trade barrier to a certain countries. The principle in turn requires this country to reciprocate the same to the initial country. Non discrimination: this requires that the country that offers a reduction on trade barriers should universally do so. Thus, if a country offers a trade benefit or trade concession, the same should apply to all other countries that happen to be members of the organization. On the two principles, the main question that arises is if the two really help achieve the good for the countries or it actually leads to exploitation of some. The first principle on reciprocity one may ask is why it is important to reduce trade barriers (Esty pp.128). The common view would be that the unilateral reduction of tariffs between individual countries would lead to lower tariffs for the local individuals. The Answer for this is that the economic benefit would depend on the size of the country as the whole idea of demand and supply is dependent on magnitude of the goods being traded. For small countries, the total effect of reduction in tariffs would obviously have an effect on the total prices for the local inhabitants. This is in the simple fact that the tariff introduced to goods imported in the country comes as an additional cost to the locals. However, with the reduction of tariffs, the total amount translated to the individuals is minimal as it lacks this additional cost element. Under these circumstances, the total demand for the same goods in the particular country increases as the cost goes down. However, being a small country, the total effect of the cost reduction may not be felt. Thus, this is not a factor to affect the global prices nor would the global effect of the increased demand be significant. Incase of a tariff increase, the situation will be the reverse where the government will obviously increase the earnings through taxation revenues. However, for individual consumers, the effect is different as the cost goes up making the demand low. This leads to the overall loss of welfare for the locals. The situation is however different for bigger countries as the equation changes due to the effect on the global setting. For republics such as the US, a change in trade tariffs has an overall effect on the total demand cum global price. (Esty pp.113).An increase in the tariffs of a big republic leads to an increase in prices of the goods affected by the tariff. This reduces the demand and the effect is globally felt due to the magnitude. The above illustration is meant to draw our attention to one thing; that for the global cooperation to be achieved that is at least in as far as trade is concerned, there is need to look at the impact of individual countries as they have different effects on the global arena. The World Trade Organization tries to achieve this through the use of its policies and principles. The above illustration is just illustrating why individualism should be discouraged at least in the global arena. (Avinash pp. 68)As we have seen, a country trying to foster its own trade terms may end up isolating itself at the end of the day. The way to avoid this and have a coordinated effort towards global unity is by having such organizations to help in the same. These efforts though are not always possible as most countries always aim at ensuring their own good and wanting the best for their people. This disregards other countries which are equally important in the realization of their overall goal which is cooperation for common causes Having examined the formation of cooperation, there is also need to look at ways in which this cooperation can be sustained and how to ensure that the members retain a cordial relation towards each other. Factors that sustain cooperation between members are based on the common factors that bind these particular nations. Therefore, the first thing in achieving cooperation is a consensus between the countries of a need to achieve a particular goal. These goals are agreed by the particular members and there are regulations put forward to ensure that the countries have a framework that defines their actions towards each other. It is important to note that the lack of these common elements would ultimately lead to the failure of the particular system. For example, in the above economic illustration, it is important to realize that the need to have a controlled trade system is the goal to be achieved. This however necessitates a framework which ensures the particular goals are met and that the objective of a favorable system which in the long run achieves cooperation exists. In this case, it is the principles put forward which are non discrimination and reciprocity. The chances of achieving a common line are limited as formation of cooperation is mainly idealistic. It is important to note that members do not change but inhibit their nature in trying to achieve the cooperation goals. In actual sense, members still try to go around the rules and play out their advantages to secure favor or at least have an edge against the other members. This factor of individualism and need to propagate self interest is a major undoing in achieving equilibrium.(Walstad 202) Taking the economic view which is mainly the unifying factor in this study, we realize that besides there being rules put forward by the WTO, members still suffer from trade imbalances as dominance by major economic powers shock them. Having ensured the formation of cooperation, there is always a need to look at the various ways that the same maybe undermined. These barriers to cooperation just as has been noted earlier are the imbalance between partners and individualism; only that in this case, individualism is elevated to mean a nation. The countries trying to achieve cooperation have to contend with self interest as maybe required by individuals of these particular countries. Besides, countries always want to have their economic muscle play a part in their associations. This automatically brings the element of inequality which waters down the bases of cooperation as countries differ greatly in their economic ability. Self interest is needed to ensure the best for a country which goes against the foundations of a cooperation which aims at ensuring a good for all. The need for this intrinsic characteristic is a major factor that ultimately fails cooperation. On climate issues, the same factors come into play. The economic might of a country determines its industrial capacity which in turn is viewed as the greatest contributor to environmental pollution. (Walstad pp.200) This leaves the economically challenged countries feeling like victims of these major countries. This creates the imbalance which at the end of the day makes cooperation between these countries difficult. This is for the simple fact that the countries with lesser economic potential feel the major economies ought to take responsibility. This opposes the general idea of a cooperation which is a collective and coordinated responsibility. References Standards and Technical Barriers to Trade (2009) Retrieved from http://www.ftaa-alca.org/FTAADraft03/ChapterXIII_e.asp Retrieved on November 4, 2009. Garret Hardin (2009). Tragedy of the commons http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html, Retrieved on November 4, 2009. Avinash, Dixit (2002). "Unilateralism in a multilateral world", Economic journal, Vol. 112 Norman V (1980). Theory of international trade. Cambridge University Press. Walstad, William B (1997). "The Effect of Economic Knowledge on Public Opinion of Economic Issues." Journal of Economic Education, Vol. 28(3), pp. 195-205. Esty, Daniel (2001). "Bridging the Trade-Environment Divide" Journal of Economic Perspectives. Vol 15(3). Pp113-130 Dear Client, I read some of Sullivan's articles on international relations where I tried to merge with the existing articles. Such as the one on http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/8/5/6/pages98564/p98564-2.php. But it would help to specify which exactly you wanted. Plus there is a problem with one of you links you have sent along, the second one to be exact. . Thank you Read More