Protecting The Environment With The Policies - Essay Example

Environmental Politics Environment protection is one of the major concerns of the modern world because of the immense threat it causes to the human civilization. Environment can be classified in to two broad categories; natural environment and built environment. The natural environment includes all the living and nonliving things occurred naturally whereas built environment is human made only. Built environment can destroy the natural environment. Most of the natural environment problems are caused by the built environment. Politics plays a major role in the environmental protection activities. “Environmental politics examines the evolution of environmental movements and parties, it provides analysis of the making and implementation of public policy in the area of the environment at international, national and local levels” (Environmental Politics) There are so many different laws agreed between different countries to protect environment. Kyoto protocol and Montreal protocol are international agreements signed by most of the countries. At the same time the sincerity of these countries in implementing Kyoto protocol and Montreal protocol is suspicious. Most of the countries are blaming others for their own failures in implementing the environmental protection treaties. Implementation of these environmental protection treaties may result in some economic losses to a country. In short, “The lack of progress on tackling climate change internationally is due to states economic interests”. This paper analyzes environment politics and the commitments and sincerity of the countries in tackling the climate change problems. According to Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta (1994), “States are not equally affected by atmospheric pollution”(Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta, p. 79). One of the major problems associated with environmental pollution is the fact that some countries were victimized by other countries. We can fix boundaries for our country with respect to the land, we can conserve our land properties from any kind of intrusions; however, it is difficult to block the intrusion of toxic gases from other countries. In other words, even if we are sincere in protecting our environment, it is not necessary that our efforts would be completely successful because of the intrusion of polluted air from our neighboring countries. It is quite possible that those countries which are more responsible for environmental problems may escape from the consequences whereas their neighbors may suffer from that. “A victim country A, that is, a country that is ecologically vulnerable to emissions emanating from country B, should try to improve the state of its environment by asking country B to reduce its emissions” (Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta, p. 79). In short, if a country suffers less from its environment destroying activities, they will not take any serious effort to reduce their emissions because of the economic benefits. Such countries will never consider the consequences of their activities even if it is affecting the neighboring countries. “Policy action to limit greenhouse gas emissions has clearly been heavily constrained by a hegemonic discourse that such action would impose significant costs on industrialized economies in terms of losses in future GDP growth”(Newell and Paterson, p. 681). It is an accepted fact that no country can develop properly in the absence of heavy industrialization. At the same time it is difficult to implement industrialization without causing any damages to the environment. The smoke and other gases coming out from industrial units are destroying the environment heavily. However, it is difficult for them to stop or reduce the industrialization process. Under such circumstances, they will ask other countries to stay away from environment polluting activities. For example, United Sates is one of the heavily industrialized countries in the world. Even a single family in US may have more than 3 to 4 cars or vehicles. Each and every people in the family may use their own vehicles for their travelling needs. Line bus uses are very less in America. In other words, automobile usages, one of the major culprits of environmental pollution, are more in US than in anywhere else. Instead of controlling their automobile usages or environment polluting activities, US try to educate the other countries. If an industrialized country is not sincere in their environment protection activities, they can never ask the emerging countries to reduce their emission levels. Bryner (2008) has argued that “unless there are major breakthroughs in clean energy technologies or engineering innovations to counter global warming, the transformation to a stable climate will require a massive restructuring of economic life”(Bryner, p.329-330). Economic growth is necessary for a country to provide better living facilities to the people. At the same time, there is no point in striving for better life if the strategies used for providing better life are causing problems to the environment. Such efforts will be suicidal. It is just like a person sitting on the branch of a tree, cutting the same branch using an axe. It is our duty to protect the environment first and then only we should think of the betterment of life. Burning fossil fuels are necessary for the human development. At the same time we should remember that fossil fuel burning is destroying the environment in one war or other. “Fossil fuel companies have lobbied heavily at various levels to secure their interests. They have formed a number of umbrella groups, most notably the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) and the Climate Council (CC)” (Newell and Paterson, p. 683). Lobbying is a big problem in some of the western countries like United States. Most of the business tycoons have lobbyists in the policy making body, Congress. These business groups sped huge amount of money for the election campaigns of the congressmen. Those congressmen who got election funds from the business groups are forced to conserve the interests of that business groups. Fossil fuel companies also have lobbyists in the policy making body and hence any serious efforts to control the environmental pollution would end up in failure. Some people have the wrong conception that the farmers may have favorable opinion towards the environmental protection activities. But, farmers have their own interests. They are using pesticides and chemicals in their land for increasing the agricultural yields. If the government goes ahead with the environmental protection activities, farmers may also be forced to sacrifice some of their interests. At the same time farmers know very well that any control put on fossil fuel burning may open another opportunity for them. “Farmers supporting action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because doing so would create demand for motor vehicle fuels produced from ethanol, electricity produced from biomass and methane, and for carbon sequestration in agricultural soils” (Bryner, p. 332). “The issue of global climate change and what to do about it has put economics to a severe test in which economists have been challenged to think afresh about how to model such fundamental notions as risk, uncertainty, and discounting”(Weitzman, p. 703). Everybody knows the fact that any effort to reduce carbon emission or environmental protection may affect the economic growth. In other wise, there should be a compromise between economic interests and the environmental protection efforts. It is impossible for us to prohibit stop the automobile usages or industrial developments. At the same time we can think of options or strategies which reduce the impacts of industrialization or automobile use on environment. The idea of discounting has emerged in the environmental protection activities because of the above awareness. The idea of discounting is based on the idea that a dollar tomorrow is worth less than a dollar today because if we invested the dollar today we would have more than a dollar tomorrow. Thus, investing a dollar today to protect the environment in the future, either by spending it or by allowing a policy that decreases current economic activity by a dollar, makes policy sense only if it yields at least as much economic activity in that future as would have been produced by investing that dollar elsewhere in the economy. Otherwise, the investment strategy would be preferable, because the extra money could then be used to increase well-being in the future more than it would be increased by the environmental policy (Barkin, p.62) We are always comparing things based on the profit. An activity is accepted or rejected based on the profit or loss it makes ultimately. Any sacrifice made on environmental protection will never affect the human life wrongly. We should remember that our ancestors lived in this world with better health even though their living standards were poor. Medical science educate us that walking few kilometers every day will avoid severe disease like cardiac problems, high blood pressure, Cholesterol, diabetics etc. Our ancestors had little problems with the above diseases because of their better physical activities. On the other hand, modern generation uses vehicles for their every travelling need and the physical activities like walking or running are less among them. Subsequently, severe diseases are big problems for the modern generation. A substantial period of life is spent on hospital beds by the modern generation because of lack of physical workouts. In short, automobile usages not only affect our health but also it spoils the environment. When we compare the benefits and drawbacks of automobile use in the long run, definitely it brings more damages to the individuals and also the environment. Kyoto protocol, the agreement reached between countries to protect the environment, has been rejected by the main green house gas emitter, United States. The major feature of Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012”(Kyoto Protocol). “President Bush claimed that the treaty requirements would harm the U.S. economy, leading to economic losses of $400 billion and costing 4.9 million jobs” (West) Each country is a self-interested actor that rationally seeks wealth and power by comparing the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. It is assumed for the issue-areas of ozone depletion and transboundary acidification that states are pursuing two main goals with the help of their environmental foreign policies. First, each country seeks to avoid vulnerability to air pollutants. Each state is concerned in the first place with its own territory and pays only lip service to the idea of "spaceship Earth." In particular, countries pursue policies that minimize adverse environmental effects on their own citizens and ecosystems. Second, states are more inclined to participate in environmental protection when the costs of compliance are relatively minor (Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta, p.78-79) In short, the economic interests of the states seem to be the major obstacle in front of the environmental protection efforts. Even the developed countries are not ready to sacrifice a little bit for the protection of the environment. On the other hand the emerging countries believe that the developed countries have more responsibility in protecting the environment than them. The arguments between the developed countries and the emerging economies have thus given political dimensions to the environmental protection efforts. It is necessary for all the countries to sacrifice some economic interests for environmental protection and to save the future world. Works Cited 1. Barkin, Samuel J. “Discounting the Discount Rate: Ecocentrism and Environmental Economics”. 2006. Global Environmental Politics 6:4, November 2006. Massachusetts Institute of Technology p.56-72 2. Bryner, Gary. “Failure and Opportunity: Environmental Groups in US Climate Change Policy”. 2008. Environmental Politics, Vol. 17, No. 2, April 2008, p.319–336. Routledge. DOI: 10.1080/09644010801936255 3. “Environmental Politics”. Web. 09 December 2010. 4. “Kyoto Protocol”. Web. 09 December 2010. 5. Newell, Peter and Paterson, Matthew. “A Climate for Business: Global Warming, the State and Capital”. 1998. Review of International Political Economy, 5: 4, 679 — 703. Routledge. DOI: 10.1080/096922998347426 6. Sprinz, Detlef and Vaahtoranta Tapani. “The Interest-Based Explanation of International Environmental Policy”.1994. International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Winter, 1994), pp. 77-105 Published by: The MIT Press. Jstor 7. Weitzman, Martin L. “A Review of "The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change". 2007. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 2007), pp. 703-724. Published by: American Economic Association. 8. West, Larry , “Should the United States Ratify the Kyoto Protocol”? Web. 09 December 2010. Read More