Environmental politics Flashcards
What are the types of goods? What are excludable and rival goods?
- Public: goods that are non-rival and non-excludable (sunlight)
- Private: goods that are rival and excludable (car)
- Common-pool resources: goods that are rival and non-excludable (fisheries)
- Club: good that are non-rival and excludable (Netflix)
- Rival goods: those that reduce its availability for others (anything that is limited in quantity) (eg; food, oil)
- Excludable goods: those that exclude others from using it (can be prevented from being consumed by some) (eg; housing)
What is the tragedy of the commons?
- When a resource is open to all without limit but there is no incentive to conserve.
- Individual incentives and collective incentives are at odds
- No actor can solve this problem on their own (others will just hoover up whatever another leaves behind)
- Result: everyone is worse off
eg; an area of the ocean being accessed by a bunch of countries for the resource of fish, and all of them are endlessly collecting all the fish with no end as whatever fish they leave behind will just be collected by other countries.
Why is it so hard to solve the tragedy of the commons?
- no single actor can solve this problem by themself
- incentives to free ride
- a version of the prisoner’s dilemma:
a) defect (pollute/harvest resources)
b) cooperate (don’t pollute/leave resources)
What does it mean to free ride on the contributions of other actors?
To free ride means for an actor to benefit from something, but to let other actors pay for it. (eg; peace)
Comments on uneven distribution of costs and benefits
Developing states benefit from pollution:
- polluting can help developing states grow quickly
- home to most of the world’s forests, which are beneficial for fighting climate change, but have incentives to destroy these forests for economic development
- who should pay to leave these forests unharvested? developed states?
Companies benefit from pollution:
- increase profits by not paying full costs of production/externalizing costs
- regulations can raise costs and prices
- hard to compete with foreign competition that have no regulation costs attached
————————————————————————–
Short term interest- to pollute:
- reducing emissions is expensive
- reducing emissions harms economic growth
Long term interest- not to pollute:
- help future generations
How can states make cooperation on environmental issues easier?
Privatizing public goods:
- Cap and trade system:
a) sets a limit on emissions
b) actors can sell unused emissions to others who over pollute
Number of actors:
- Reduce the number of actors as there is more room for free riding in larger groups
- eg; acid rain only affects certain countries, thus making it an easier issue to cooperate on
Complexity/magnitude of problem:
- Complexity and magnitude of problem must be reduced
a) easier to negotiate issue-specific treaties
b) makes fewer demands of states
Repeated interaction:
- Must be leveraged
a) allows states to withhold cooperation as punishment
b) if a state violates an environmental agreement, they can be punished on other issues
Recent efforts to cooperate on climate change? Their strengths and weaknesses?
UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change):
Strengths:
- Reduced costs of joint decision-making through COP conferences
- Acknowledged inequalities by dividing states into ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ categories
Weaknesses:
- Low specificity; how much to reduce? by when?
Kyoto Protocol:
Strengths:
- Improved the UNFCCC by establishing specific targets for industrialized states to reduce greenhouse gases
- Privatized a public good by introducing the emissions trading program
- Establishment of a compliance committee to monitor and enforce targets
a) is a state in violation?
b) punishment: naming and shaming, lose access to emissions trading
Weaknesses:
- China and India (major emitters) excluded due to ‘developing’ status
- United States (major emitter) did not ratify
- Compliance was mixed
Paris Agreement:
Strengths:
- Improved upon the Kyoto Protocol through increasing obligation by requiring all signatories to submit commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions (NDCs; Nationally Determined Contributions)
Weaknesses:
- States set their own goals (NDCs)
- No penalty for not meeting NDC goals
What is the postwar global order?
the political, economic, and security arrangements created by the Allied Powers after after WWII
- norms of sovereignty and self-determination
- alliances protect states from threats (eg; NATO)
- Bretton Woods system facilitates and regulates trade
- UN helps cooperation on other issues
Weaknesses of the postwar global order?
- Self enforcing (sovereignty)
- Biased (created by the Allied powers)
