Notes 1 Introduction: Understanding Global Environmental Politics 1 For example, see Conca, Alberty and Dabelko (1995), Vogler (1995), Haas, Keohane and Levy (1993), Bartlett, Kurian and Malik (1995), Elliott (1998), Chatterjee and Finger (1994), Miller (1995), The Ecologist (1993). Choucri (1993) achieves the same effect, as the foreword is written by Maurice Strong, UNCED’s Secretary-General. 2 The formulation here is not intended to exclude the questions thrown up by poststructuralist perspectives. Doran (1995) for example, argues that a critical global environmental politics should be based on poststructuralism. For him, the most pertinent questions are those of power/knowledge. I would argue that my three questions can all be investigated through such a lens. But I would want to make claims concerning the origins of global environmental change central to a critical global environmental politics. Doran makes answers to such questions a matter of rhetoric, not amenable to detailed explanation (such a notion being overly modernist, I suspect). Thus while his normative position is very close to my own, he has little time for, and few conceptual tools for, an analysis of the origins of global environmental change. 3 For example Conca (1993), Dalby (1992), Doran (1995), Elliott (1998), Kuehls (1996), Litfin (1994), Paterson (1995, 1996a), Runyan (1992), Saurin (1994, 1996), Boardman (1997), Helleiner (1996), Hovden (1998), Laferriere and Stoett (1999). 4 I develop this point further in Paterson (forthcoming a). 5 Saurin (1996, p. 85). I take issue with Saurin’s argument in one respect. He suggests a classic Marxian focus on production relations. While I agree that these are crucial, dynamics of consumption practices are also important, and while it is clear that they are connected to production, I would argue they are not simply epiphenomenal. For the case here, it is more that the direct consumer is the ‘agent’ of environmental change than the direct producer (Saurin, 1996, p. 87). I discuss questions of consumption in more detail in Chapter 6. 2 Realism, Liberalism and the Origins of Global Environmental Change 1 Also on effectiveness, see Keohane, Haas and Levy (1993), Bernauer (1995), or Victor et al. (1998). 2 For others who use this threefold typology of power, interests, and ideas, see, for example, Rowlands (1995), albeit in a slightly modified form, Vogler (1992), or Hansenclever, Mayer and Rittberger (1996). 162 Notes 163 3 CERES stands for the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies. They were formerly known as the Valdez Principles. Other examples could be given, such as the Forestry Stewardship Council, established by WWF to cer- tify timber that is sustainably produced (Humphreys, 1996, pp. 149–51). In a more conflictual manner, organisations like Multinationals Monitor and even magazines such as Ethical Consumer, or campaigns like those against McDonald’s or Nestlé, fulfil such governance functions. See Newell (forth- coming 1999). This question is also discussed further in Chapter 7. 4 While in many ways the political dynamics of the ways environmentalists have tried to advance an environmental security agenda which disrupts the traditional focus of security in nationalist/statist and militarist terms is highly interesting, and reveals much of the dynamics of using existing polit- ical institutions to achieve Green goals, it is not the focus of this section. For examples, see Deudney (1990); Mische (1989); Finger (1991); Dalby (1992, 1998b). For a useful overview of the debates, see Kakonen (1994), and for selections of key texts, see Conca, Alberty and Dabelko (1995, pp. 239–77) or O’Tuathail, Dalby and Routledge (1998, pp. 179–243). 5 Waltz writes that ‘The death rate among states is remarkably low. Few states die; many firms do. Who is likely to be around 100 years from now – the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Egypt, Thailand, and Uganda? Or Ford, IBM, Shell, Unilever and Massey-Ferguson? I would bet on the States, perhaps even on Uganda.’ (Waltz, 1979, p. 95) 6 In this schema, I refers to environmental impact, P to Population, A to Affluence (sometimes C for Consumption is used), and T to Technology. Prominent in debates over this in the 1970s was the one between Barry Commoner and Paul Ehrlich over the relative importance of technology or population. The typology provided by Choucri (1993a) cited earlier is clearly a version of this threefold explanation of environmental change. 3 The ‘normal and mundane practices of modernity’: Global Power Structures and the Environment 1 The phrase in the title here is taken from Saurin (1994). 2 Several parts of this chapter were previously included in my chapter ‘Green Politics’ in Scott Burchill’s Theories of International Relations (1996; Paterson, 1996c). These include much of the section on Green political theory, the sec- tion ‘Against development’, and the concluding section. 3 This discussion is perhaps rather arbitrarily centred on these three books. For other discussions of Green political thought, see O’Riordan (1981), Hayward (1994), Atkinson (1991) or Martell (1994). 4 This section will follow Eckersley’s Environmentalism and Political Theory (1992), largely for reasons of simplicity, but also because her book still represents the most developed application of ecocentric ideas to politics. The references here will simply refer to page numbers from that book. For other ecocentric works, see, for example, Birch and Cobb (1981) or Fox (1990). Hayward (1994), for one, is sceptical that a full ecocentric position is necessary for a radical ecological politics, and argues for an ecological humanism. 164 Notes 05 The other positions which Eckersley identifies are resource conservation, human welfare ecology, preservationism and animal liberation (1992, ch. 2). 06 The classic early critique was provided by researchers at the University of Sussex (Cole et al., 1973). For many of the raw materials they predicted would run out by 2000 there are in fact now greater reserves than there were in 1972 (reserves being related to price – the higher the price, the greater amounts are recoverable). 07 To see this at work in Green writings, see for example Bunyard and Morgan- Grenville (1987); Porritt (1986); Spretnak and Capra (1985); Trainer (1985); Henderson (1988); Goldsmith (1992). There is an interesting revival of notions of limits in the 1990s, after the domination of notions of ‘ecologi- cal modernization’ and ‘sustainable development’ in the 1980s and early 1990s. This can be seen in different ways in, for example, Douthwaite (1992), The Ecologist (1993), Booth (1998) and the ‘ecological footprint’ analysis of Wackernagel and Rees (1996). 08 This concept was originally used in the World Conservation Strategy devel- oped by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 1980), and popularised by the Brundtland Commission, or World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987). 09 Peter Doran (1995) has also made a similar argument from a poststructural- ist point of view within IR. For Doran, however, while there is this general critical approach, there is perhaps an overriding interest in the knowledge structures of global politics. Yet another starting-point broadly consistent with the approach here would be the growing interest in IPE in the work of Karl Polanyi. See, for example, Bernard (1997). 10 I do not of course intend this to imply a simple endorsement of Bull’s view. It is intended only to illustrate that the states system is often regarded to involve a number of social mechanisms regulating how states interact with each other. The formulation of sovereignty as ‘produced formal indepen- dence’ is intended to be consistent with an argument that sovereignty should not be seen as a static ‘thing’, but rather a ‘bundle of rights’ pertain- ing, in the modern era to states, but before that to God (via the Pope), which have evolved over time (see e.g. Litfin, 1997; Weber, 1995; Conca, 1994; Bartelson, 1995). In this context sovereignty should not be seen as something defining the (modern) states system, and its evolution is not necessarily evidence of changes in the dynamics of that system. It is com- mon to conflate sovereignty and the states system, as does for example Conca (1994, e.g. at p. 703). Rather, sovereignty is an expression of how state rulers have legitimised their rule, and its content has changed as the means of legitimation have changed. The states system has therefore been able to retain its fundamental features, as outlined here, irrespective of changes in the context of sovereignty. 11 This is not of course inconsistent with the fact that many companies do consider the ecological consequences of their actions. A more upbeat read- ing of this relationship would emphasise that many firms have undergone radical changes in their production methods to limit emissions, reduce resource consumption, and so on. Such an interpretation often depends on liberal assumptions of ‘consumer sovereignty’ – that firms are simply responding to consumer demand for more ecologically benign products and Notes 165 production processes. In this interpretation, there is (at least implicitly) an unlimited potential for such change to occur. However, if assumptions about consumer sovereignty are dropped (i.e. there is much more room for manipulation of demand by firms), and, more importantly, if limits to the potential for improvement in rates of resource use by firms exist, then lim- its to the ‘greening of industry’ must also exist. At any rate, what is not in dispute is that any such greening can only occur within a primary concern for the ‘bottom line’ – what is at dispute is how much change is possible within this constraint. For readings on the ‘greening of industry’, see, for example, Welford and Starkey (1996), Schmidheiny (1992), Athanasiou (1996, ch. 5), Karliner (1997). 12 This perspective would also emphasise that the external costs assumed by neoclassical environmental economics, to be ‘naturally’ external, have in practice been historically produced as external; firms have historically acted to make sure that those costs were not included in their production costs.