Introduction: Confronting Environmental Change - Lessons from East and Southeast Asia
Abstract
As their economies and populations expand, almost all Asian countries are experiencing profound ecological deterioration and degradation of natural resources. They are experiencing terrible national environmental problems, such as horrendous air pollution in cities, water pollution and water shortages, soil erosion and deforestation, and major depletion of natural flora and fauna. The poorest of these countries often need, and can always use, financial and technical help from more developed countries in order to address local and national problems. The countries of East Asia also experience the adverse effects of regional environmental problems. They use polluted water from shared rivers, they often suffer trans-boundary air and marine pollution, and they endure the effects of acid rain that can originate far away. Countries of the region are also subject to the effects of global environmental problems, most notably global warming and resulting climatic changes.
While the countries of East Asia are the victims of environmental change, they are also complicit in causing it at home and abroad. Japan, for example, has been responsible for substantial deforestation in East and Southeast Asia, and China – already the second largest source of greenhouse gases – will eventually overtake the US as the primary source of anthropogenic pollutants causing global warming. To be sure, the poor people of this region are, on a per capita basis, much less responsible for environmental problems than are residents of richer countries, and they do not bear the same moral burden to act to prevent and cope with these problems. However, it is impossible to deny that how they live and develop will have increasingly profound consequences for the entire world. For these and other reasons, when confronting the problems of global environmental change, it is certainly worthwhile – and even essential – to look carefully at East Asia.
The responses of East Asian countries to environmental changes are always complicated and frequently disparate. Different historical experiences, cultures, levels of development, political systems and policy-making structures (among many other variables) cause these countries to view their environmental interests differently, to participate differently in international environmental negotiations and to operate environmental protection schemes differently. Among the issues central to international environmental cooperation in East Asia are foreign policy and sustainable development: the relationships of these countries with one another and with other actors outside East Asia; the motivations and processes underlying those relationships; and the ways in which they are (or are not) translated into environmental protection – matter for efforts at all levels to protect the environment of this region and, to an increasingly significant degree, the world.
With these considerations in mind, this book surveys several East Asian countries to better understand – and, hopefully, to better answer – these types of questions: What are the different environmental experiences of East Asian countries? What indigenous factors and particular foreign policy processes influence whether some countries are more willing than others to join international environmental protection efforts? What are the different underlying stimuli for these countries’ positions in international environmental negotiations, and what role do foreign policy institutions play in fostering or preventing international environmental cooperation in East Asia? What variables stimulate governments and other actors to develop in environmentally sustainable ways, and what are the keys to success in this regard? Once environmental foreign policies are formulated by individual states and groups of states, what are the impacts of those policies in affected countries – and how should these impacts be considered when polices are formulated? Our particular interest here is in areas where domestic politics and policy-making interact with international politics and institutions. As such, we are particularly interested in the making and implementation of foreign policy, and its effects on environmental protection in East Asia.
We conclude that foreign policy processes are crucial in shaping the domestic and international environmental policies and behaviours of states. Foreign policy processes are conduits of communication and influence among individuals, bureaucracies, states, international institutions and forces, and foreign policy-makers. They are the venues for forming environmental foreign policy, determine the degree to which it enters international dialogue, and influence its implementation. In short, whether (and the degree to which) the natural environment is protected is in large part a function of foreign policy and all of the actors, institutions and forces of which it is comprised.