Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy

        The Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy began in 1998. The core objective of the project is to better understand the role of foreign policy  – notably the crossover between domestic and international politics – in efforts to preserve the environment and natural resources. Underlying this objective is the belief that it is not enough to analyze domestic or international political actors, institutions and processes by themselves. We need to understand the interactions between them, something that explicit thought about foreign policy can help us to do. It almost goes without saying that foreign policy and associated actors, institutions and processes can play an important, often vital, role in determining whether countries join international efforts to address environmental problems, and the degree to which those agreements are implemented. However, this is a relatively neglected area of research compared to foreign policy analyses addressing, for example, trade and security issues, or work looking at international environmental regimes, on one hand, or sustainable development, on another. Thus the project seeks to better understand the actors, institutions and processes of foreign policy that can influence international environmental cooperation and national participation in, and implementation of, international environmental agreements and regimes.

　

        An underlying philosophy of the Project is that neglected ideas and approaches to the topics covered should be given a platform. Many other research projects ask participating scholars to fit their research into clearly defined frameworks. While this approach leads to explicit results, it can exclude the views and conclusions of scholars using approaches outside the mainstream. Hence, this project seeks to combine work using proven and accepted methods and approaches with work derived from alternative perspectives outside the mainstream. The result is new information – or new interpretations of old information – that increases our understanding of how to address adverse changes to the natural environment.

 

U.S. Environmental Foreign Policy

　

        The first group of papers and books from the project examined environmental aspects of United States foreign policy. The core objectives were to show how environmental changes influence the American foreign policy process; to analyze the actors and institutions – both domestic and international – that constrain and shape U.S. actions on environmental issues; to better understand the central role played by the United States in international efforts to address problems of global environmental change; and to critically assess American international environmental policies. Other objectives of this research were to "test the waters" of research in this field; to showcase research that had not been forced into traditional empirical, epistemological, or ontological boxes, in the expectation that new areas and issues would be illuminated; to give insight to governmental and nongovernmental practitioners and activists that may improve their understanding of environmental issues in American foreign policy; to showcase research that could have a positive effect on policy making and scholarship; and to enlighten students and laypersons interested in international affairs, American foreign policy, and environmental protection.

　

        Two-dozen scholars from several countries contributed to this first phase of the project. In achieving our initial objectives we examined American domestic politics and foreign policy generally, international environmental diplomacy, theories and philosophies of international relations and the environment, and U.S. leadership in the post-Cold War world. This research resulted in three books: Climate Change and American Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000) is dedicated to understanding the place of climate change in American foreign policy. The Environment, International Relations, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2001) examines several environmental issues in the context of American foreign policy, ranging from ocean pollution and environmental security to whaling and environmental trade sanctions. International Equity and Global Environmental Politics: Power and Principles in U.S. Foreign Policy (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2001) analyzes the degree to which principles of equity and social justice have permeated international environmental politics and U.S. foreign policy.

 

East Asian Environmental Foreign Policy

　

    The second group of research papers and books from the Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy are devoted to understanding foreign policy processes in the context of environmental change (and vice-versa) in the Asia-Pacific region. Broadly speaking, research in this part of the project examines ways in which foreign policy influences national participation in international environmental cooperation; shows how environmental changes or resource scarcities affect or are affected by foreign policy processes; looks at international environmental negotiations and agreements and their influence environmental protection at national, regional or global levels; and/or achieves related objectives. In short, the East Asian phase of the project highlights the ways in which foreign policy and international relations impact efforts to protect the environment, particularly as this relates to the Asia-Pacific region.

　

        Some of the research and resulting papers in this part of the project examines specific countries, groups of countries, and international organizations in East and/or Southeast Asia, and their relationships to environmental change. Other research examines specific environmental issues and their relationships to a particular country or countries. Papers generally devote some attention to exploring the theoretical implications of the research. Each paper in the project has practical significance – and sometimes a great deal of importance – for policy makers and practitioners. About 40 scholars worked in this phase of the project. This part of the project included two dedicated panels at the 2001 meeting of the International Studies Association (sponsored by the Environmental Studies Section and Foreign Policy Section of ISA): "Environmental Change and Foreign Policy in Asia I: International Cooperation in East Asia" and "Environmental Change and Foreign Policy in Asia II: Focus on China and Japan." Research from this part of the project resulted in three books: Global Warming and East Asia: The Domestic and International Politics of Climate Change (London: Routledge, 2003) is dedicated to understanding the forces shaping responses to climate change in East and Southeast Asia. International Environmental Cooperation: Politics and Diplomacy in Pacific Asia (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002) undertakes detailed analyses of various aspects of international environmental cooperation in East Asia, thereby highlighting key features of multilateral relations that affect, and are affected by, foreign policy processes. Confronting Environmental Change in East and Southeast Asia: Eco-Politics, Foreign Policy, and Sustainable Development (London: Earthscan/United Nations University Press, 2005) is a series of case studies focusing on foreign policy and related processes in shaping responses to adverse environmental changes in East and Southeast Asia.

 

European Environmental Foreign Policy

　

        The third part of the Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy has examined responses to adverse environmental change, particularly global warming and associated climate change, in Europe. Europe is a crucial actor in the climate change debate and related policy responses. The countries of Europe are major sources of the pollutants causing global warming, meaning that the extent to which they limit those emissions will be important for future climate change. They also possess the technological and financial resources that are can help reduce atmospheric pollution and assist those countries that are vulnerable to climate change to adapt to its undesirable effects. While the European reaction, like that of the United States, has not met the challenge of global climate change, nowhere has the response to this problem been greater than among the countries of the European Union (EU). As a group they have taken greater steps at the national, regional and international levels to reduce their own and other countries' emissions of greenhouse gases causing global warming, and they have done the most to at least begin assisting developing countries that will suffer inordinately from the effects of climate change.

　

        What explains Europe's response to what is arguably the world's most pressing environmental problem, and possibly the most important long-term threat to the world yet foreseen? Why have the European states been more proactive than other countries, notably the United States? Why have they not done much more, especially given their tremendous contribution to the problem and what is arguably a moral obligation to stop polluting the global atmosphere and to do much more to help those most affected by past and present pollution of it? The book associated with this part of the project, Europe and Global Climate Change: Politics, Foreign Policy, and Regional Cooperation (forthcoming), seeks to answer these and related questions. It brings together chapters that describe the responses of individual European countries and the European Union to climate change; discuss major issues of domestic and international politics and policymaking underlying those responses; frame the problem of global warming in terms of foreign policy; and place climate change in the context of increasing European regional cooperation, integration and development of a common European foreign policy.

　

 

        For more information on the research covered by the Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy, including abstracts of each chapter from the first and second parts of the project, click on  "Publications."