Why is it difficult to achieve on the protection of the Global Environment? What concepts have been developed to overcome the difficulties?

This supports global warming process as well as the process of extinction of many  species.  As trees are  cut  down, many species that lived around trees, die.

Global warming  increases  the sea-level as it melts the  ice  caps  in the oceans. Again the consequences of rise in  sea-level  is  big. Various costal states will be  in serious  trouble, most of  them  are  poor countries.

For example, ten percent of Bangladeshi’s population which is ten million,  will  have  to be displaced  if  the sea  level  rises by one metre.

For  rich countries, however,  rising  sea level is  not as big problem as for poor countries. Some very low-lying  small island states could be disappeared if the sea level goes up high. Whereas, landlocked countries such  as my country, Mongolia,  which lies at average of 600 metres  above  the  sea level,  have nothing  to worry about.

Economically, global warming will impose great amount of money, especially to coastal states. They will have to build sea defences in order to protect their lands from sinking.

A part from  global  environment problems, water became a crucial issue in the global environment. Ismail Serageldin, former vice-president of the World bank, said “The wars of the next century will be over water”. Indeed, a problem of  water arisen. About 500 cubic kilometres of water used by human beings in 1910, but, since then, it has been increased by more than  seven times in 2001. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that a hundred individual guests in a luxury hotel use 15000 cubic meters of water in 55 days which is enough amount of water for a hundred  rural  families in three years and a hundred  urban  families  in  two  years.

The  most  recent agreement was  the Kyoto Protocol signed by 160 countries in Japan in 1997. 38 industrial countries including United States,  agreed  to reduce  their  greenhouse.

 

        Solving the problems in global environment is not easy. Indeed, it requires important agreements between states which is obviously cannot be made easily.

Free-rider problem is the central to the problems of global environment.  Fish industry will go bankruptcy if it keeps overfishing today. Most edible fish have been overfished, so the overall level of fishing needs to be reduced to the point where fish can reproduce themselves. Then  fish industry can remain for a  long period. Fishing  must be in the maximum sustainable yield, which is the level, at which fish can be harvested. Though, the agreement was made, but, they did not  agree completely about what that level would be.  The European Fishing Industry accepts the logic that short-period overfishing  gives short-term profits but restraint of overall fishing gives long-term profits.

Global warming has been caused mostly by industries that produce fossil fuels.

In some industries, that have great concentration of ownership and control, the awareness of long-term  activity is  not clear. As far as global warning concerns, fossil fuels such as  petrol and coal are main causes. Those industries care less about global environment than their activity of producing and benefiting. If any action against global warming to be held, those industries will face a big fall in consumption of their products by about two times. If we look at who will suffer from global warming the industries that produce fossil fuels, probably will not suffer a lot. That is why those industries do not care more about global environment than their benefits. The most- suffered place will be non-fossil fuel-producing areas.

Global warming is much different problem from problems in fishing. Because, fishing industries will suffer in the long run as they overfish, as well as consumers of fish as fish’s price goes up significantly. Whereas, fossil fuel industries will not suffer much,  but still benefits after global warning. However, they will suffer as consumers. Thus, it is quite hard to sort out those fossil fuel industries` activities,  that harm global environment.

There are various type of groups that can support and hinder the action against the global environment problems. Any action against the global environment problems should be controlled by international organizations such as the Greenpeace and the Friend of the Earth, because of no world authority in the globe. Therefore, states are significant actors that should be involved in those actions the problems in global environment. States should make agreements about global environment with other important states. However, in my opinion, the problem is in the United States, which is probably the biggest industrial country in the world. Mass fossil fuels are produced in it. There are lots of overcrowded and overpopulated cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and other big cities, where public transport is not as good as people want which makes people in those cities, buy their own vehicle. Of course almost everyone having car pollute the atmosphere very much. Therefore, it is very hard to sort out these problem in the United States.

           

In 1975, the United Nations environmental programme developed a programme for the Mediterranean. There is a place that almost landlocked and bordered by industrial states such as France, Spain and Italy which was known as the Mediterranean in the late sixties and early seventies. The United Nation’s  environmental programme’s programme for that was known as the Mediterranean action plan, which included sixteen governments. Politically, this Mediterranean agreement seemed to be very hard to achieve. Because of the eighteen different countries that surrounded the Mediterranean. Those countries seemed to be hard  to make agreement between them. Some of them were long-time enemies, which develops difficulties in achieving agreement between states. Those eighteen states included Arab states, Israel, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Albania. Greece and Turkey have been enemies for a long time and two very different communist states, Yugoslavia was a moderate  communist regime and Albania was the most old fashioned  and Stalinist of the communist states which made the process of agreement  difficult. Albany did not participate at the beginning, but they finally sent delegates to the conferences. From the start , there  was a  tendency in negotiations not to use political differences. Arab states did  not accept Israel which was one of the biggest problems in making  agreement between those countries.

According  to the research that done by the Mediterranean agreement, less developed  countries were willing to participate in it, despite having more cares for their economy than global environment.

         The problems of global environment are inherently difficult to be solved. Even if the solution is found, it is hard to achieve. In order to solve most of the problems of global environment, the agreements between countries are needed.

Since the industrial revolution, the countries that had industries have been polluting the atmosphere without realizing that it was harmful to global environment until recently. However, we can make global warming process slow. We know what the causes of the global are warming that are the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

We can reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, we can change technologies that harmful to global environment into harmless technologies and we can grow more an more plants including trees, that breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe our oxygen, in order to slow down the global warming process.

                             

Bibliography:

Nicholson, Michael, (2003) International Relations: A Concise Introduction, 2nd edition, Hampshire: Palgrave & Macmillan

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/index.cfm

University of Westminster

Module: Contemporary issues in international studies

   Course work essay: Why is it difficult to achieve on the

         protection of  the Global Environment ?What concepts  

         have been developed to overcome the difficulties?

          Lecturer: Dr. Frands Pederson

 

          Student:   Altaikhuu Tseebaatar 04095333

11/30/04

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