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TOWARD A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
William D. Ruckelshaus
It will come as no surprise when I say that politics is not entirely
rational. It does not move in the world of crisp and precise analysis,
but through more obscure channels. Politics dwells in symbol, in
gesture, in metaphor. Some deplore this; I do not. Democracy is
government by the people, and people are larger than their economics, or
the numbers that describe them. They feel and they act on their
feelings, and elected governments ignore feelings at their peril.
This is by way of prefacing my own feeling that as a metaphor for
dealing with the current global environmental crisis, the word
''management" leaves something to be desired. It is as if the environment
were a horse that has suddenly become stubborn. We, of course, are the
cowboy. This image puts us outside nature as its master, whereas the
point of this crisis is surely that we are inside nature--are in fact
both a contributor to the crisis and potentially its ultimate receptor.
The rhetoric of the environmental movement is partially to blame
here. Seeking to convince the powerful to change their ways, many
environmentalists have put forward an image of nature as vulnerable and
helpless: the silent spring, the poor oil-soaked birds, the ravaged
forests. Attractive animals and even particular ecosystems may be
vulnerable, but Nature herself is not. Let us not forget that we are
talking about a self-regulating system the size of a planet, 3 billion
years old, about whose detailed workings we are still in profound
ignorance .
The reason we are here in this hall, the reason that the scatter-
brained attention of mankind has been focused, is because nature seems to
be running a fever. We are the flu. Maybe that is a better metaphor,
one that is more suitably humble. Our goal is not so much to manage
planet earth as to make ourselves less like a pathogen and more like
those helpful bacteria that dwell in our own guts. So make no mistake:
It is not nature as a whole we are trying to protect; this is not about
environmental protection. It may be about the survival of human society.
Science will figure very powerfully in how we do this, of course.
Science is the necessary basis for political or social action. But the
difficulty of converting scientific discovery into political action is a
function both of the uncertainty of the science and the pain generated by
the action. Given the current uncertainties as to the actual effects of
the predicted rise in greenhouse gases, and the enormous social and
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technological effort that would be required to control them, it is fair
to say that responding successfully to the global environmental crisis,
and creating a fully sustainable world economy, will be a most difficult
political enterprise, maybe the most difficult ever attempted.
Essentially, we would be trying to get a substantial proportion of
the people of the world to change their behavior in order to possibly
avert a set of changes that will mainly affect a world most of them will
not live to see. One does not have to be an expert in politics to know
that changes in human behavior do not ordinarily stem from such concerns.
Also, while models, such as the ones that now predict global warming,
may convince scientists, who understand the models' assumptions and
limitations, as a rule projections make poor politics. If you do not
believe that, think of the clear and future danger of our national
deficit. People will make enormous changes in their lives to escape a
present danger, like war or a flood, or to improve their lot in an
immediate way--by emigration, for example. But it is hard for people--
and hard even for the people who constitute governments--to change in
response to something that might not happen for a long time, or might not
happen at all.
Fortunately, we do have a response to such contingencies: We call
insurance. The analogy is apt. We think it prudent to pay insurance
premiums so that if catastrophe strikes, we, or our survivors, will be
better off than if there had been no insurance. Current resources
foregone or spent to prevent the buildup of greenhouse gases are a sort
of insurance premium.
And, as long as we are going to pay premiums, we might as well pay
them in a fashion that will yield some dividend, in the form of greater
efficiency, improved human health, or more widely distributed and
sustainable prosperity. Such actions must include measures that will
begin to reduce the rate of increase of carbon dioxide or acid rain or
ozone by concentrating on those steps that most everyone will agree are
reasonable under the circumstances. If we turn out to be wrong on
greenhouse warming or ozone or acid rain, we still retain the dividend
benefits. Also, no one complains to the insurance company when disaster
does not strike.
That is the argument for some immediate, modest actions. On the
other hand, something enormous may indeed be happening to our world.
species may be pushing up against some immovable limits regarding
combustion of fuels and ecosystem damage. Our usual tendency is to
assume that if shortages or problems arise, we will discover a
technological fix, or set of fixes, or that the normal workings of the
market will adjust prices so as to solve the problem by product
substitution. We may, for example, discover a cheap and nonpolluting
source of energy.
It is comforting to imagine that we might get through this present
crisis without much strain, to suppose, with Dickens' Mr. Micawber, that
"something will turn up." Imagination is harmless; but counting on such
a rescue may not be. We must at least consider the possibility that,
besides those modest adjustments for the sake of prudence, we may have to
prepare for far more dramatic changes. Doing this thinking now while we
have the leisure to think is, in fact, another kind of insurance.
Our
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What would it take to move the world economy to true sustainability
as recommended by the World Commission on Environment and Development?
To answer that question we have to determine, first, what kind of change
in consciousness would be required to maintain sustainability as a way of
life. Such a change might include the adoption of the following
benefits:
1. The human species is part of nature. Its existence depends on
its ability to draw sustenance from a finite natural world; its
continuance depends on its ability to abstain from destroying the natural
systems that regenerate this world. This seems to be the major lesson of
the environmental situation now as well as being a direct corollary of
the second law of thermodynamics.
2. Economic activity must account for all the environmental costs of
production. Environmental regulation has made a start here, but as yet a
small one. The market has not been mobilized to preserve the environment
at anywhere near its potential, with the result that an increasing amount
of the "wealth" we think we create is in a sense stolen from our
descendants.
3. The maintenance of a livable world environment depends on the
sustainable development of the entire human family. This was one central
finding of the World Commission on Environment and Development and
appears to be the only reasonable option because of the well-documented
impacts of population growth. Development stabilizes population; it is
the only permanent solution we have discovered. If the four-fifths of
humanity now in developing nations attempts to create wealth using the
methods of the past, the result will at some point be unacceptable world
ecological damage, such as accelerated ozone depletion or global warming.
If what is sustained is poverty, the result, given current population
growth, will be mass death, social chaos, and accelerated environmental
degradation of the type that results from poverty. Such situations also
breed wars and the attendant danger that these will spread to the
developed nations.
But changes in consciousness of this type do not come about simply
because the arguments for them are good or because the alternatives are
unpleasant. Neither will exhortation suffice. The central lesson of
realistic policymaking is that most people and organizations change when
it is in their interest to change, either because they derive some
benefit from changing or because they incur sanctions when they do not,
and the shorter the time span between the action and the benefit or
sanction the better.
This is not mere cynicism. Although people will struggle and suffer
for long periods to achieve a goal, it is unreasonable to expect most
people to work against their immediate interests forever, especially in a
democratic system, where their interests are so fundamental in guiding
the government.
Changing interests requires three things. First, a clear set of
values must be articulated by leaders in both the public and private
sectors. Next, a set of incentives has to be established that will
support those values. Finally, institutions must be developed that will
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effectively apply those motivators. The first is relatively easy, the
second harder, the third hardest of all.
When we look at global environmental policy, we see that values
similar to those described above are increasingly being articulated by
political leaders throughout the world. In the past year, the president
and the secretary of state of the United States, the premier of the
Soviet Union, the prime minister of Britain, and the presidents of France
and Brazil have all made major statements about global environmental
problems. Most industrialized nations have a structure of national
environmental law that reflects such values, and we now have a set of
international conventions that does the same.
Yet mere acceptance of a set of values, while a necessary precursor,
does not generate the necessary change in consciousness, nor does it
change the environment. Although diplomats and lawyers may argue
passionately over the form of words, talk is cheap. In the United
States, for example, which has a set of environmental statutes second to
none in their stringency, and where for the past 15 years, poll after
poll has recorded the American people's desire for increased
environmental protection, the majority of the population continues to
participate in a most wasteful and polluting style of life.
The values are there; the appropriate incentives and the institutions
are either absent or inadequate, and of course this is even more true of
the earth as a whole.
The difficulties of moving from this situation stem from basic
characteristics common to all the major industrial nations, the nations
that must, because of their economic strength, their preeminence as
polluters, and the share they claim of the world's resources, take the
lead in any change of the present order. All of these nations are market
system democracies, and it is apparent that an important part of the
problem lies with something inherent in the free market economic system
on the one hand, and with democracy on the other.
The economic problem is the familiar one of externalities, in which
the environmental cost of producing a good or service is not accounted
for in the price paid for it. As Kenneth Boulding has put it: "All of
nature's systems are closed loops, while economic activities are linear
and assume inexhaustible resources and 'sinks' in which to throw away our
refuse."' In willful ignorance, and in violation of the core principle of
capitalism, we refuse to treat environmental resources as capital. We
spend them as income and are as befuddled as any profligate heir when our
checks start to bounce.
Closing the loops in economic systems--making people pay the full
cost of the resource use--is the way to avoid this. That we have rarely
done this in the industrialized world is related to the second problem,
the problem of action in a democracy. Modifying the market to reflect
environmental costs is largely a function of government. Those adversely
affected by such modifications, although they may be a tiny minority of
the population, often have a disproportionate influence on public policy.
In general, the minority much injured will prove more formidable a
lobbyist than the majority slightly benefited.
The interest problem is naturally exacerbated when dealing with
pollution on a global scale. Elected representatives are even less
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likely to support short-term adverse effects on their constituencies when
the immediate beneficiaries are residents of other lands. This
reluctance is magnified even more by scientific uncertainty regarding the
timing, origin, or importance of those benefits.
The question then, is whether the industrial democracies will be able
to overcome the political constraints on bending the market system toward
long-term sustainability. History suggests some answers, for there are a
number of examples in which nations have been able to harmonize a variety
of short-term interests with a longer-term goal.
War is, regrettably, the obvious example. A conflict, like the
Second World War, that mobilizes the entire population, changes work
patterns, manipulates and controls the prices and supply of standard
goods, and reorganizes the nation's industrial plant demonstrates that
things considered politically or economically impossible can be
accomplished in a remarkably short time, given the belief that national
survival is at stake.
Another example is found in the Marshall Plan for reconstructing
Europe after World War II. In 1947 the United States spent nearly 3
percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on this huge set of projects.
Although the impetus for the plan came from fear of the expansion of
Soviet influence into Western Europe, it established a precedent for
massive investment in increasing the prosperity of foreign nations.
Besides these, there are numerous examples where belief systems many
generations old changed rapidly under the press of necessity. These
include the abandonment of feudalism by Japan and of slavery by the
industrialized nations in the nineteenth century, and the retreat of
imperialism and the development of the European Community in the
twentieth century. In each of these, important interests were made to
give way before national goals.
We should also not forget that of all the political and economic
systems that have been devised, liberal democracies based on free
enterprise appear to be the most capable of change. At any rate they
appear to have survived the passing of all the others, and they now
dominate the world.
If it is possible to change, how do we begin? Obviously government
policy must lead the way, since market prices of commodities typically do
not reflect the environmental costs of extracting and replacing them, nor
do prices of energy from fossil fuels reflect the risks of climate
change. And policy matters. In the case of global warming, for example,
policies implemented soon and continued over the next decade could
significantly affect the rate and extent of the greenhouse effect.
Policy must focus on changing incentives and perfecting institutions.
If we do that, the values of sustainability will thrive and survive. If
we do not, they will degrade along with the environment. The leaders in
making these policy changes must be the developed nations, and they must
begin with their domestic economies, which currently use the bulk of the
world's resources.
If they do not they will have no credibility with the leaders of the
developing world, a necessary prerequisite to achieving sustainable
development. And that, of course, remains our greatest challenge.
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Aid is both an answer and a perpetual problem. The total of official
development assistance from the developed to the developing world stands
at around $35 billion per year. This is not a great deal of money when
one considers that if the United States now spent in foreign aid the same
proportion of GNP it spent during the peak Marshall Plan years, the
annual U.S. foreign aid expenditure would be $127 billion. For
comparison, the United States spent $45 billion protecting shipping in
the Persian Gulf.
There is no point, of course, in even thinking about the adequacy of
aid to the undeveloped nations until the debt issue is resolved. The
World Bank reported in 1988 that the 17 most indebted countries paid the
rich nations and multilateral agencies $31.1 billion more than they
received in aid. This obviously cannot go on, and debt-for-nature
swapping alone will not solve the problem.
In most nations, we now realize, a prosperous rural society based on
sustainable agriculture must be the prelude to any future development.
To obtain that, land tenure reform will have to be instituted in many
countries and basic international trading relationships will have to be
redesigned to eliminate the ill effects on the undeveloped world of
agricultural subsidies and tariff barriers in the rich nations.
This is another way of saying we must focus on what motivates people
to live in an environmentally responsible manner. People will not grow
crops when governments subsidize urban populations by keeping prices to
farmers low. People will not stop having too many children if the labor
of children is the only economic asset they have. People will not
improve the land if they do not own it.
Negative sanctions against abusing the environment are similarly
missing throughout much of the undeveloped world. In the short term,
substantial amounts of aid could be focused directly on the environmental
protection ministries of developing nations. These ministries are
typically impoverished and ineffective, particularly in comparison to
their countries' economic development and military institutions. To cite
one example: The game wardens of Tanzania receive an annual salary
equivalent to the price paid to poachers for two elephant tusks, one
reason why that nation has lost two-thirds of its elephant population to
the ivory trade in the last decade.
Finally, we must create and maintain institutions that will support
the values and motivators that favor a sustainable world economy. This
is a difficult task, for institutions are powerful in that they support
some powerful interests, which usually includes supporting the status
quo. On the other hand, free societies are good at creating effective
institutions, and the transfer of power among their institutions,
according to perceived social needs, is a fact of life.
The important international institutions in today's world are those
concerned with money, with trade, and with national defense. Those who
may despair of environmental concerns ever reaching this level of
seriousness should recall that current institutions like NATO, the World
Bank, and multinational corporations have fairly short histories. They
were formed out of pressing concerns about continuing the expansion of
wealth and maintaining national sovereignty. If concern for the
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a comparative scale, comparative
environment becomes pressing on
institutions will be developed.
To further this goal, three things are wanted. The first is money.
The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development says:
''The U.N. can and should be a source of significant leadership in the
transition to sustainable development and in support of developing
countries in effecting this transition.'' The annual budget of the United
Nations Environment Programme is $30 million, a laughable amount
considering its responsibilities.
If we are serious about sustainability, we will provide our central
international environmental organization with serious money, preferably
money derived from an independent source to reduce its political
vulnerability. An international tax on certain uses of common world
resources has been suggested as a means to this end.
The second thing is information. We require strong international
institutions to collect, analyze, and report on environmental trends and
risks. We need a global institution capable of answering questions of
global importance.
The third thing is integration of effort. We obviously do not wish
to create a monolithic bureaucracy, but neither can we afford redundancy
and conflict in our efforts to solve common problems. On the aid front,
this may become tragically absurd: Africa alone is currently served by
82 international donors and over 1700 private organizations.
the tiny African nation of Burkina Faso (population
340 independent aid projects under way. We need to
_ _ In 1980, in
8 million) there were
form and strengthen
coordinating institutions that combine the separate strengths of
nongovernmental organizations, international bodies, and industrial
groups and focus their efforts on global warming and on the short list of
environmental priority issues identified by the World Commission on
Environment and Development.
Finally, in creating the consciousness of advanced sustainability, we
will have to redefine our concepts of political and economic feasibility.
These are, after all, human constructs. They were different in the past;
they will surely change in the future. But the earth is real, and we are
obliged by the fact of our utter dependence on it to listen more closely
than we have to its messages.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
global warming
