Green Theory

Green Theory

1. Origins

   • Environmental problems have never been a central preoccupation in the discipline of IR
   • The escalation in transboundary ecological problems from the 1970s onwards saw the emergence of a dedicated subfield of IR concerned with IR cooperation

2. Concept

   • This new wave of green scholarship has reinterpreted some of the central concepts and discourses in IR and global politics
     • Challenged traditional understandings of security, development, and international justice with new discourses of ecological security, sustainable development and environmental justice
   • Neoliberals: adjust incentive structures in the climate change regime to induce inter-state cooperation

3. Environmental issues

   • Modern ecological crisis (twentieth century
     • exponential increase in the range, scale, and seriousness of environmental problems around the world
   • Modern environment (1960)
     • social movement that has publicized and criticized the environmental side-effects of the long economic boom following the Second World War
   • In 2005
     • 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably

4. Theory

   • Green social and political theory (1980)
     • emerged to give voice to the new social movements that have shaped green politics
   • Green political theorists highlighted the ecological, social, and psychological costs of the modernization process
     • Green politics is the only new global political discourse and practice to emerge in opposition to neoliberal globalization
   • Four pillars of green politics: ecological responsibility, social justice, nonviolence, and grass-roots democracy
   • Ecocentric philosophy
     • seeks to respect all life-forms in terms of their own distinctive modes of being, for their own sake, and not merely for their instrumental value to humans

5. Transnational

   • The second wave of green political theory has become more transnational and cosmopolitan in its orientation
   • Has produced new, transnational, deterritorialized or global conceptualizations of Environmental justice
     • Environmental rights
     • Environmental democracy
     • Environmental activism
     • Environmental citizenship
   • The basic quest of green theory: reduce ecological risks across the board, and to prevent their unfair externalization and displacement, through space and time, onto innocent third parties

6. Sustainability

   • Meets the needs of present generations without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
   • Proponents of ecological modernization
     • Argue that economic competition and constant technological innovation produce economic growth
       • It uses less energy and resources and produces less waste per unit of gross domestic product
   • The sustainable development paradox: that environmental protection is best achieved by pursuing more growth, which generates more aggregate environmental problems

7. IR

   • The two dominant rationalist approaches in IR theory neorealism and neoliberalism have tended to approach environmental problems as a new issue area
   • Neorealism is criticized for 'normalizing' rather than challenging the environmentally exploitative practices sponsored by states
   • Green political economy scholarship has defined itself as an opposition to rationalist regime theory
   • Environmental degradation, and increasing numbers of ecological refugees are likely to generate increasing conflict and violence both with and between states
     • States should include an ecological dimension in their national security strategies

8. Capitalism

   • Capitalism operates at a global level in ways that leave highly uneven impacts on different human communities and ecosystems
   • Polluters ignore the fact that many consumers and financial interests located elsewhere benefit from the pollution without taking any responsibility for the costs
   • Instead of allocating blame and responsibility to particular states, green IPE theorists suggest that we should be monitoring and allocating responsibility to transnational commodity chains

9. Case study

   • Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity have increased substantially from around 1750
     • Scientists predict that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, the .world will face mass extinctions
   • While the incidence of climate change risks is expected to vary geographically, lower-income populations in developing countries are expected to suffer the most
   • Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992: achieve a stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
     • The USA and Australia remain the only two industrialized countries that have declined to ratify the Protocol
       • Both countries have questioned climate change science and the seriousness of the predicted impacts of global warming