We Must Protect The Environment
Most scientists agree that if pollution and other environmental deterrents continue at their present rates, the result will be irreversible damage to the ecological cycles and balances in nature upon which all life depends. Scientists warn that fundamental, and perhaps drastic, changes in human behavior will be required to avert an ecological crisis.
To safeguard the healthful environment that is essential to life, humans must learn that Earth does not have infinite resources. Earth’s limited resources must be conserved and, where possible, reused. Furthermore, humans must devise new strategies that mesh environmental progress with economic growth. The future growth of developing nations depends upon the development of sustainable conservation methods that protect the environment while also meeting the basic needs of citizens.
Many nations have acted to control or reduce environmental problems. For example, Great Britain has largely succeeded in cleaning up the waters of the Thames and other rivers, and London no longer suffers the heavy smogs caused by industrial pollutants. Japan has some of the world’s strictest standards for the control of water and air pollution. In Canada, the Department of Commerce has developed comprehensive programs covering environmental contaminants.
In
the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was
established in 1970 to protect the nation’s natural resources. In
addition, the U.S. Congress has provided governmental agencies with
legislation designed to protect the environment. Many U.S. states have
also established environmental protection agencies. Citizen groups, such
as the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, educate the
public, support environment-friendly legislation, and help assure that
federal and state laws are enforced by pointing out violations.
Global Effort
During the late 1960s and early 1970s nations began to work together to develop worldwide approaches for monitoring and restricting global pollution. The first major international conference on environmental issues was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations. This meeting, at which the United States took a leading role, was controversial because many developing countries were fearful that a focus on environmental protection was a means for the developed world to keep the undeveloped world in an economically subservient position. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
UNEP
was designed to be “the environmental conscience of the United
Nations,” and, in an attempt to allay fears of the developing world, it
became the first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country,
with offices in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to attempting to achieve
scientific consensus about major environmental issues, a major focus for
UNEP has been the study of ways to encourage sustainable
development—increasing standards of living without destroying the
environment.
International Treaties
Dozens of international agreements have been reached in recent decades in an effort to improve the world’s environmental status. In 1975 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) went into effect to reduce commerce in animals and plants on the edge of extinction. In 1982 the International Whaling Commission agreed to a moratorium on all commercial whaling. Perhaps the most important international agreement was the 1987 Montréal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. For the first time, an international pact set specific targets for reducing emissions of chemicals responsible for the destruction of Earth’s ozone layer. The international community again came together in 1989 to form the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, a treaty that limits the movement of hazardous wastes between countries.
In 1992 the UN Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Popularly known as the Earth Summit, this meeting was the largest gathering of world leaders in history. The conference produced two major treaties. The first was an agreement for nations to voluntarily reduce emission of gases leading to global warming, and the second was a pact on biodiversity requiring countries to develop plans to protect endangered species and habitats. At the insistence of the United States, however, the final version of the global warming treaty was dramatically scaled back. The United States was also one of the very few countries that refused to sign the biodiversity treaty. United States representatives objected to a part of the treaty that specified that money to come from the use of natural resources from protected ecosystems, such as rain forests, should be shared equally between the source country and the corporation or institution removing the materials.
The 1992 agreement on global warming limited each industrialized nation to emissions in the year 2000 that were equal to or below 1990 emissions. However, these limits were voluntary and with no enforcement provisions included in the agreement it became clear by 1997 that these goals would never be met. At a follow-up conference in Kyōto, Japan, representatives from 160 countries signed the Kyōto Protocol. This agreement called for industrialized nations to reduce emissions to an average of about 5 percent below 1990 emission levels and to reach this goal between the years 2008 and 2012. For this accord to become international law, however, it had to be ratified by at least 55 countries. The United States has refused to ratify the accord, but Japan and the 15 countries that make up the European Union have ratified it. Even if the Kyōto Protocol does become international law, however, scientists expect that its emission requirements are too minimal to be effective. Some experts predict that a 60 percent reduction in emissions will be necessary to stabilize the world’s climate.
In 2002 delegates from nearly 200 countries convened at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, to establish new sustainable development goals for the 21st century. They also negotiated to strengthen commitments from the governments of developed nations to provide aid for sustainable development. Among the outcomes, the 2002 summit created an action plan that called on nations to reduce by half the proportion of people who lack sanitation by 2015, to minimize health and environmental problems caused by chemical pollution by 2020, and to reduce significantly the number of endangered species by 2010.
Green Parties
A desire for environmental change led to the creation of various political parties around the world whose emphasis was largely on environmental protection. The first of these organizations, collectively known as green parties, was the Values Party in New Zealand, created in 1972. In 1993, 23 green parties from eastern and western Europe came together to form the European Federation of Green Parties. They hoped that together they would have the leverage necessary to demand that environmental issues such as pollution control, population growth, and sustainable development be more fully addressed by various national governments and international bodies.
By far the most successful green party has been Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, the green party of Germany. In 1998 Bündnis 90/Die Grünen formed a coalition with the newly elected Social Democratic Party of German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, marking the first time that the green party had entered Germany’s national government.
Green parties have developed in almost all countries that have open elections, but they have had the largest impact in those nations where proportional representation within a parliamentary system occurs. Thus, the green parties have not played a significant role in American politics. However, some experts believe that in the disputed presidential election of 2000, the votes received by Green Party candidate Ralph Nader split the vote so that George W. Bush was able to win enough electoral votes to capture the presidency.
