ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
collective action, and by the resulting influence it is able to exercise over
the activities of other states. The importance of the EU as an actor in envi-
ronmental diplomacy is certainly linked to the strength it derives from the
willingness of each member state to transfer a range of environmental com-
petencies to it. Institutionalists claim that regimes enhance the capacity
of weaker states by transferring finance and technologies to them (as illus-
trated by the Global Environment Facility and the Multilateral Ozone Fund),
or by providing the support and resources to resist TNC power, so that their
sovereignty is effectively enhanced (Haas et al. 1993 ; Conca 1994 ). If devel-
oped countries press for tougher, more effective regimes, as occurred in
ozone diplomacy, they effectively strengthen the bargaining position of less
developed nations, particularly bigger players such as China, India, Brazil,
which enables them to extract better concessions.Critical question 4
For poor nations in the South, is ‘sovereignty lost, influence gained’?◗ Conclusion
The growth of environmental diplomacy, with its accompanying baggage of
international treaties, institutional arrangements and policy initiatives, is
evidence of the substantial progress made by the international community
in addressing problems of the global commons. International co-operation
can be a perfectly rational strategy for states to pursue, although collective-
action problems mean that the agreement of each new regime represents a
considerable diplomatic achievement.
However, caution is necessary. Much of the momentum engendered by
theRio process has dissipated. The attempt at the Johannesburg WSSD in
2002 to kick-start the global sustainable development process was widely
regarded as a failure and progress on climate change since Kyoto has been
slow and acrimonious. The enthusiasm for environmental issues expressed
bymany Northern governments in the late 1980s/early 1990s has waned.
Although recent treaties have applied the precautionary principle and made
genuine efforts to grapple with equity issues, many aspects of environmen-
tal diplomacy are still permeated by the traditional paradigm. Most interna-
tional problems are treated in isolation and end-of-pipe technical solutions
remain the norm. Not surprisingly, institutional responses have had only
limited success. Many MEAs, notably the climate change treaty, still repre-
sent an inadequate response to the problem; considerable regime strength-
ening is required. Serious implementation gaps impair the effectiveness of
most regimes. These difficulties demonstrate how the narrow institutional-
ist focus on regime formation and strengthening needs to be supplemented
bytherecognition that many sources of environmental degradation may
be beyond the reach of environmental diplomacy, because they reside in