402 CHAPTER ElEvEn ■ TransnaTional issues
100— before making its way into rivers. Once in the water, the sludge killed fish and
poisoned drinking water along the way. Hungary reacted quickly in an effort to contain
the damage, but in three days, a much- reduced flow of sludge reached the Danube
River, a major Eu ro pean waterway linking Hungary to Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, and
Bulgaria. Thus, an industrial accident in one state became a threat to the health and
well- being of at least four states downstream.
Nothing affects our globe more than the pollution issues of the twenty- first century:
ozone depletion and global warming. Both issues have characteristics in common. Both
concern pollution in spaces that belong to no single state. Both result from negative
externalities associated with rising levels of economic development. Both pit groups
of states against one another. Both have been the subjects of highly contested inter-
national negotiations.
o zone DepleTion anD Global WarminG
Thrust onto the international agenda in 1975, ozone depletion illustrates a relative
success story of international cooperation. States recognized this environmental prob-
lem, caused by the emission of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), before it grew to crisis
proportions, and they reacted with increasingly strong mea sures. Both the developed
and the developing worlds became involved, with the latter receiving financial aid from
the former to finance changes in technology. Substitutes were developed, and multi-
national corporations eventually supported the prohibition of CFCs in the 1987 Montreal
Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. As a result, the depletion of the
ozone layer was reversed. The story is a success story; consumption of ozone- depleting
substances has dropped 75 percent since the Montreal Protocol. Outside the polar
zones, the ozone layer is recovering, but at the poles, the loss is variable. Complete
recovery could take de cades after the harm has stopped.
The issue of global climate change has proved much more complicated. There are
no inexpensive substitutes for agricultural, communications, and industrial pro cesses
that emit green house gases; the costs of reducing emissions are high and must be paid
now, while the benefits are diffuse and may only emerge after de cades. But scientific
facts are indisputable. The preponderance of green house gas emissions comes from the
burning of fossil fuels in the industrialized countries of the North, and increasingly
from China and India’s growing use of fossil fuels. Green house gases are also emitted
by the developing countries, most notably from deforestation of the tropics for agricul-
ture and the timber industry. (See Table 11.1.) These green house emissions have con-
sequences.
The earth is warming, with an increase of between 1.9 and 3 degrees Celsius estimated
by the end of the twenty-first century, relative to temperatures recorded between 1986 and
- “The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have