ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
and a culture of compliance with the law have problems in implementing
global agreements; for example, ten out of the fifteen EU Annex 1 states
are predicted to miss their ‘binding’ 2012 Kyoto emissions reduction targets
(UNFCCC 2005 ).
But many governments lack the state capacity to meet their regime obli-
gations. First, some countries lack the political and social infrastructure
that enables a government to enforce its policy decisions. Not surprisingly,
Russia, where the government is undermined by its chronic inability to col-
lect tax revenues and where corruption is endemic, has no effective recovery
and recycling system for CFCs and cannot prevent them from being smug-
gled abroad. In developing countries that are wracked by political conflicts
and civil unrest, or where deep-set poverty and inequalities are widespread,
government pronouncements about global warming, ozone depletion or loss
of biodiversity will receive low priority. Secondly, many governments have
insufficient resources to implement the costly changes needed to meet envi-
ronmental commitments. Developing economies are often dependent on
the export ofoneortwo commodities or cash crops, rendering them highly
vulnerable to market fluctuations and changes in the terms of trade. Many
economies have not recovered from the debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s
and have been subjected to stringent structural adjustment programmes
imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank,
which have further reduced the state’s capacity to implement environmen-
tal policies. Without financial and technical aid, it is unlikely that invest-
ment in energy efficiency measures or the recovery of CFCs will materialise.
Thirdly, some Northern transnational corporations (TNCs) are so powerful
that they are almost autonomous from national governments and can ride
roughshod over the law. Many developing countries have weaker environ-
mental regulations and laxer enforcement than in the North, and their
governments, desperate to attract investment and jobs, may turn a blind
eyetothe environmentally damaging industrial activities of TNCs.
These examples of state incapacity underline the important role of domes-
tic factors in the implementation of environmental regimes and, in turn,
how the analysis of implementation cannot be separated from the broader
international political economy that contributes to that state incapacity. One
conclusion is that some implementation problems lie beyond the reach of
institutional solutions. Institutional structures may bring opposing parties
tothenegotiating table, facilitate co-operation and enhance the capacity
of individual governments to implement regime commitments by adminis-
tering financial and technical transfers. Yet environmental regimes can do
little to transform the system of capitalist development that underpins the
increasingly globalised world economy in which some powers have shifted
from the nation state to transnational actors, financial institutions and inter-
national economic institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank. The
resulting ‘quasi-sovereignty’ is at its sharpest in the poorest developing coun-
tries where the key features of global economic interdependence, such as