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861. Environment's New Role in U.S. Trade Policy

Author:
John Audley
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Trade Act of 2002 integrates environmental policy priorities into U.S. trade negotiations. The manner in which resulting tensions between trade and environment are resolved requires greater involvement by Congress. Of particular short-term importance to Congress should be how bilateral negotiations with Chile and Singapore are concluded and regional negotiations with Central America begun. Congress should also use its oversight power to develop clearer instructions regarding a host of environmental policy issues, including investment and services negotiations, environmental reviews of trade agreements, and clarification of U.S. foreign assistance regarding technical assistance and capacity building for our trading partners. In short, TPA presents Congress with the leverage it needs to oversee trade negotiations, an opportunity to work with the administration and win back public support for U.S. trade policy that respects worker rights and protection of the environment.
Topic:
Environment, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Chile

862. Politics and Parallel Negotiations: Environment and Trade in the Western Hemisphere

Author:
John Audley and Edward Sherwin
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
IN DECEMBER 1994, at the behest of then–U.S. president Bill Clinton, the leaders of the 34 Western Hemisphere democracies convened in Miami for the first comprehensive hemispheric summit in more than 25 years. The assembled heads of state pledged that their countries would forge a path toward regional integration based on four overarching principles: Governments should build strong democratic institutions, prosperity should be promoted through free trade and economic cooperation, poverty and discrimination should be eliminated, and the natural environment should be preserved through policies promoting sustainable development. “Future generations,” Clinton said at the time, “will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better.”
Topic:
Environment and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, America, South America, Latin America, Central America, and North America

863. Sustainable Development A Dubious Solution in Search of a Problem

Author:
Jerry Taylor
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
From August 26 through September 4, 2002, approximately 100 heads of state and 60,000 delegates will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, to attend a “World Summit on Sustainable Development.” The conference—convened on the 10th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and expected to be the largest U.N. summit in history— will explore domestic and international policy options to promote the hottest environmental buzzwords to enter the public policy debate in decades.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
South Africa

864. America and the Global Energy Challenge

Author:
Hal Harvey
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Energy is at once the lifeblood and the bane of the modern world. Fossil energy has fueled tremendous economic growth over the past 150 years. The economic history of the United States is largely the history of extracting and using coal and oil. At the same time, the profligate use of these energy sources has created the world's most pressing environmental problems, and led to major national security concerns for the United States. Energy consumption is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, smog, acid rain, oil spills, and nuclear waste. American dependence on oil from the Middle East forces our hand on foreign policy and imposes high economic and human costs. It is becoming increasingly clear that America's—and the world's—current diet of fossil energy is not sustainable.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Science and Technology, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Middle East

865. Sustainable Growth: Do We Have a Choice?

Author:
Paul V. Tebo
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Growth has always been a driving and motivating force for people, for business and for nations. The old adage, “you are either growing or shrinking, there is no middle ground,” seems to hold up well over time. And, historically, when economic growth and environmental protection come head-to-head, economic growth usually wins. But, does this really have to be the case?
Topic:
Development, Environment, Science and Technology, and Treaties and Agreements

866. Population and the Environment

Author:
Joel Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Humans have influenced environmental changes in the past, and vice versa. The two-way interaction between people and their environments will continue in the future. In the coming half-century, the human population will probably be larger, more slowly growing, more urban, and older than in the twentieth century. No one knows whether humans will be more internationally mobile. These changes, with uncertain environmental consequences, result from human choices, individual and collective, and are therefore subject to influence by programs and policies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and OPEC

867. Free Trade and Environmental Protection

Author:
Daniel C. Esty
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
From the protests in the streets of Seattle during the World Trade Organization's 1999 Ministerial Meeting to the chaos surrounding the 2001 G-8 Summit Meeting in Genoa, the backlash against globalization is increasingly evident. One dimension of this backlash centers on environmental concerns. While economic integration and trade liberalization offer the promise of growth and prosperity, environmental advocates fear that freer trade will lead to increased pollution and resource depletion. At the same time, free traders worry that over- reaching environmental policies will obstruct efforts to open markets and integrate economies around the world. They often see environmentalists as blindly anti-free-trade and protectionist. “Trade and environment” tensions have therefore emerged as a major issue in the debate over globalization. This paper explores the contours of these tensions and argues that trade policy and environmental programs can be better integrated and made more mutually supportive.
Topic:
Development, Environment, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

868. The State of the Natural World

Author:
Kathryn S. Fuller
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The sad truth is that the natural world is everywhere disappearing before our eyes. More than 6 billion people fill the world, with a predicted 9 billion in the decades ahead. We are simply too many—the large numbers of poor struggling to raise the quality of their lives in any way they can and the fewer affluent who nonetheless consume so much of nature's bounty.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Government, and Science and Technology

869. Plant Biotechnology and the Environment

Author:
Gordon Conway
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Many people who worry about the environmental effects of plant biotechnology fear that we are dealing with some new threat. I would argue that this is not the case. It is not plant biotechnology that is new and unknown, it is the combination of biotechnology and globalization, and the incredibly fast pace at which the two spread and interact, that should concern us.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, Government, and Science and Technology

870. Sustaining a Revolution: A Policy for Crop Engineering

Author:
David Victor and C. Ford Runge
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Controversy, even fear, of new foods is not new. The tomato was widely regarded as poisonous in the United States and northern Europe as late as the 1830s, due to its relationship to the night-shade family of plants. There was such concern that in 1820, the state of New York banned their consumption. Tomatoes even had their own “Frankenfood” label: “wolf 's peaches.”
Topic:
Development, Environment, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe