Global Firms in International Environmental Politics

Abstract

Global environmental crises such as climate change and the loss of biological diversity pose a major challenge to the international system. Organizing a collective response to environmental degradation has proved difficult in the past. Diverging national interests and weak international institutions have held back efforts to protect the global environment. But even when a global political consensus can be found, myriad social and economic forces may end up obstructing effective environmental governance. The globalization of economic production, consumption and exchange is fuelling environmental destruction while at the same time complicating the search for political solutions (Hurrell and Kingsbury, 1992).