Environmental Security and Instrument Choice

Abstract

The present scale of production and consumption is likely to generate adverse externalities (pollution). The dangers posed by pollution infringe on the welfare of countries, depending on the type of environmental problems they face. While research is under way which links environmental degradation to the onset of civil and international war, this chapter shows how economic, technological, and ecological factors influence a country’s environmental security and which instruments can be employed to enhance it. After briefly reviewing the literature on the relationship between environmental degradation and the onset of civil and international conflict, the basic model of environmental regulation in a closed economy is developed; these assumptions are relaxed step by step by introducing transboundary pollution, international trade, and global environmental problems. Furthermore, the instruments for achieving environmental security are systematically derived.

Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 31 August-3 September 1995, and the Second Polish-German Workshop on ‘The Security and Geopolitical Situation in Central and Eastern Europe’, Polish Office of National Security and German Federal Academy of Security Policy, Warsaw, 4–7 September 1995. I am grateful to the participants of these workshops for comments. In particular, I greatly appreciate comments received from Galina Churkina, Paul Diehl, Carsten Helm, Arno Hoogerwerf, Kathrin Heidbrink, Harold Jacobson, Valentina Krysanova, Urs Leimbacher, James Morrow, Eric Reinhardt, and Thomas Schelling on earlier versions. I remain solely responsible for the contents of the chapter.