Global Governance and the Atmosphere

Abstract

Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response. By Matthew J. Hoffmann Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 260 pp., $81.50 cloth (ISBN: 0-7914-6525-X), $24.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7914-6526-8). In Ozone Depletion and Climate Change , Matthew Hoffmann examines the “participation norms” that have developed for these two global environmental issues. In particular, he focuses attention upon the primary ways in which Northern and Southern countries have, collectively, taken part in the international negotiations that are creating regimes to deal with these issues. Specific attention is also paid to the strategies and actions of the United States, a key participant in these debates. When international political discussions to address ozone layer depletion began in earnest in the mid-1980s, the conventional wisdom was that Northern countries should take the lead in developing the appropriate global regime because they were assumed to be the only players whose presence in the negotiations was critical. Given that the vast majority of ozone-depleting substances were being produced in the North and that the impacts of ozone layer depletion were presumably felt most acutely in the North, this participation norm was seen, at the time, to be perfectly reasonable. By 1986–1987, however, it became clear that this “North-only” pattern of participation would not be sustainable. Ozone-depleting substances had contributed to Northern development; Southern countries were, therefore, also potential consumers and producers of these chemicals. Thus, the future of Southern states was also at stake in the negotiations, and they needed to be involved in them. Nonetheless, Northern countries would continue to have the responsibility for taking the lead. Hoffmann …