International Environmental Problems

Abstract

Introduction In the discussion so far, we have mostly assumed that the spatial distribution of emissions is of no particular importance for environmental policy. But where its implications were occasionally considered (e.g., in section C.III.7 of part three), we silently assumed that spatial problems could be dealt with in the context of national environmental policy. However, as we know, pollution flows do not stop at national frontiers. The range of international environmental problems runs from the nameless “neighborhood conflict” in areas near frontiers to “downstream–upstream”problems linking several states (e.g., pollution of the Rhine) and phenomena of large-scale pollutant transport (e.g., “acid rain”) to world-embracing (“global”) problems such as the “ozone hole” and the “greenhouse effect.” In particular, the last-named problems have in recent years received considerable attention from science, politics, and society. We accordingly (and for space reasons) want to confine ourselves to the “extreme case of internationality” in the environmental area, namely, global environmental problems. Global pollutants differ from all other pollutants because they are immaterial to their environmental impact where they are produced. Thus, according to current scientific knowledge, the warming of the Earth's atmosphere depends on the total output of greenhouse gases and not on their regional emergence profile. Much the same is true of the effects of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) output on the ozone hole. The global environmental load thus depends on the total output of the relevant pollutants (i.e., the sum of pollutant outputs of the individual countries).