Who Governs the Global Environment?

Abstract

Globalization and the Environment: Capitalism, Ecology and Power. By Peter Newell. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012. 194 pp., $24.95 paperback (ISBN 13: 978-0-745-64723-4). This is a theoretically ambitious work, whose subtitle— Capitalism, Ecology and Power —captures its focus and sweep. Newell convincingly argues that a “conventional” view of global environmental politics that sees only states negotiating on narrowly defined environmental topics misses a good deal of the dynamics that actually shape environmental outcomes. As he notes, these outcomes are markedly worse despite a generation of environmental negotiations. That conclusion is not a surprise to anyone who has observed a recent round of environmental diplomacy, but Newell's analysis runs much deeper than an account of the self-interested fights and distrust of states (Dimitrov 2010). For Newell, the ultimate causes of environmental failure can be traced to deep roots in capitalism's drive for growth. Production, trade, and finance “literally create environmental change” (p. 7), and they do so in ways that are only occasionally sustainable. Newell uses historical materialist and political ecology approaches, among others, as his theoretical tools for understanding the dynamics that reproduce environmental unsustainability. He finds environmental change and globalization to be in a reciprocal relationship, where change in one spurs changes in the other, and both set a fundamental material foundation for global environmental governance. Exchange that is unequal from both social and ecological standpoints causes intense friction in …