International Agreements and Cooperation in Environmental Conservation and Resource Management

Climate change issues differ from the ozone layer precedents in important ways, including a greater degree of human reliance on fossil fuel energy, longer lead times, and demographic projections. Even if industrial countries significantly improve energy practices and reduce the rate of CO2 accumulation, energy dcmands in the developing world by the middle of the next century will resume atmospheric heating at threatening rates. New approaches are needed, and new ideas are on the table. There are proposals to provide the resources needed to encourage future energy strategies more in keeping with greenhouse-gas constraints. The recent Hague Declaration suggests that at least one major power might be willing to divest itself of the veto power for the sake of effective decisions to halt global warming. A major group of actors that have not yet been involaed in this issue are the multilateral and bilateral development institutions whose combined $40B annual budgets assume strategic importance in a world of indebtedness.