Atmospheric Pollution as a Global Policy Problem

This article examines the prospects for further international control of atmospheric pollution. Air pollution has become a global policy problem, control of which requires the collaboration of many states. Despite the need for co-operation, however, the protection of the global environment is problematical in the anarchic state system. Co-operation is constrained by the fact that states are not equally affected by pollution and have dissimilar interests in environmental protection. Nevertheless, even though the prospects for environmental co-operation did not seem promising in the 1970s, five multilateral agreements were signed to reduce emissions of air pollutants. Three changes in particular contributed to the emergence of atmospheric pollution controls: the imperatives of ecological interdependence, technological developments, and growing public pressure on policy-makers.