Introduction - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 3

South Pole and everywhere in between. It cannot be reduced for one coun-
try without reducing it for all. China, which produces 24 percent of the
gases, declines to cooperate, hence gets a free ride. Consequently, other
industrial countries like the United States and Canada do not participate,
either. Even Britain, France, and Germany, which had pledged to cooper-
ate and had ratified the Kyoto Protocol, have backed away. Since there is
no world government at present, global warming cannot be ended.
Other problems are not quite global, but are international, in that pol-
lution from one country blows or flows into another. Acid rain from the
United States falls on Canada, and acid rain from Britain falls on Sweden.
The North Americans have signed the Air Quality Agreement and the
Europeans have signed the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary
Air Pollution. Pollution in the Rhine River flows from Switzerland to
Germany and France, and to the Netherlands. The Rhine River Central
Commission is the oldest in the world, dating back to 1816.
Finally, many environmental problems, perhaps most, are confined
within the boundaries of a single nation, especially if it is a big one. Water
pollution is found in the Mississippi River, the Ganges River, and the
Loire River. Dirty air afflicts Los Angeles, London, and Paris. The worst
air is found in Beijing, Shanghai, and New Delhi. These problems are not
international but are nearly identical in many big rivers and big cities.
Learning how one city reduces pollution can demonstrate useful tech-
niques to others.
In the absence of world government, environmental policy is dealt with
by individual nations. Political scientists approach the topic by exam-
ining the form of government, such as a parliamentary as opposed to a
presidential system, or the role of courts, or the number and features of
political parties. They examine whether a nation is unitary or federated
with autonomous provinces or states. They look at the number and role of
interest groups like the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, or WWF. They
may examine the role of the free market as opposed to a command market
such as communism or socialism. But political scientists are less likely to
study strictly economic factors such as per capita income. Certainly, it is
a truism that more prosperous nations devote more efforts to cleaning up
the air and water, but political scientists tend to pay less attention to this.
The environmental movement is, of course, a product of its history. Prior
to the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, pollution was slight, but
factories and coal mines changed that. Into the 20th century, governments
did little. Cities built water mains for drinking and sewers to carry waste