Global Political Economics - The GPE of the Environment
1. Discuss the factors that have compelled international organizations to increasingly play a larger role in dealing with environmental problems, and also what conditions and factors limit their effectiveness.

The United Nations took an active role in the debate about the environment when in 1972, hosted the “Human Environment” conference in Stockholm, Sweden. This conference allowed the creation of an action plan with 109 recommendations intended to engage governments and promote international cooperation to address relevant environmental issues. As a result of the conference, the UNEP – United Nations Environment Program was created; its main role includes promoting and enabling forums for cooperation related to environmental issues, creating databases and references for scientific assessments to propose and draft international treaties looking for environment protection and preservation. The UNEP headquarters office is located in Nairobi, Kenya; this is the first United Nations agency that is located in third world capital country.
The UNEP has influence over national environmental problems, transnational pollution issues, as well as global and regional issues. A major focus area is the global warning; they have created the “Earthwatch” network to monitor atmospheric and marine pollution conditions around the world. Two major programs managed by the agency are water pollution and desertification issues related to human settlements and refugees; UNEP has organized and produced studies and treaties related to these issues applicable to nation-states and international businesses. They spend millions of dollars annually on cleanup and management projects.
The major obstacle faced by UNEP is related to funding; it receives significantly less money than other UN agencies; its staff is composed by only 300 people what makes it challenging to coordinate work with larger agencies and NGO’s. The agency relies on national governments to implement policies; some of these players see the agency as just “another voice for frustrated ex-colonial states”; meanwhile some development countries complain of not being adequately represented.
The UNEP has received criticism and been accused of “not doing enough to coordinate environmentally sensitive resolutions through the UN”. Given its location in Africa, it has also been criticized for “being too far away from other organizations”. Due to these issues, the UN decided to bypass UNEP in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro and created the Commission of Sustainable Development to implement Agenda 21.

2. Explain how the “tragedy of the commons” and the “prisoner’s dilemma” help us to understand the dynamics of dealing with environmental problems.
“Tragedy of Commons” is an article written by the ecologist Garret Hardin in the late 1060s where he described the challenges people face when protecting “collective goods” that are shared by many people but not owned by anyone; specifically referring to the environment. The issue presented here talks about how do we manage those resources that belong to everyone? natural food reserves, water (oceans, rivers), soil, minerals, fossil fuels, clean environment, etc. These natural resources can be over used, exploited and abused because of the freedom of doing so due to lack of regulation and control. They belong to everyone but are protected by no one. Protecting these common resources represents a challenge at national-state level but also globally.
We have previously studied the concept of “prisoner dilemma” in our GPE class when reviewed the trade policies and learned that countries in conflict for trade negotiation tend to take the win-loss approach (Zero sum outcome) instead of cooperating and looking for win-win solutions. We can use the same analogy here referring to the environment. Using the example of contamination or pollution, the options faced by nations to cooperate or not cooperate could be associated to the environmental dilemma of contaminate or not contaminate. The ideal result would be for both countries to cooperate and not pollute/contaminate, resulting in a cleaner planet that benefits everybody. However, that option is not in balance because one of them would be better off by not cooperating and letting other people clean the world for you. This is a result of the common attitude that one person’s actions don’t make any difference, and is the reason that the final equilibrium is always the sub-optimal option (both countries would end up contaminating the planet).