From Confrontation to Cooperation on the Conservation of Global Environment

Abstract

"A major confrontation has prevailed between developing and developed countries on the conservation of global commons. The latter demanded internationally uniform regulations to be applied against environmental pollution, whereas the former demanded exemption for fear of the excessive burden on their industries that such regulations might impose. Developing countries' high priority in industrial and economic development is perfectly understandable. Yet, it is questionable whether their refusal to participate in international cooperative schemes for the reduction of environmental pollution, such as those in the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997, is really consistent with their development goal. This question arises first from the fact that the environmental problem tends to be more severe in developing economies today than in developed economies both now and in the past. Unless serious efforts are made to reverse this tendency, their development may be significantly hampered by environmental decay. Second, it is quite possible to design an international cooperative scheme along the direction of the Kyoto Protocol, which will promote both economic development and improvement in environmental conditions in developing economies. These two aspects are the focus of this paper."