Sam Roggeveen, a terrific blogger at The Lowy Institute (Australia’s premier foreign policy think tank) thinks I’ve gone too far in critiquing the weaknesses of the international system. Just because the international system hasn’t solved problems like slavery and piracy — to say nothing of proliferation and war — Sam argues, is no reason to think it can’t handle anything it all. And he points to the example of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer as a recent case in which the international community was able to tackle a global environmental problem.
Fair enough, and as Sam could have also pointed out, environmental protection has actually seen some of the international community’s most successful treaties. The International Fur Seal Convention of 1911 was an early example that helped many species of seal survive by regulating the hunt and protecting the most endangered species. Later treaties have protected other species (like whales) and the 1959 convention on Antarctica continues to define international activity on the world’s southernmost continent.
All this is true, and I hope that we will be able to develop a new and more extensive set of treaties to limit overfishing and protect the world’s oceans from pollution. The trouble is that while global warming is an international environmental issue like these others, it is not the kind of problem that the treaty system deals with very well. The most successful treaties generally involve a limited number of countries and regulate a limited range of activities. Because the release of CO2 is associated with virtually any use of energy anywhere on the planet, an effective global warming treaty would be the most far-reaching and ambitious treaty ever signed — by far. It would basically establish a framework for universal economic regulation in every country.
Many countries lack governments strong enough or effective (and honest) enough to enforce a treaty of this kind. The incentives to cheat will be overwhelmingly strong. Changing technology is likely to make many of its provisions less fair, less workable or less relevant over time. So many interests in so many countries will be so heavily engaged that the process of negotiation, ratification and administration will be even more complicated than the (now totally bogged down) system of global trade negotiations. The Montreal Protocol limited a very narrow group of substances; a global warming treaty must essentially regulate everything everywhere. That’s not very likely to happen.
In any case, Americans who care about foreign affairs should spend some time with Sam’s blog and looking at what the Lowy Institute puts out. Australians play some of the world’s most incomprehensible sports, but they produce some very interesting work on international relations.