Global Environmental Co-operation

Many environmental challenges are inherently global: there is only one common atmosphere and many ecosystems provide global public goods. Watersheds cross national borders, and some pollutants travel across continents and oceans. Responding to global environmental challenges requires global solutions and international co-operation. This chapter summarises the key emerging trends in global and regional environmental co-operation. The chapter focuses primarily on the traditional means of government-to-government co-operation: multilateral environmental agreements on the “environment ministries track” and environmental aid on the “development ministries track”. Alternative co-operation mechanisms – such as intra-industry technology transfer, community-tocommunity de-centralised co-operation and sustainable development partnerships – are increasingly important, and are discussed briefly.