Global Warming and Antarctica - Udall...

environmental policy working papers

Global Warming and AntarcticaCauses, Effects, and Policies

udall centerfor studies in public policy

Bernard P. Herber, Ph.D.

1 Professor Emeritus, Depart-ment of Economics, University of Arizona, and Udall Center Fellow, 1991-92. Contact: [email protected].

Udall Center for Studies in Public PolicyThe University of Arizona

Environmental Policy Working PapersMarch 2012

Global Warming and AntarcticaCauses Effects, and Policies

Bernard P. Herber, Ph.D.1

Support for Udall Center Publications is provided by the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation.www.udall.gov

About the Author

Bernard P. Herber is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Arizona. His research focus has been on public economics and international public finance. He was a Udall Center Fellow in 1991-1992. He is author of Protecting the Antarc-tic Commons: Problems of Economic Efficiency (Udall Center Publications, 2007). See: http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/publications/herber.php.

Herber, Bernard P. 2012. Global Warming and Antarctica: Causes, Effects, and Policies. Tucson: Udall Center Publications.

Cover photo (man on Antarctic ice) by Calee Allen courtesy National Science Foundation Ant-arctic Program.Cover design by Chrysantha Gakopoulos and Robert Merideth.

Udall Center PublicationsRobert Merideth, Editor in Chief

Udall Center for Studies in Public PolicyThe University of Arizona803 E. First St. Tucson, AZ 85719(520) 626-4393udallcenter.arizona.edu

Copyright © 2012 by the Arizona Board of RegentsAll rights reserved

Support for Udall Center Publications is provided by the Morris K. Udalland Stewart L. Udall Foundation.

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Table of Contents

I. Global Warming and the Antarctic Commons 1

The unique role of Antarctica in the global warming scenario Antarctica as part of the global commons Negative externality effects on the Antarctic commons II. Global Warming Policy under International Treaty Constraints 7

“Global” commons resources, “sub-global” government sovereignty III. Searching for an Efficient Global Warming Policy 10

Global and sub-global levels of policy Global warming policy under the U.N. Climate Change Convention Global warming policy under the Antarctic Treaty System Enhancing the strategic role of Antarctic science The ultimate policy challenges: Leadership and distributional issues References 23

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The Antarctic Region

Source: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/antarctica_map.htm, accessed February 22, 2012.

G L O B A L W A R M I N G A N D A N T A R C T I C A | H E R B E R

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I

Global Warming and the Antarctic Commons

The unique role of Antarctica in the global warming scenario

The Industrial Revolution, which began during the mid-1800s, spawned an ancillary phenomenon consisting of an enormous growth in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the global atmosphere.1 During the latter part of the twentieth century and continuing into the present century, the global scientific community—as coordinated by the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—has reached a definitive majority opinion that such an increase in GHGs causes global warming accompanied by significant changes in global climate patterns across various regions of the planet.2 In turn, computer simulations indicate that such disparate climate changes will exert devastating long-run economic and human welfare effects—some of which may already have begun. The perceived harmful effects of global warming, with widespread regional differences in the specific locations and features of such effects, include more intense heat waves, rising sea levels, increased drought, increased flooding, increased wildfires, disrupted agricultural production, and devastating effects on biological diversity. Among the “excessive” GHGs being introduced into the atmosphere, the most significant culprit is carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas released in the burning of the fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—for the production 1 The major greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbon dioxides. 2 The present paper is based upon the acceptance of this majority scientific opinion. However, acknowledgement is made of an outspoken minority opinion challenging the majority position.


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of energy. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, natural gas is the cleanest, and oil is in-between, as measured by the amount of CO2 released per unit of energy produced.3 The very presence of CO2 in the global atmosphere, of course, is not a problem when the atmosphere is in a balanced or equilibrium natural state. However, the enormous increase in atmospheric CO2, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, has created a significant disequilibrium in the natural state of CO2 in the atmosphere that, in turn, is largely responsible for the present global warming and related regional climate change threats. Global CO2 emissions in 2009 amounted to just over 30,000 million tons of CO2 (see Table 1). Yet, CO2 emissions emanating from the continent of Antarctica amounted to less than one percent of aggregate global CO2 emissions—a sharp contrast to the magnitude of CO2 emissions that originated on the other six continents of the planet.4 Despite the extremely small input of CO2 from Antarctica, the negative externality effects of global warming caused by the excess CO2 emissions exert disproportionately larger repercussions on the natural resources and environment of Antarctica than on any of the other continents.5 The explanation for this unique and, as it turns out, strategic role of Antarctica in the global warming and climate change scenario is the fact that, unlike the other continents, the environment and natural resources of Antarctica are an integral natural component of the global commons, inclusive of the global atmosphere and oceans. 3 The carbon dioxide (CO2) content of coal per unit of energy produced (one million British Thermal Units) is .030 tons of CO2; oil is .024 tons of CO2; and natural gas .016 tons of CO2. 4 Among individual nations, the largest CO2 emitter in 2009 was China, with 7,706.8 million tons of CO2 emissions (25.5 percent of the world total), followed by the United States, with 5,424.5 million tons of CO2 emissions (17.9 percent of the world total). In turn, these two nations were followed by India, with 5.3 percent; Russia, with 5.2 percent; and Japan, with 3.7 percent of global CO2 emissions. 5 Negative externalities are “economic costs” that escape market pricing and, as a result, tend to be oversupplied and harmful to economic welfare.


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Table 1. World carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by region (2009)

Region Carbon dioxide

emissions (million metric tons)

Percentage of total

Africa 1,118.9 3.7

Antarctica ** 0.3 ** < 0.1

Asia & Oceania 13,238.3 43.7

Eurasia 2,338.3 7.7

Europe 4,307.3 14.1

Middle East 1,687.9 5.6

North America 6,410.6 21.2

South & Central America 1,211.9 4.0

World (Total) 30,313.2 100.0

** Antarctica is included under South & Central America. Source: Energy Information Administration (2011).

Thus, due to the intrinsic “global commons interface” between Antarctica and the global atmosphere and oceans, any damage to the natural resources and environment of Antarctica, caused by global warming, assimilates back, in return, to the other six continents by means of this commons linkage with the global atmosphere and oceans. In other words, as a result of its unique and important global commons characteristics, Antarctica assumes the role of a major player in the global warming game via the transmission of such negative externalities of global warming throughout the entire global community. Antarctica as part of the global commons

Antarctica, a continent approximately twice the size of the continent of Australia, is 98 percent ice covered and contains more than 90 percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent of its freshwater (see map on page iv). The role of Antarctica, as part of the global commons, is demonstrated in a number of ways (Herber 2007, 26–29). The interaction of global natural processes reveals the critical importance of Antarctica and the adjacent


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Southern Ocean in determining planetary atmospheric and oceanic conditions that affect global climate. A leading British scientist observes that scientific investigation in Antarctica demonstrates “clearly and without ambiguity the integral role of Antarctica in the natural systems of planet Earth” and, further, notes that Antarctica acts as a major heat sink (i.e., by “soaking up” heat from the atmosphere) in driving the global climatic regime (Drewry 1988, 5–10). The Antarctic ice sheet exerts a major influence on global ocean levels. Moreover, the circumpolar current of the adjacent Southern Ocean, which is the largest ocean current in the world, drives the circulation of global oceans. The oceans, in turn, both influence the atmosphere and interact with it as the integral driving forces behind global weather and climate. In reference to the unique natural importance of Antarctica, as described above, a recent United Nations study describes the “critical role” played by Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the global environmental system, which involves “major processes of interaction between the atmosphere, oceans, ice, and biota [that] affect the entire global system through feedbacks, biogeochemical cycles, circulation patterns, transport of energy and pollutants, and changes in ice mass balance” (United Nations 2005, 10). Furthermore, the region is of immense value for the conduct of scientific research that is essential to understanding the global atmosphere and environment as well as their past history. Negative externality effects on the Antarctic commons

It is useful to assess the extent of the damage caused by the negative externality effects of global warming that have already occurred in Antarctica. Such information has recently been provided in a study conducted by the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), a prestigious research body that is a component of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS)—the supranational governance body of Antarctica,


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established under a series of international treaties.6 The SCAR Report (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research 2009), based upon the latest evidence provided by 100 world-leading scientists from thirteen nations, reaches the following major conclusions:7

1. The ozone hole, by changing wind patterns in Antarctica, has shielded most of Antarctica from the effects of global warming—to this point of time. However, this pattern of deterrence is expected to change during the present century, as the ozone hole continues to diminish due to the successful policies of the Montreal Protocol in greatly reducing the emission of chlorofluorocarbon dioxides into the atmosphere.8 Importantly, however, some parts of Antarctica have already received significant negative effects from global warming.

2. The warming of the Southern Ocean will cause changes in the Antarctic ecosystem.

3. Rapid increase in plant communities on the Antarctic Peninsula is occurring due to a high rate of warming on the Western Antarctic Peninsula—a warming rate that is among the highest rates of temperature increase detected anywhere on earth during recent times. This provides dramatic evidence of the regional dimension of climate change.

4. Ice loss in parts of the Antarctic is occurring at a rapid rate.

5. There is a rapid increase in the extent of sea ice around the Antarctic as a result of the ozone hole, a result likely to reverse as the ozone hole diminishes [see (1) above].

6 The Antarctic Treaty System will be described in greater detail below. 7 See a summary of the report in British Antarctic Survey (2009). 8 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, adopted in 1987; ratified in 1989. This treaty is a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, adopted in 1985 and ratified in 1988.


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6. Palaeoclimate (ice core) studies in Antarctica demonstrate that the current shock to the global climate is unusual (current CO2 concentration is at a high level that is unprecedented in the last 800,000 years).

7. Loss of sea ice in some parts of Antarctica is reducing the populations of krill and penguins.

8. Antarctica is predicted to warm by 3 degrees centigrade over the present century, as the damage to the ozone layer improves [see (1) above].

9. Ice loss in the West Antarctic could lead to a major sea level increase in global oceans over the remainder of the present century, that is, a total sea level rise of up to 1.4 meters (4 feet, 6 inches) could occur by 2100.

10. Improved representation of polar processes in models is needed to produce improved scientific knowledge and predictions in the years ahead.

Thus, it seems clear that global warming has already begun to exert significant negative externalities on the environment of the Antarctic commons, with such damages expected to increase in magnitude and in extent of coverage during the present century as the ozone hole continues to diminish and global warming, as expected, continues to increase. In addition, if the present significant void in regulatory policy to reduce the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere continues, the situation will become even worse. Although improved global policy to mitigate CO2 emissions is not impossible during the years ahead, it does appear that such policy will be extremely difficult to attain in a highly complex and diversified global community of some 200 sovereign nations. This critical decision-making scenario in the international public sector will be considered in the next section of the paper.


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II

Global Warming Policy under International Treaty Constraints

“Global” commons resources, “sub-global” government sovereignty

The global commons—in the form of the global atmosphere and oceans and their strategically interrelated “natural engines” in Antarctica—comprise natural resources that are truly planetary in scope. As such, their beneficial consumption qualities to mankind cannot be divided into individual units of consumption. Instead, such consumption is collective or joint in scope across the planet as a whole. For example, a New Zealander breathing air in the South Pacific does not preclude an American from breathing air on the North American continent. Nor, in political terms, can the atmosphere be divided into a specific number of units consumed by the citizens of each nation. Nevertheless, human economic behavior, such as industrialization, can change the natural equilibrium of these complex, global commons resources. In the case of global warming, human activities—originating almost exclusively on six of the seven continents—have emitted excessive amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, resulting in harmful negative externalities that can lead to significant regional climate changes and accompanying regional and global economic and human welfare disruptions. These negative externalities are the result of economic costs caused by free (unlimited) access to the atmosphere, which costs escape market pricing. As a result, an enormous oversupply of CO2 emissions, with their accompanying unwanted global warming and climate change effects, are present in the atmosphere.


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Thus, free (unlimited) access to the atmosphere by both individuals and, collectively, by the nations in which they reside and in which they engage in economic activities, have caused a significant natural atmospheric imbalance in the form of excessive greenhouse gases, especially CO2. The fact that negative externalities escape the market system and, thus, escape private-sector pricing, points to the need for some form of government (public-sector) intervention to reduce CO2 emissions so as to restore the atmosphere to its natural equilibrium state. In light of the above, the following important point should be made: The negative externalities, caused by global warming, possess spatial dimensions that are global in scope, while the existing sovereign governmental institutions that have the authority to create policies to deal with these negative externalities, possess spatial dimensions that are sub-global in scope.9 Therefore, the existing decentralized political world of some 200 sovereign nations creates a situation in which sovereign policy-making authority does not correspond, in geographical space, to the planetary-wide natural phenomenon of global warming. Accordingly, a critical geographical mismatch exists between the comprehensive global dimensions of the global warming problem, on the one hand, and the decentralized sub-global dimensions of the sovereign governmental policy-making authority to deal with this problem, on the other. Unfortunately, the circumstances under which some 200 globally decentralized sovereign nations are called upon to manage the economic usage of a globally comprehensive commons resource are a recipe for trouble—if not disaster. The primary economic culprit in this scenario is found in the high relevance of the economic concept of free rider behavior to the situation. For example, if Nation A, by itself, were to invest its own

9 Sovereignty may be defined as the right to exercise, within a geographical territory, the functions of a state, exclusive of any other state, and subject to no other authority. A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority. See Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty.


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resources in a CO2 mitigation policy, while the other nations simply wait to receive the benefits of such action—while taking no corrective policy action themselves that would equally benefit Nation A—there would be little, or no, incentive for Nation A to initiate such an action in the first place. In other words, policy action by one nation alone would be counterproductive since the other nations could benefit from such action without contributing to its cost. The likely result is that no nation will undertake CO2-mitigation action. Since the global warming problem is worldwide in scope, action by only one nation would not suffice as an effective policy for a problem of such magnitude, due to such overwhelming incentives for free-rider behavior by other nations. Thus, being confronted by the circumstances of this free-rider dilemma, how are all, or even a majority, of 200 sovereign nations going to act in a unified fashion in order to attack the serious worldwide problem of global warming? The only potentially viable avenue to address the problem (since the world is far from ready to accept any form of sovereign global government) is to utilize the conventional, ages-old, decision-making approach for supranational government policies, namely, the formation of international treaties. Such international agreements establish international government institutions (such as the United Nations or the World Bank) to pursue common transnational goals. But these institutions do not possess the ultimate sovereign authority to adopt international goals on a directly authoritative basis. Instead, international treaties normally utilize the unwieldy decision-making rule of consensus voting—which often prevents definitive and effective policy action. This voting rule consists of a “group decision-making process” that seeks the agreement of most voting participants as well as the resolution or mitigation of minority objections.10

10 See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_decision_making.


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III

Searching for an Efficient Global Warming Policy

Global and sub-global levels of policy

Under such constraining circumstances, the existing global treaty that is primarily responsible for solving the global warming problem is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was adopted in 1992 and ratified (entered into force) in 1994. While the policy emphasis of this Climate Change Convention is on the reduction of GHGs and, especially, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, policy directed toward adaptation to existing levels of these gases is also undertaken. Meanwhile, at the sub-global level of government, a coordinated group of international treaties, known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), governs the continent of Antarctica. The foundation treaty of this supranational governance body is the Antarctic Treaty, adopted in 1959 and ratified in 1961.11 Subsequent additions to the Antarctic Treaty have resulted in the existing Antarctic Treaty System. These are:

• Agreed Measures for the Conservation of the Antarctic Fauna and Flora (adopted in 1964),

• Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (adopted in 1972 and ratified in 1978),

• Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (adopted in 1980 and ratified in 1982), and

11 See http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm.


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• Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (adopted in 1991 and ratified in 1998).

At the present time, 48 nations are members of the Antarctic Treaty System, comprising more than 80 percent of the global population and including all major industrial and developing nations. The intent of the foundation Antarctic Treaty has designated the continent of Antarctica as a region of political stability or peace while emphasizing scientific research and the preservation of the Antarctic environment. Unlike the other six continents, there are neither sovereign territories nor citizens of residence in Antarctica.12 In a very real sense, this absence of socio-political characteristics is consistent with Antarctica’s natural resource characteristics, which assimilate it with the global commons. Unfortunately, any policies introduced to address the global warming problem, whether under the UNFCCC or the ATS framework, are constrained by the absence of sovereignty, a void inherent in supranational government. Global warming policy under the U.N. Climate Change Convention

The present generation of global treaties directed toward solving the global warming problem stem from the so-called “Earth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This important meeting of world nations, which pursued the general theme of sustainable economic growth, led to the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, with its ratification into international law occurring in 1994. This treaty, in turn, spawned the important Kyoto Protocol that was adopted in 1997, ratified in 2005, and scheduled to expire in 2012.

12 Seven nations (Australia, Argentina, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom) have “territorial claims” in Antarctica. However, these claims, in effect, are neutralized while the Antarctic Treaty is in force.


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The protocol recognizes that industrial (developed) nations are primarily responsible for the existing high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and, thus, places a heavier, though non-mandatory, carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) reduction burden on these nations under the international legal principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. In general, the CO2 mitigation policies implemented under the protocol have been ineffective, especially in the fundamental areas of: (1) assigning mandatory or binding emissions levels to polluting nations, and (2) distributing emissions reduction responsibilities between “original” and “emerging” major polluting nations. However, some progress has been made toward establishing a mechanism for financial assistance from wealthier developed nations to poorer developing nations for climate policy purposes—a so-called Green Climate Fund. Yet, despite its overall difficulties, the Kyoto Protocol does provide an important first step, within the UNFCCC, through which subsequent, more effective, policies can hopefully be built. An important conference under the UNFCCC, with the goal of establishing policies to replace the Kyoto Protocol, was held in Copenhagen in late 2009.13 This much-publicized meeting, however, failed to achieve the difficult compromises on major issues between the principal polluting nations that would have been necessary for global warming policy to be moved forward to an effective replacement for the Kyoto Protocol (Broder 2009). Specifically, in the midst of the contentious negotiations that took place, the conference failed to reach agreement on the establishment of binding emissions goals for individual nations. Moreover, little progress was made on the critical issue of how to distribute total CO2 reduction 13 The structure of the UNFCCC calls for an annual Conference of Parties of the nations that are signatory to the treaty. The Copenhagen conference was such an annual meeting.


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responsibilities between existing industrial nations (such as the United States, the nations of the European Community, and Japan) and emerging industrial nations (such as China and India). Subsequent annual climate policy conferences under the UNFCCC took place at Cancun, Mexico, in 2010 and at Durban, South Africa, in late 2011. The latter conference delayed the scheduled 2012 expiration date of the Kyoto Protocol to 2017, or 2020, the year depending upon the pattern of subsequent negotiations. Furthermore, it was agreed at the Durban conference that future negotiations would include commitments to legally binding CO2 reduction targets for individual nations. Unfortunately, the on-going global recession and government debt problems, as well as continuing military conflicts, could prove to be formidable obstacles to significant progress in global warming policy negotiations in the near future. However, despite these formidable contemporary external obstacles, a fundamental deterrent to successful policy formation continues to be the inherent difficulties present in the international treaty mechanism, which, as described above, relies upon delegated sovereignty rather than upon direct sovereign authority to formulate and implement policy. Under such circumstances, successful international policy often requires an aggressive, though even-handed, political leadership by a single, or subset, of influential nations to help navigate complex treaty negotiations through the constraints imposed by the consensus decision-making rule. Admittedly, circumstances leading to such aggressive, and fair, international political leadership may be of a fortuitous nature and, thus, not readily available when needed. Nonetheless, the attainment of effective global warming policy most likely will require the presence of aggressive political leadership within the “nonsovereign framework” of supranational government.


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Global warming policy under the Antarctic Treaty System

While it is true that primary global warming policy must follow a global approach to the problem (as exemplified by the UNFCCC treaty), since the atmosphere is a planetary-wide resource, sub-global policy may still serve an important, secondary role. The Antarctic Treaty System, with its 48 member nations, exemplifies a supranational governmental body that is in a favorable position to play such a role via its regional policies that apply to the continent of Antarctica. Often, the focus of regional ATS policy is upon adaptation to the effects of global warming in Antarctica that have been imported from the rest of the world. This situation occurs because Antarctica is in a unique position to receive the negative externalities of global warming, on the one hand, and to return these externalities to the world as a whole, on the other, via its inherent natural linkage to the global atmospheric and oceanic commons. For example, climate change effects in Antarctica caused by an increase in global greenhouse gases has the potential of changing Antarctic ice that, in turn, may cause further global climate change (HubPages 2011). Any adaptation policies directed by ATS toward these flow-back negative externalities, which policies would reduce or neutralize such negative effects, will serve, albeit indirectly, to mitigate the global warming problem on a global basis. In addition, such policies may concurrently serve not only the overall global warming goal but, also, the internal regional goal of protecting the Antarctic environment and natural resources from human-induced effects resulting from such economic activities as fishing, science, and tourism. The primary environmental management policies carried out under the Antarctic Treaty System are: (1) those that stem from the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), and


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(2) those that have their origin in the Protocol on Environmental Protection, referred to below as the Environmental Protocol. Under CCAMLR, one of the major management responsibilities is to regulate the harvesting of fish in the waters of the Southern Ocean. In addition, CCAMLR established the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)—the important organization that coordinates scientific research activities in Antarctica.14 Meanwhile, under the Environmental Protocol, there exists a comprehensive or umbrella environmental protection mandate, with one of its most important areas of regulatory jurisdiction being Antarctic tourism. On the positive side, the regulatory performance of the Environmental Protocol was enhanced by the inclusion of a 50-year moratorium on Antarctic mining in the protocol itself. Moreover, the later adoption of a liability annex that deals with liability arising from environmental emergencies has been a positive contribution under the Environmental Protocol, though the annex has not yet been ratified nor fully implemented. Meanwhile, the CCAMLR treaty, via its SCAR relationship, has performed credibly in coordinating Antarctic scientific research. In the meantime, the regulation of fishing under CCAMLR has experienced moderate success; with its effectiveness being improved by the fish catch limits that were imposed in 1991. It should be recognized, however, that management and regulation of fishing on the global oceans and, especially, on the high seas, remains a major problem, thus making it more difficult for CCAMLR to implement high standard regional fish harvesting policies.15

14 The Antarctic Treaty focused upon science as the basic (economic) activity in the Antarctic, as accompanied by political stability (peace) and protection of the environment. 15 The “high seas” are areas “outside” the 200-‐nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) that were established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.


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In addition, an area of further improvement for the marine environment of the Southern Ocean would be to increase policy emphasis on a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to help preserve the many species of seabirds, seals, penguins, whales, and fish (such as krill and toothfish), which are found in the Southern Ocean (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition 2011b). Unfortunately, the regulation of tourism in Antarctica under the Environmental Protocol has left much to be desired. At the present time, the tourist industry is largely self-regulated, with a virtual absence of ATS regulation, except for the requirement of environmental impact assessments on various tourist activities.16 There are essentially no restrictions on “where you can go, what you can do, and how many of you can do it” (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition 2011a). Although tourism is a legitimate economic activity, its legitimacy is contingent upon certain constraints that do not allow it to compromise Antarctica’s fundamental designation as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science” (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition 2011a). Improvement in tourism regulation should include limits on both the types of tourist activities and their locations. Overall, the Environmental Protocol may be viewed as a significant step forward in efforts to protect the Antarctic environment, though considerable room remains for more effective regulatory policy. At the present time—twenty years after the signing of the Environmental Protocol in 1991—the Antarctic region is only nominally protected and, moreover, it is under increasing environmental pressures that are “not always addressed effectively, proactively or strategically (Antarctic Treaty System 2011, 8).

16 The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) administers this self-‐regulation.


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Economic industries needing further improvement include fishing and tourism. Improvements in these, and other, regulatory areas, while helping to maintain the internal integrity of the natural resources and environment of the Antarctic region, can also enhance global warming policy by helping to offset the negative externality effects of global warming in Antarctica. Moreover, there is a growing need for oversight of the emerging bioprospecting industry in Antarctica (see Herber 2006).17 While the protocol is in a position to provide an effective regulatory umbrella over all resource-impacting economic activities in Antarctica, this valuable mandate has not been fully realized to this point of time. Enhancing the strategic role of Antarctic science

Although various Antarctic Treaty System policies to address the global warming problem yield positive results, perhaps the most important role that ATS policy can perform is to continue to support, and enhance, the vital scientific research activities taking place in Antarctica that bear upon the global warming phenomenon. This research provides very useful knowledge regarding the history, causes, and effects of global warming. The fact that Antarctica is an integral part of the global atmospheric and oceanic commons allows it to be a prime location for such scientific research. The Antarctic region serves as an important indicator of global change by providing a data and knowledge link between past, present, and future periods of time. For example, the polar ice cap holds within it a record of past atmospheres that date back hundreds of thousands of years. This information allows the study of earth’s natural climate cycles against

17 This global industry involves the search for biological resources—such as animals, plants, and microorganisms—for biochemical and genetic resources of commercial value.


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which the significance of recent atmospheric changes can be evaluated (Australian Antarctic Division 2011). The Antarctic has been described as a “pivotal part of the Earth’s climate system and a sensitive barometer of environmental change” and as “Earth’s most powerful natural laboratory” (British Antarctic Survey 2011). An understanding of how Antarctica is responding to current climate change—and what the continent was like in the past—is essential if scientists are to predict more accurately future climate change and provide accurate information to politicians and policy makers (British Antarctic Survey 2011). Antarctic ice cores “reveal the clearest link between levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the Earth’s temperature” and “show that the temperature of the climate and the levels of greenhouse gases are intimately linked” (British Antarctic Survey 2011). The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the principal institutional mechanism within ATS for coordinating scientific research activity—research undertaken through national programs sponsored by treaty nations of the Antarctic Treaty System. Meanwhile, at the global level, the primary institution responsible for assembling and disseminating global warming and climate change research and information is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an agency sponsored by the United Nations. Obviously, it is important for these two international organizations to efficiently coordinate their respective roles in global warming research. The ultimate policy challenges: Leadership and distributional issues

In the end, the attainment of an effective global policy solution to the global warming problem must overcome two very large obstacles. First, there is a critical need for aggressive leadership from one, or a few,


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influential nations among the some 200 nations that comprise the global public sector. This decentralized group of nations must ultimately interact with each other in order to reach an effective global warming policy outcome. As observed above, the absence of sovereignty at the supranational level of government relegates the supranational political decision-making process to one dominated by international treaties, which normally use unwieldy consensus voting. This voting rule often results in policy-making failures in the form of either ineffective policy or no policy at all. Second, even if influential and rational leadership nations are at hand, compromises must still be reached on the complex and difficult distributional issues that are inherent in the composition of workable and effective global warming policy. Thus, international negotiations under the UNFCCC must seek compromises that will trade off, among negotiating nations, various distributional gains and losses in a manner acceptable to these nations while, at the same time, achieving the goal of significantly reducing CO2 (and overall GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. In relationship to this critical policy challenge, it should be recognized that value judgments, not the theories of economics, underlie this important concept of distribution. Three major distributional issues that confront global warming policy negotiators may be identified. First, there is the question of apportioning the responsibility (burden, cost) for reducing CO2 emissions between: (1) existing industrial nations, which have historically emitted substantial CO2 amounts into the atmosphere, and (2) emerging industrial nations, which have begun much more recently to emit substantial CO2 amounts into the atmosphere. This important matter requires difficult intertemporal distributional decisions.


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Ultimately, such a challenging distributional compromise—based upon value judgments—must be negotiated within an international treaty framework in order for the world community to achieve a successful global warming policy. It may be noted that the first significant global effort to reach an agreement on this difficult question failed at the UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen during 2009. Meanwhile, in addition to this aforementioned intertemporal distributional question—which looks backward in time between presently emerging industrial nations and already established past industrial nations—a second significant intertemporal distributional question may be identified that visualizes a time track looking forward rather than backward in time. This particular distributional question is concerned with apportioning the responsibility (burden, cost) for a reduction in global CO2 emissions between the present generation and future generations of mankind. In other words, should the use of scarce economic resources to solve the global warming problem be primarily a burden of the present generation or, instead, should the burden of responsibility for CO2 reduction be largely postponed to future generations? Furthermore, a third important distributional question relevant to the sharing of responsibility for global warming policy burdens—though not a question that directly involves intertemporal considerations—is the question: How should CO2 reduction burdens be distributed between rich and poor nations? This important question exhibits both fairness and pragmatic reasons for payments from rich to poor nations as part of an overall global warming policy format in order to achieve a CO2 reduction goal. The reasons behind such payments include: (1) payments from rich to poor nations as compensation for the negative externalities of global warming borne by poor nations, but caused primarily by rich industrial


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nations, and (2) payments from rich to poor nations as a means of deterring the growth of CO2 emissions in poor nations as they develop industrially over time—to be accomplished via subsidies to poor nations for investments in green technology and other environmentally friendly policies. Negotiators at the recent UNFCCC conference in Durban made further efforts toward the attainment of an operational Green Climate Fund. Accordingly, it is apparent that distributional issues are an important component of the complex negotiations involved in the pursuit of a successful global warming policy. However, the negotiation of global policy decisions between sovereign nations to solve such complex questions—within the constraints of a nonsovereign, supranational treaty framework—is an extremely difficult challenge. Indeed, the formidable obstacles to efficient supranational government decision making caused by the absence of an umbrella layer of supranational political sovereignty must somehow be overcome. As suggested above, the best hope for an eventual favorable policy outcome is the emergence of aggressive, but fair, leadership from a key nation or, subset, of key nations that are aware of the complex economic and distributional parameters of the matter at hand and, most importantly, are motivated to move global warming policy forward in an influential and even-handed manner. Unfortunately, major contemporary distractions—such as the global recession, government debt, and wars—are likely to make it more difficult to draw worldwide attention to the importance of solving the global warming problem, thus creating additional obstacles that would have to be overcome by assertive leadership nations. This paper does not undertake a detailed discussion of how specific leadership nations might emerge, though it acknowledges that it would likely take favorable circumstances of a fortuitous nature to help reach


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such a result. Meanwhile, the following observation will be made, namely, that all leading nations, as measured in terms of such benchmarks as their economic importance and political influence, are signatories to both the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the centerpiece of global climate change policy, as well as to the Antarctic Treaty System, the governance body that determines regional Antarctic global warming policy. These leading, and treaty overlapping, nations include such powerful nations as the United States, the major nations of the European Union, China, Japan, and India.18 In other words, policy—both global and regional (Antarctica)—involves the same group of “leading nations.” Thus, an opportunity exists for these nations to better coordinate their UNFCCC (global) policies with their ATS (regional) policies and, in so doing, help create an assertive leadership momentum toward negotiating the difficult distributional compromises necessary to attain effective global warming policy. After all, the Antarctic Treaty System, in itself, constitutes a remarkable example of how a supranational governmental body can find policy success in the complex world of international treaties and consensus voting.

18 Although the United States has signed the UNFCCC, it is the only leading nation that has not ratified it. However, in practice, the general support of the United States for the treaty has been evident.


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References Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), “Antarctic Tourism,”

(2011a). www.asoc.org

Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), “Marine Protected

Areas,” (2011b). www.asoc.org Antarctic Treaty System, “The Antarctic Environmental Protocol, 1991-

2011,” Information Paper presented at the XXXIV Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Buenos Aires: June 20-July 1, 2011 www.asoc.org

Australian Antarctic Division, “Human Impacts in Antarctica,” (2011).

www.antarctica.gov.au

Broder, John M., “Climate Deal Reached, but Limited in Scope,” New York Times News Service, December 19, 2009.

British Antarctic Survey, “Climate Change – Overview,” (2011).

www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas British Antarctic Survey, “Summary of SCAR Report,” (2009).

www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas Drewry, David J., “The Challenge of Antarctic Science,” Oceanus, 31 (2):

pp. 5-10. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy,

“International Energy Statistics: Carbon Dioxide, Emissions,” (2011). www.eia.gov/countries/data.cfm

Guardian, “World Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” January 31, 2011,

www.guardian.co.uk/news Herber, Bernard P., “Bioprospecting in Antarctica: the Search for a Policy

Regime,” Polar Record, 42 (221): pp. 139-146, (2006). Herber, Bernard P., Protecting the Antarctic Commons: Problems of Economic

Efficiency, Tucson: Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona, (2007).

HubPages, “Antarctic Ice and Climate Change,” (2011). kjscrafts.hubpages.com/hub/Antarctic-Ice-and-Climate-Change


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Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), Antarctic Treaty System, Report: Antarctic Climate Change and The Environment, December 1, 2009. www.scar.org

United Nations, Question of Antarctica, Report of the Secretary-General,

A/60/222, August 2005.

Also by Bernard P. Herber Protecting the Antarctic Commons: Problems of Economic Efficiency

Udall Center Publications, 2007, 73 p. ISBN 978-1-931143-31-8 Protecting the Antarctic Commons analyzes the adequacy of existing international governance mechanisms, specifically the Antarctic Treaty System, to direct policy goals for the long-term sustainability of the globally strategic Antarctic commons and natural resources. After reviewing the economy of Antarctica and the Antarctic Treaty System, Herber describes current threats to the continent's sustainability and presents several options to help attain desired policy outcomes, particularly within the context of emerging global economic and political trends.

http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/ucpubs/herber_2007.pdf

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