ABSTRACT
Because of the nature of current global environmental problems and the international institutions and incentive systems operating on international actors, it is quite possible that timely solutions to many of the problems discussed in the previous chapter and throughout this book will not be found. In this chapter, we discuss the nature of international environmental cooperation. Specifically, we discuss the elements necessary for any satisfactory international solution to global pollution problems and the prerequisites and prospects for responsible international environmental administration. In addition, we compare the environmental records of communist and capitalist countries and examine the conditions necessary for the creation of international organizations and conventions that will have the authority necessary to deal with those problems. As Norman Vig and Michael Kraft have written, “Governments are ill-equipped to resolve many long-term and severe problems in the global environment; hence, institutional reforms and new methods of decision making will be critical to success in such cases.”1 We examine obstacles to the creation of such new methods of decision making.
