ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the possibility of preventing conflicts caused or aggravated by what have been termed 'environmental scarcities'. Below, by critically examining the Global Environment Facility (GEF) policies and practices, it explores the broad outlook for environmental conflict prevention. The chapter evaluates the prospective ability of an organization such as the GEF to provide meaningful levels of assistance to forestall environmental conflict. It also focuses on the politics of institutional decisionmaking because active participation of poor states and nongovernmental organizations may prove critical to the effectiveness of the GEF or any other similar actor. The chapter examines two dimensions of environmental conflict prevention. First, numerous environmental problems must be identified and resolved before they lead to cataclysmic ends. Second, a variety of political barriers precluding effective global environmental action must be overcome. The political barrier to global environmental cooperation stems from traditional state concerns regarding pursuit of relative gains and diminution of sovereignty.
