ABSTRACT
The testimony and actions of Americans involved in the United Nations Content on Environment and Development (UNCED) deliberations reveal a significant pressure of altruistic considerations. The nature of global environmental problems themselves contributed to this situation. Altruistically motivated individuals in the Bush administration were able to influence major United States (US) positions early in the UNCED process, as well as less salient issues right through to the Earth Summit. The emergence of international environmental equity as an objective of the industrialized countries, and the US government's increasing acceptance of it as an objective of US global environmental policy, are logical extensions of the post-1950 foreign aid regime. Just as some countries are more generous in their domestic welfare policies than others, some countries are more generous with regard to foreign aid than others. Invoking the models of domestic political systems developed by Esping-Anderson, Alain Noel and Jean-Philippe Therien classified three types of welfare states: conservative, liberal and social democratic.
