The Greening of International Relations
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209004500101 |
| Published date | 01 March 1990 |
| Date | 01 March 1990 |
| Author | Jim Macneill |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JIM
MACNEILL
The
greening
of
international
relations
The
world
is
on history's
most
rapid
growth
track.
A
sudden
acceleration
of
events
on
several
interrelated fronts
-
the
eco-
nomic,
the
ecological,
and
the
political
-
has
combined
to
com-
pel
profound
changes
both
in
the
relationships between peoples,
nations,
and
governments
and
in
the
way
we
view
and
think
about
the
management
of
the
planet
as
a
whole.
Since
I
9oo,
the
world's
population
has
multiplied more
than
three
times.
Its
economy
has
expanded
twenty
times.
The
con-
sumption
of
fossil
fuels has
grown
by
a
factor
of
30,
and
in-
dustrial
production
has
increased
by
a
factor
of
5o.
And
most
of
this
growth,
about
four-fifths
of
it,
has
taken
place
in
the
thirty-nine
years
since
1950.
The
pace
of future
growth
could
be
even
more
stunning,
driven
in
part
by
a
further
doubling
of
the
world's
population
within
the
lifetime
of
today's
twenty-
year-olds.
Governments
could
act
to
stabilize
population
at
a
lower
level,
but
to
date
their
efforts
clearly
do
not
measure
up
to
the
challenge.
If
human
numbers
do
double
again
within
the
next
fifty
years,
a
further
five-
to
tenfold
increase
in
economic
activity
would
be
required
to
enable
people
to
meet
their
basic
needs
and
minimal
aspirations.
The
gains
in
human
welfare
made
possible
by
the
devel-
opments
of
the
past
half-century
have
been
breathtaking.
And
-
if
we
continue
to
avoid
world-scale conflict
-
the
potential
for
future
gains
is
even
more
awesome.
Biotechnology,
just
one
President,
MacNeill
Associates;
Director, Sustainable
Development,
Institute
for
Research
on
Public
Policy,
Ottawa;
Secretary
General, World
Commission
on
Environment and
Development.
Iniernational
Journal
XLV
winter
1989-9o
2
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
new
branch
of
engineering,
could alone
change the
world
as
we
know
it.
Information
technology
already
has.
We
now have
potentially
unlimited
access
to
information,
and
the advent
of
global
communications
makes
it
possible
for
people
to
begin
to
exercise
responsibility
for
every
part of
the
planet.
Glasnost,
perestroika,
and
the
tidal
shift
in
East-West
rela-
tions
have
also
opened
the doors
of
opportunity.
For
more than
forty
years,
world affairs
have
been
dominated
by
the
contest
between
East
and
West.
The
goal
of
each
was
to
contain
the
expansion
of
the
other.
The
recent
changes
have
not
only
de-
prived
both
sides
of
their
main
enemy,
but
they
have
also
begun
to
release
the
energies
of
the
superpowers and
their
allies
and
have
made
it
possible
for
them
to
co-operate
meaningfully
on
the
critical
issues
of
global
change
and
human
survival.
The
processes
of
development
that
produced
such
enor-
mous
gains in
human
welfare
are
also
degrading
the
planet's
environment and
depleting
its
basic
ecological
capital
at
an
alarming
rate
-
not
only
Earth's
basic
life-supporting
capital
of
forests,
species,
and
soils,
but
also
its
fresh
waters
and
oceans,
and
even
the
ozone
shield
which
protects
all
life
from
the sun's
more
deadly
rays.
And
now
we
threaten
ourselves
with
a
rapid
rise
in
global
temperatures
and
sea
levels
-
greater, perhaps,
in
the next
forty
to
sixty
years
than
in
the
io,ooo
years
since
the
last
ice
age.
The
growth
of
the
last
forty
years has
been
concentrated
in
the
North.
With
25
-
soon
20
-
per
cent
of
the
world's
popu-
lation,
industrialized countries
consume
about
8o
per
cent
of
the
world's
goods.
That
leaves
more
than
three-quarters
of
the
world's
population
with
less
than
one-quarter
of
its
wealth. And
the
imbalance
is
getting
worse,
increasing
tensions
with
the
South
and
leaving
growing
numbers
of
people
poor and
vul-
nerable.
Pervasive
poverty
is
the greatest
single
failure
of
any
civilized society.
It
is
also
both
a
major
cause
and
a
major
effect
of
environmental
degradation and
economic
decline.
These
bleak
trends
have
shattered
the
simple
faith
of
our
fathers
in
the
permanent
order of
nature.
Recent
titles
on
the
THE
GREENING
OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
3
best-seller
lists
and
op-ed
pages
of
the
Western press
abound
in
terminal
metaphors:
the
'end
of
nature,'
the
'end
of
death,'
the
'end
of
forever.'
Everyone
who
thinks
about
it
recognizes
that
there
is
a
very
high
probability
that
most
of
the
world's
children
will
not
know
the
richness
and
variety
of
Earth
that
poets
have
celebrated
down
through
the
centuries.
The
world's
economic
and
political
institutions
are
seriously
out
of
step
with
the
workings
of
nature.
By
1982,
a
decade
after
the
landmark
Stockholm
Confer-
ence
on
the
Human
Environment,
it
had
become
clear
that
environmental
destruction,
at
a
pace
and
scale
never
before
experienced,
was
undermining
prospects
for
economic
devel-
opment and
threatening
the
very
survival
of
Earth's inhabit-
ants.'
A
year
later,
in
the
autumn
of
1983,
the United
Nations
General
Assembly
called
for
the
establishment
of
a
special
in-
dependent
commission,
later named the
World
Commission
on
Environment
and
Development,
to
undertake
a
global
enquiry
and
bring
back
some
practical
recommendations
for
change."
The
secretary-general,
Javier
P~rez
de Cu~llar,
invited
Gro
Harlem
Brundtland,
then
leader
of
the
opposition
and
later
prime
minister
of
Norway,
to
be
chairman
of
the
commission,
and
Mansour
Khalid,
one-time
foreign
minister
of
Sudan,
to
be
vice
chairman.
Mrs
Brundtland
called me
in
Paris,
where
I
was
director
of
environment
for
the
Organization
for
Economic
Co-operation
and
Development
(OECD),
and
asked
me
to
be-
come
a
member
and
secretary
general
of
the
new
commission
and
to
direct
and
manage
its
work.
In
consultation
with
me,
she
and
the
vice
chairman
appointed
the
other
members
of
the
commission.
We
were
twenty-three
in
all,
from
twenty-two
dif-
ferent
countries,
regionally balanced,
including
all
of
the
major
power
groups,
and
with
a
strong
majority
from
developing
countries.
i
Martin
W.
Holdgate,
Mohammed
Kassas,
Gilbert
F.
White,
The
World
Environ-
ment,
1972-1982,
United
Nations
Environment Programme
(Dublin:
Tycooly
International
Publishing
1982).
2
United
Nations, General
Assembly,
resolution
38/161,
1983.
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