The Rapa Nui people are the inhabitants of Easter Island. One of the incredible art works they crafted were the “moai”, or the large stone statues Easter Island is known for. There had been an astonishing total of 887 stone statue carved from compressed solidified volcanic ash found on the extinct volcano Rano Raraku. There were multiple possible methods explaining how the people moved their enormous statue head, most of them required the use of wood. It came to explain how the people of Easter Island ended up removing its entire population. The woods on Easter Island were overused as to not able to again hold the Rapa people, leaving the extinction.
Similarly human populations had been overusing resources such as fish populations, which had declined 15 percent between the years 1997-2007, and even the atmosphere. Will the global population end up like the Rapa Nui people and deplete its resources ultimately leads to environmental failure and release a mass extinction?
Like the Rapa Nui people, in order for the individual income to rise in many countries, most industries and states have to extract every possible method to earn an extra dollar. This leads to the overuse of the global environment and the possible failure of the future economy when the environment no longer holds the global populations anymore.
Atmosphere is one great example of managing the environment that involves collective goods for all states and people in the world. The world is facing global warming, where there is a long term rise of average world temperature. This problem has three dilemmas. Whether or not the short-term costs are worth the long-term benefit to save the environment? While the industries related to the production of greenhouse gas pay the cost, but the general public share the benefit. Lastly, the collective goods problem where the states pay their cost individually, but the benefits are shared among every state. These three dilemmas are what cause US and other states to not cooperate, causing the Framework Convention on Climate Change to fail in the year 2000. Not only global warming, other environmental issues also faces similar issues.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol also regulates the greenhouse gas, but while China and India continue to be huge CO2 producers, not even US would ratify it. EU established a market to trade carbon emission credit in order to implement the protocol more effectively. Although at times as the EU market fail, the price also fell dramatically, it remains a method for countries to balance their CO2 emission rate. As the Kyoto agreement expire, US and other major countries joined to lobby the next protocol. This time, US, China, India, and Brazil, once the free rider in Kyoto had gotten under the protocol. Even so, these treaties lack the enforcement mechanism and there are even state that cannot meet their target in 2012.
Regarding the atmosphere, the depletion of the ozone layer is also a fundamental problem. Unlike global warming, ozone depletion is more imminent and could be solved relatively easily. It is caused by the use of CFCs, a chemical found in aerosol spray and refrigerator, but could be easily replaced by other chemicals. This solution is easier compared to global warming. So unlike global warming, countries are more likely to sign the Montreal Protocol, to reduce the use of CFCs. The countries that ratify it grow exponentially from 22 states in 1987 to 81 states in 2000. This shows that although there are issues like global warming that countries would not and cannot cooperate with, when the issue is relatively easy, countries are willing to cooperate even if they will lose.
So although the global community would not want to fix with issues with long term solutions that is not even ensured, like the problem of global warming. The global community is likely to take actions against urgent environmental threats, and can agree on targets to diminish such threat while allocating the cost of the solution and pay when the bill comes. To some extent, global community would be like the Rapa people, but also, when the imminent threats come, people could cooperate and fight together.
Similarly human populations had been overusing resources such as fish populations, which had declined 15 percent between the years 1997-2007, and even the atmosphere. Will the global population end up like the Rapa Nui people and deplete its resources ultimately leads to environmental failure and release a mass extinction?
Like the Rapa Nui people, in order for the individual income to rise in many countries, most industries and states have to extract every possible method to earn an extra dollar. This leads to the overuse of the global environment and the possible failure of the future economy when the environment no longer holds the global populations anymore.
Atmosphere is one great example of managing the environment that involves collective goods for all states and people in the world. The world is facing global warming, where there is a long term rise of average world temperature. This problem has three dilemmas. Whether or not the short-term costs are worth the long-term benefit to save the environment? While the industries related to the production of greenhouse gas pay the cost, but the general public share the benefit. Lastly, the collective goods problem where the states pay their cost individually, but the benefits are shared among every state. These three dilemmas are what cause US and other states to not cooperate, causing the Framework Convention on Climate Change to fail in the year 2000. Not only global warming, other environmental issues also faces similar issues.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol also regulates the greenhouse gas, but while China and India continue to be huge CO2 producers, not even US would ratify it. EU established a market to trade carbon emission credit in order to implement the protocol more effectively. Although at times as the EU market fail, the price also fell dramatically, it remains a method for countries to balance their CO2 emission rate. As the Kyoto agreement expire, US and other major countries joined to lobby the next protocol. This time, US, China, India, and Brazil, once the free rider in Kyoto had gotten under the protocol. Even so, these treaties lack the enforcement mechanism and there are even state that cannot meet their target in 2012.
Regarding the atmosphere, the depletion of the ozone layer is also a fundamental problem. Unlike global warming, ozone depletion is more imminent and could be solved relatively easily. It is caused by the use of CFCs, a chemical found in aerosol spray and refrigerator, but could be easily replaced by other chemicals. This solution is easier compared to global warming. So unlike global warming, countries are more likely to sign the Montreal Protocol, to reduce the use of CFCs. The countries that ratify it grow exponentially from 22 states in 1987 to 81 states in 2000. This shows that although there are issues like global warming that countries would not and cannot cooperate with, when the issue is relatively easy, countries are willing to cooperate even if they will lose.
So although the global community would not want to fix with issues with long term solutions that is not even ensured, like the problem of global warming. The global community is likely to take actions against urgent environmental threats, and can agree on targets to diminish such threat while allocating the cost of the solution and pay when the bill comes. To some extent, global community would be like the Rapa people, but also, when the imminent threats come, people could cooperate and fight together.