World Environment Organization

Introduction

There are lots of, more or less theoretical, definitions of globalization, for example: “Globalization (…) can be thought of as the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness.” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perrat, 2008, p. 2). This phenomenon is accompanied by a wide range of positive as well as negative consequences for humanity in general, society and the environment. One example of an abstract description of the consequences for society was mainly coined by the socialist Ulrich Beck in the mid eighties: The risk-society. When the past was characterized by difficulties of a just distribution of wealth, today in this “second, reflexive modernity” (Gane, 2001, p. 83) the production of wealth comes with the production of risks: It is no longer only a distribution of wealth, as well as a distribution of risks (cf. Gane, 2001, p. 83). A second change related to the distribution of risks is the decreasing of the importance of borders: On the one hand the result of an event takes place in another part of the world and on the other hand a small local event can cause a global reaction (cf. Held et. al., 2008, p. 2). There are lots of economical, social and cultural examples for these phenomena. Because the following text will mainly focus on the enviromental issue, the given example is the climate change, facing Copenhagen, probably the most popular one right now. This risk is caused by the production of wealth and will, at least in the beginning, mainly effect the “undeveloped countries”, but furthermore as well the globalization in general (cf. Curtis, 2007). Further examples are decreasing biodiversity, pollution of atmosphere, oceans, soil etc. Facing these complex environmental problems national states and multilateral contracts are important- but obviously not powerful enough. Held et. al. point out that there is no institution “able to amass sufficient political power, domestic support or international authority to do more than limit the worst excesses of some of these enviromental threats” (Held et. al., 2008, p. 9). That is why there is the discussion about a global environment governance. The following text will discuss the potential of such an organization, facing global environmental problems. Therefore first the idea of such an organization especially related to the UNEP will be presented, second arguments for and against this approach will be described and in the end a prospect of the future will be given.

List Of References

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