The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

52 OCTOBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Diplomacy and the Environment From the FSJ Archive FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE DIPLOMACY Decade of the Environment Many battles have been waged domesti- cally between the polluters and the new federal control agency set up on Dec. 2, 1970—the Environmental Protection Agency. Additional laws have been passed, and enforced or tested in the courts. … Overseas the United States assumed an early leadership starting in 1971 as its fledgling EPA began tomeet, plan, negotiate and swap information with dozens of other coun- tries just waking up to the eco-peril. Only Sweden (in 1967) had already formed a national EPA. This country and Great Britain set theirs up in 1970. As of now there are approximately 50 federal pol- lution agencies to be found on the five continents. Also, a clutch of multinational organizations are busily establishing pollutant mea- surement criteria and control guidelines among their members. The magnificent results of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972 are still felt. That autumn the U.N. General Assembly formed another special- ized agency and named it the United National Environmental Program. Headquartered in Nairobi, UNEP is largely an envi- ronmental monitoring activity, but it can and does focus world attention on major pollution problems. —Fitzhugh Green, former associate administrator of the EPA, from his article of the same title in the May 1978 FSJ. When Environment and Diplomacy Clash The fate of Carter’s proposed yearlong study of global resource trends through the year 2000 illustrates the bureaucratic problems involved. Carter proposed the study to reassess U.S. foreign policy in terms of issues such as population and the environment. But the State Department was reluctant to get involved; apparently, no one at Foggy Bottom felt qualified to handle these issues. … Some critics outside the government are challenging the moral arrogance they believe underlies these attempts to tie environmental strings on foreign policy. New York University’s Walter sees it as a “neo-imperialist view” and claims—along with most diplomats and economists—that environmental controls are an economic decision each country has to make based on a rough trade-off between pollution and economic growth. This view is disputed by most development experts and nearly all environmentalists. They point to mounting evidence that poverty can’t be eradicated in the third world without treating the ecological damage that accompanies and aggravates this poverty. —Elizabeth Sullivan, reprinted from The Inner Dependent (UNA-USA, March 1978) in the May 1978 FSJ. The FSO Meets Eco Catastrophe When population growth overwhelms environmental resources and a country does not have the capacity to deal with the resulting stress, intrastate conflicts result. … Scarcity acts mainly by triggering social effects—such as poverty and migration— that analysts often interpret as a conflict’s immediate causes. While developed countries may have the skills and resources to deal with environmental problems, most of the develop- ing world does not. If societies cannot adjust to environmental problems, the resulting scarcity of renewable resources will contribute to impoverishment, migrations, sharper distinctions among racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups, and to greater potential for collective violence among these groups. —Al Perez, FSO, from his article of the same title in the March 1998 FSJ. A Call to Action Climate change is no longer just an envi- ronmental issue, but one of the greatest economic, political and security challenges of the 21st century. And it will be one of the most complicated and compelling diplomatic challenges as well. Increasingly, climate change is becoming a matter of life and death—not just for animals and plants, but for people; and not some time in this century, but today. … Preparing for and adapting to a changing climate will be one of the central tasks of international relations for the rest of this century. Twenty years ago, in an historic act of foresight, two United