Green Power

Book Reviews

Global Greens:  Inside the International Environmental Establishment
by James M. Sheehan
Capital Research Centre, Washington DC, 1998, 213 pages, US$25

There is a rapidly expanding interest in the issue of "global governance".  With issues ranging from European tax harmonisation to international treaties on organic pollutants, authors of academic papers and more popular books are finding avid readers amongst the world's intellectuals.  James Sheehan's book is one of the first to discuss the role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have played in this international decision-making process, and certainly the first to be highly critical of their role.

From the beginning of the book, Sheehan's forthright prose leaves the reader with little doubt as to his opinion of most NGOs, especially green ones.  He considers that few Americans are aware that environmental organisations, "an ideologically driven political force staffed by professionals and financed by millions of dollars in public and private funds", exercise real power in the conduct of diplomacy and the creation of international policy.  Using international law and assisted by the UN and other international agencies, these groups are working behind the scenes to undermine national self-governance, economic freedom and individual liberty.  If this continues unchecked, Sheehan foresees an ominous future as the last of the central planners advance their global agenda through a professed concern for Mother Earth.

Sheehan's rhetoric will raise the hackles on any environmentalist (radical or otherwise), and he probably overplays the power of environmental NGOs at international meetings.  But whether one favours or distrusts powerful environmental groups or international agreements, it does appear that a considerable loss of national sovereignty is occurring, and without any public debate.

Historically, international disputes have been resolved through bilateral contractual agreements or via arbitration involving the countries affected by a given disagreement.  The new UN-backed regime evolving under international environmental regulation furthers ventures of international co-operation that try to secure near-universal participation.  No longer are only a few countries involved in a dispute, it has become a global issue.  First of all, this engenders the idea of "the global commons" where it is possible to conclude that borders are no longer relevant -- emissions of carbon dioxide in Minneapolis become the concern of people in Lagos and Ulan Bator.  Secondly, international agencies, created as an ongoing authority, are required to implement and direct the details of the global plan.  Finally, as borders are blurred, there is an expanded role for NGOs to act on behalf of an ambiguous "humanity" or "Earth".  A detailed discussion of exactly how this process will undermine sovereignty is unfortunately lacking in Sheehan's book -- however, it can be found in books such as Sovereignty Matters by Jeremy Rabkin (American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, 1998).

The strength of Sheehan's book is in its discussion of the various UN-sponsored international meetings (and the antics of the various participants).  Examples include the Rio Summit, the Cairo population meeting and the recent climate meeting in Kyoto, most of which Sheehan attended.  Sheehan points out that the various business and environmental NGOs, who have restricted access to politicians at home, have far greater freedom to lobby politicians and international bureaucrats at UN meetings.  NGOs heavily influence many UN agreements such as the Basel Convention on hazardous waste, which creates barriers to trade in scrap metal, and even hampers donations of used clothes destined for the world's poor.  Sheehan shows how protectionist northern business interests ally with environmental NGOs in this type of process.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery from Sheehan's analysis is that green groups who once opposed UN and World Bank programmes have been drawn into the bureaucracy by UN money.  For example, in 1995, a coalition of green groups, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, claimed that the World Bank's Global Environment Facility was "dysfunctional, undemocratic and unaccountable".  Several months later, and after pledges of several grants, the same groups thought the GEF was "essential to solving critical environmental problems".  A partial result of this UN largesse and green hypocrisy is that at last year's Kyoto climate meeting there were 3,500 representatives from European) pressure groups and only 1,500 delegates from member governments.  Sheehan cites examples of Third World participants at the UN meetings being repeatedly ignored in favour of alarmist "eco-imperialist" greens, whose presence at the meeting was larger and more vocal.

For anyone interested in the environmental community (especially of America), this is a useful reference book.  There are over forty pages of tables devoted to explaining who gets money from whom, and how it is spent.  It also provides coverage of which people sit on which important UN Environmental Committees for key treaties like ozone, climate, biodiversity, forestry and many more.  It opened my eyes to how big a business environmentalism has become.

Sheehan concludes the book with the following statement:

Global Greens have put their faith in the "process".  They have achieved success even when their ideas have been discredited.  What's needed now is the vigilance to detect their manoeuvrings and the skill to overcome them.

Most people, especially non-Americans, will disagree with the idea that the green movement is harming the world and needs to be stopped.  However, it is no longer safe to assume a benign influence, given the weight of examples that Sheehan accumulates where green groups' actions contradict their rhetoric and create adverse results.