Brian J. Gareau

From Precaution to Profit: Contemporary Challenges to Environmental Protection in the Montreal Protocol

The Montreal Protocol has been cited as the most successful global environmental agreement, responsible for phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances. But, says Brian Gareau in this provocative and engaging book, the Montreal Protocol has failed-largely because of neoliberal ideals involving economic protectionism but also due to the protection of the legitimacy of certain forms of scientific knowledge. Gareau traces the rise of a new form of disagreement among global powers, members of the scientific community, civil society, and agro-industry groups, leaving them relatively ineffective in their efforts to push for environmental protection.

From Public to Private Global Environmental Governance: Lessons from the Montreal Protocol's Stalled Methyl Bromide Phase-Out

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, a multilateral environmental agreement, has successfully eliminated the use of most ozone-depleting chlorofluoro-carbons. As a result, a number of observers have pointed to the possibility of transferring successes—and even linking regulations—between the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol, the international but stalled climate-change agreement. We argue that there is need for caution on this issue. The Montreal and Kyoto protocols are the outcomes of vastly different political contexts, from public civil society approaches to what we call ‘the private turn’: the current loss of faith in state sovereignty, the rejection of multilateralism, and an embrace of private knowledge about economic damage over public knowledge about the protection of citizens and natural resources. From this broader perspective we show that the differences between the Montreal and Kyoto protocols are therefore more than ‘command-and-control’ versus ‘market-based’ solutions. These differences also reflect an even deeper divide over what ‘counts’ as knowledge in political decision-making processes. We illustrate these points through a case study of the current knowledge controversies around the phase-out of methyl bromide under the Montreal Protocol. We explain how the methyl bromide phase-out has stalled because the phase-out approach is incompatible with the current political regime, thus supporting the argument that neoliberal forms of governance cannot solve global environmental problems. This case, therefore, shows us that the challenges we face are more than atmospheric: to save the Earth we must create new ways to govern ourselves.

The limited influence of global civil society: international environmental non-governmental organisations and the Methyl Bromide Controversy in the Montreal Protocol

Governance scholars have demonstrated that the agendas, discourses, and actions of global civil society groups are affected by powerful states. In neoliberal globalisation, powerful states push for market-based schemes to resolve global environmental problems, and civil society groups often contribute to that agenda. Through the lens of governmentality, scholars have shown how civil society acts in ways that relegitimise and sustain state power/influence at the global scale. This study illustrates how international environmental non-governmental organisations operating in the Montreal Protocol contribute to the neoliberalisation of ozone governance, in some cases changing tactics to fit the neoliberal discourse of the treaty. Consequently, some international environmental non-governmental organisations have recently abandoned discourses of global environmental health, global security, and general welfare to address neoliberal concerns of individualism, competition, and transparency in ozone politics.

Ecological values amid local interests : Natural resource conservation, social differentiation, and human survival in honduras

Local peoples living in protected areas often have a different understanding about their natural space than do non-local groups that promote and declare such areas ‘‘protected.’’ By designing pro- tected areas without local involvement, or understandings of local social differentiation and power, natural resources management schemes will likely be unsuccessful. Protected area Cerro Guanacaure in southern Honduras has been subject to many development projects, most of which have failed, and the local inhabitants observe that degradation of natural resources continues. However, this case study shows that this does not mean locals view natural resources simply in an individualistic, utilitarian way. They also see their surroundings in an ecological way, and a sociocultural way. This assessment is based upon in-depth interviews with local leaders and 208 fixed format interviews of park inhabitants in Cerro Guanacaure.

Actor-Network Theory, Marxist Economics, and Marxist Political Ecology* The participants thank Barbara Laurence. The symposium came about because of her interest, prodding and persistence, all of which were much appreciated.

Science and technology studies have generated increasing interest within Marxist circles. In this symposium, we focus on Actor-Network Theory, a topic that has, at times, sparked misguided debate due to misunderstanding on both sides. On the whole, though, green Marxisms and ANT have maintained relative distance from each other. The articles in this symposium seek to narrow the gap. Whether considering Marx’s deep concerns with the natural sciences, metabolic socionatural relations, and ‘‘natural’’ obstacles to capital, Marx’s discussion of constant capital’s contribution to maintaining capital’s ‘‘monopoly of property [in] and access to the material means of production,’’ or Engels’ attempt at creating a single, social-natural ontology in the Dialectics of Nature , Marxism has a deep historical concern with relations between natures, sciences, technologies and societies. These traditions are, of course, intertwined with the history of critical science studies, which assessed the contradictions of the hegemony of technoscientific and industrial power over sociopolitical and aesthetic values; the enforced irrationality of alternatives to scientific and political technics; the relationship between declining environmental conditions, economic productivity and social quality of life; the ways the domination of nature served as a means of social domination; the character of

Obstacles to preserving precaution and equity in global hazardous waste regulation: an analysis of contested knowledge in the Basel Convention

The Basel Convention is regaining attention for the potential entry into force of the heretofore stalled Ban Amendment. In this paper, we draw parallels between the current debate surrounding the Ban Amendment and contestations that occurred in the early years of the Basel Convention’s Technical Working Group (TWG) over defining ‘hazardousness.’ Like the present debate, TWG deliberations involved a contestation between two divergent discourses concerning how hazardous wastes should be regulated—as ideally managed versus actually managed in the global South. Scholars have shown how the TWG is a site for industry to press for a definition of hazardousness favorable to their economic interests. However, explorations of the specific processes by which this occurred—particularly, how a framework for defining hazardousness that privileges private technical expertise over concerns of precaution and equity was successfully institutionalized within the TWG—have yet to be completed. We show that it is important to reexamine this debate today in order to better understand current Basel Convention developments.

Use and exchange value in development projects in southern Honduras

Developmenthaslongactedasawayofincorporatingnew,oftenrural,areasintotheglobalcapitalistmarket,attheexpenseoflocalsocio-ecologicalconditions.Impo-verished peoples in the global South are under consistent pressure to make use ofeconomic programs that largely dismiss the importance of the social relations inwhich the economic relations of their communities are embedded. The consequence,asexplicatednotablybyKarlPolayniinTheGreatTransformation,isthedismissalofthe socio-ecological relationships of impoverished peoples at the expense of greaterprofit and growth.

Ecosocialisms, Past, Present and Future: From the Metabolic Rift to a Reconstructive, Dynamic and Hybrid Ecosocialism

ABSTRACT John Bellamy Foster and his colleagues have recently argued that the project of ecosocialism should be understood in terms of a “prefigurative” and “first stage” of red-green thinkers whose insights have largely been transcended by their own work on the metabolic rift. Rift scholars have further argued that “second-stage” ecosocialists should push back against “idealist” deviations occurring amongst historical materialists concerned with the production of nature, socionatures and “hybridity,” as well as more or less all engagements with literatures on eco-technological transitions, industrial ecology and the like, which are implicated in supporting “green capitalism.” This paper critically evaluates these claims. In each case, it is argued, rift scholarship is narrowing the possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement and for thinking in dynamic and reconstructive terms about red-green futures. It is our sense that an ecosocialist vision of just transitions has to be conceptualized as a diverse, dynamic, iterative and always incomplete affair. Anthropocene ecosocialisms are inevitably going to involve co-producing, making and remaking hybrid social ecologies on an irreducibly restless, turbulent and warming planet. We argue that what follows from this is the necessity to both critique and recuperate the better insights of hybrid political ecology and ecological modernities.

Lessons from the Montreal Protocol delay in phasing out methyl bromide

The Montreal Protocol is the most successful global environmental agreement in history and a shining example of a current generation taking extraordinary precaution in avoiding environmental impacts to future generations. The delayed methyl bromide phaseout, however, alerts us to serious problems that can arise—even in this extraordinary agreement—when actors are allowed to place profit and political concerns over precautionary ones. This is not to say that ozone layer protection is anti-profit for participating companies, governments, and scientific groups or that early successes were not rife with political and economic concerns. The history of this agreement shows us that such concerns existed (see Andersen, this issue; Andersen and Sarma 2002; Gareau 2010). Nevertheless, early successes were found by assuring that the precautionary principle was applied first and foremost in ozone diplomacy (see also Andersen, this issue). The language found in the Protocol’s critical use exemptions to the methyl bromide phaseout in particular illustrates how this important principle was swept aside, as was concern for the global environment, and concerns for corporate profit took its place. While this abuse has occurred only once in the Montreal Protocol’s history, it is important to learn the lessons from this low point in ozone layer politics so that similar mistakes are not made with regard to other important global environmental issues, specifically global climate change.

Halon management and ozone-depleting substances control in Jordan

The Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund is often hailed as a key component of strategies aimed at reducing the amount of ozone-depleting substances in the less-developed countries. Yet, while there are studies that exemplify how the fund has been implemented as well as the strategies that individual countries adopt, there is still a lack of academic literature about the steps taken and implemented to devise successful alternative production strategies. In this case study, we analyze Jordon’s current strategy to reduce ozone-depleting Halon 1211 and 1301, two fully halogenated hydrocarbons that are extensively used in Jordan for their exceptional fire-extinguishing characteristics. In response to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to phase out halon use, Jordan adopted a halon management program to manage the use of halons, build strategic reserves for “essential uses,” and limit the amount of these substances that are released into the atmosphere. This study presents the actual inventory data of halons in Jordan in addition to the challenges and obstacles in the halon bank management system in Jordan. Moreover, this research covers the prospects of Jordan halons banking to achieve the goal of meeting Jordan’s halons demand for essential uses up to the year 2030. To this end as well as to fulfill Jordan’s commitment to the Montreal Protocol, the research recommends finding the balance between effectively enforcing regulations against the use of ozone-depleting substances while being able to meet halons demand for the essential uses until alternatives are comparably affordable and available on the national market. The research recommends that regulations should be supported with effective governance measures to minimize the occurrences of ozone-depleting substances escaping into the atmosphere as well as to meet halons demand.