Opinion: It Takes a Nation to Save a Planet

(Nov. 30) -- The United Nations named 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity, but the past year has proved to be a tough one for planet Earth.

Last winter, negotiators returned from Copenhagen having failed to reach a meaningful agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. In the spring and summer, the Gulf of Mexico was hit with the largest oil spill in history, due in part to lax oversight by regulatory agencies. This fall, diplomats met in Japan to discuss the future of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity -- but produced few concrete proposals to stem the rapid disappearance of species and ecosystems worldwide.

These events carry an important lesson: When it comes to protecting the planet, nations and their governments still call the shots.

The race to save the Earth will be won or lost one country at a time, as a result of political decisions made in almost 200 sovereign nations and their capacity to implement reforms. In a world of nations, rather than blame our woes on failed international processes, the United States must take action now to demonstrate environmental leadership both at home and abroad.

The idea that the nation is the central actor in global environmental politics swims against the current of environmental thinking. Many commentators point to transnational problems like climate change as evidence that governments are increasingly irrelevant to addressing global issues. Add to the mix growing economic interdependence, the power of multinational corporations and the global proliferation of civil society organizations, and nothing seems as outdated as the idea that crusty old governments hold the key to the planet's future.

Yet international treaties are effective only when implemented domestically by countries. The big levers required to shift economic growth onto a sustainable track -- transportation infrastructure, energy incentives, agricultural policy and land use planning -- are controlled by national and, to a lesser extent, provincial and local governments.

Nowhere is the importance of national action clearer than in the U.S., which was once the trendsetter in areas like air and water quality standards. In the mid-1980s, the U.S. led global efforts to address ozone depletion over the bitter objections of our European allies. But over the past two decades, we have ceded leadership to the European Union while falling behind in many areas, from consumer product safety to climate change and the reduction of toxic waste.

What might a renaissance in U.S. environmental leadership look like?

First, we must consolidate past gains, ensuring that our national park system, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, all created with strong bipartisan backing, receive continued support. Next, we must watch what other nations are doing and improve on their ideas. England and Germany reveal that we can grow our economy while reducing carbon emissions; Holland offers strategies to reduce pesticides used in agriculture; and Costa Rica offers a model for designing public lands that provide both recreation and species conservation.

The U.S. also has much to offer others as a highly innovative society with a record of investment in research and development that is second to none. Ironically, the U.S. government has funded more climate-change research than any other nation -- only to have the findings ignored by our leaders. We developed the first "cap-and-trade" programs to reduce pollution at a lower economic cost, an idea now being deployed by others.

The United States is also a highly decentralized political system, and our cities and states are laboratories for innovative policies and practices. This is significant because several dozen countries are now experimenting with decentralization, shifting decision-making power from national to local levels, and the U.S. can be a leader in collaborations with sub-national governments from Beijing to Bordeaux.

Finally, American citizens have a degree of access to official information and decision-making processes that is unheard of in Europe and the rest of the world. Newly democratizing societies are eager to put in place tools that empower ordinary citizens, and the United States has pioneered the use of tools like the Freedom of Information Act.

International law has an important role to play in protecting the environment, but we must not wait for countries to overcome their differences before taking action at home. Successful treaties draw on successful domestic policies. It takes a nation to save a planet, and the time for U.S. leadership at home and abroad is long overdue.

Paul F. Steinberg is an associate professor of political science and environmental policy at Harvey Mudd College. Stacy D. VanDeveer is an associate professor and scholar of environmental policymaking at the University of New Hampshire. They are the editors of the forthcoming book "Comparative Environmental Politics."