how solving environmental problems is made more difficult by problems with governance.
National governments
around the world have entered the 21st century in a position of weakness
as the importance of nonstate actors has grown. This is true not only in the
United States, where the government has been divided along partisan lines
for the better part of the last two decades, but also in other countries where
parliamentary majorities often
are small. The result is gridlock
and a sustained lack of leadership
in dealing with global environmental
issues. A related problem
is an unwillingness to deal with
problems when the solutions might involve substantial costs in the shortterm
or might affect certain industrial sectors disproportionately. The
political costs of risking these consequences are simply too high.
Compounding these challenges is the fact that even governments in highly
developed economies have trouble dealing with an issue as complex and as
large as the global environment in addition to issues that are often considered
more central or of higher priority (e.g., national security or economic
development and growth).