International Environmental Agreements and Domestic Politics: The Case of Acid Rain by Arild Underdal & Kenneth Hanf

Author:Arild Underdal & Kenneth Hanf [Underdal, Arild & Hanf, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781351776448
Google: C0-fDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 52969887
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Contextual Factors

From the contextual point of view there are various foreign policy goals as well as industrial and economic forces that help explain Finland’s action. Besides concern for the environment, and the repercussions of acidification for the economy, international protection of the environment served as a tool for reaching more general goals in Finnish foreign policy. Finland favoured international action during the Cold War era because cooperation in ‘non-political’ areas, like environmental protection, would encourage détente. Through its international activity Finland asserted its neutral position between the East and the West. The strategy was aimed, primarily, at preventing potential Soviet pressure. Finland’s early unwillingness, in the beginning of the 1970s, to support international action on air pollution control can partly be explained by the general attempt to avoid a conflict with the USSR, even though this Eastern neighbour was responsible for transmitting significant amounts of pollutants to Finland. Finally, in 1989, when the Cold War was drawing to a close, Finland and the USSR were ‘ready’ to sign a bilateral treaty on emission reductions.

Since the late 1980s, Finland’s international activity in environmental affairs was also used to reinforce its status as a Western democracy. Finland even signed the Sofia NOx Declaration partly because it wanted to behave like a ‘good European’ country. By signing, Finland attempted to separate itself from the East European socialist countries which had the reputation of being heavy polluters. Important Western countries, by contrast, supported high reductions of NOx. Especially the signing of the VOC Protocol was used to foster new goals of Finnish foreign policy. After the collapse of the USSR, Finland, wanted more than ever to be accepted as a Western country. Again, important West European states favoured strict reductions. By demonstrating that it, too, supported progressive environmental policies, Finland hoped to obtain important support from the leading EC countries, especially Germany, for its application for membership in West European institutions. In turn, one reason behind Finland’s interest in becoming member of the EC was its fear of being exposed to pressures from its Eastern neighbour in future.

Nordic co-operation provided a traditional framework for Finnish foreign policy. It also enhanced Finland's status as a Western democracy, and later its public image of as a leading country on environmental issues. The Nordic framework was also an important arena for social learning and diffusion of ideas. As is well known, the problem of acidification was originally perceived and defined by Sweden and Norway.

Finland actively supported the target of the Helsinki Protocol because its domestic emissions had already decreased from the base year, in large part due to economic reasons. On the other hand, however, such reductions may also have started because it was already expected that they would be included in the Geneva Convention. Therefore, as a result of domestic developments, Finland was later easily able to accept and achieve higher reduction targets. Likewise, the latest target for SO2 contained in the Oslo Protocol and the target of the NOx Protocol have been achieved partly because

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