Environmental issues and international relations, a new global (dis)order - the role of International Relations in promoting a concerted international system

Is it possible to talk about the rise of a new global (dis)order founded on the challenges posed by environmental issues? Through the review of the state of the art on the subject, this article analyzes the growing importance of the environment, and natural resources in particular, in international relations; and aims to raise awareness among International Relations scholars to the potential positive impact of the development of the discipline in integration with global environmental change studies.

When emergent countries reform global governance of climate change: Brazil under Lula

Due to its recent economic success, Brazil is considered an emerging country, but is it an emerging power concerning global environmental governance? This article argues that although Brazil has a sui generis profile, it can only be considered an emerging power in some environmental regimes, such as global climate change. Thus, international relations theory needs more analytical instruments to assess the impact of emerging powers in global environmental governance

Global coordination: weighted voting

In order to halt the depletion of global ecological capital, a number of different kinds of meetings between Governments of countries in the world has been scheduled. The need for global coordination of environmental policies has become ever more obvious, supported by more and more evidence of the running down of ecological capital. But there are no formal or binding arrangements in sight, as global environmental coordination suffers from high transaction costs (qualitative voting). The CO2 equivalent emissions, resulting in global warming, are driven by the unstoppable economic expansion in the global market economy, employing mainly fossil fuel generated energy, although at the same time lifting sharply the GDP per capita of several emerging countries. Only global environmental coordination on the successful model of the World Band and the IMF (quantitative voting) can stem the rising emissions numbers and stop further environmental degradation. However, the system of weighted voting in the WB and the IMF must be reformed by reducing the excessive voting power disparities, for instance by reducing all member country votes by the cube root expression.