Environmental cooperation
Countries might work together to clean up the surroundings if they are members of a treaty that assigns them specific goals to be reached within a reasonable time frame; for instance, if they have gradual goals allowing them to slowly cease using toxic chemicals rather than being stuck with no reliable energy sources, as would happen if they had to immediately stop using the chemicals. The treaty that countries are following would benefit them more if it were a clear, concise treaty defining what exactly is prohibited to use or trade in, consequences for not following through with specified limits, and rewards for following rules.
Temporarily, it might help a country to have a free ride while it figures out its own environmental complications and how to resolve those issues. This may work for countries that have fewer resources, in theory. However, countries should be working to solve their own environmental problems without free-riding on each other, and private citizens can contribute to helping others. If a country free-rides out of habit, it will be difficult to break, making the problems take longer to resolve. One solution is that a country can free-ride as long as it takes until a given time limit has passed, its stated environmental goals have been reached, and there is verifiable evidence that the goals were reached. Then, that country is no longer eligible to free-ride but must work out its environmental problems by itself in the future.
Treaties
If the regulation is too expensive or difficult to enforce, countries may not work together to clean up the environment. They may also not work together if they are not allies or if the treaty enforcing that goal is not strict enough. It took until the late 1970s to force countries to install new technologies in every oil tanker, reducing contact between oil and seawater, and limiting oil pollution in the sea. A very strict ruling not only forced old oil tankers to be retrofitted to accommodate new technology or be built with it (if it were a tanker after 1982), but also required that ships had evidence ensuring that the new technology was being used. According to the book World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions, previous treaties went ignored as captains continued dumping oil into the sea even after limits had been introduced.
Contrariwise, Frieden, Lake, and Schultz, the co-authors of Interests, Interactions, Institutions, say that CITES is an effective treaty because it has “clear limits on the trade in thousands of specific species.”
If countries are each other’s allies, they may be more likely to help each other cooperate towards a result.
Finally, a smaller group of countries is more likely to cooperate successfully than a larger group; the larger group has more resources with a smaller effect on each, and therefore the group is more likely to ride on each other’s coattails.
Observe that the treaties and environmental cooperation examples above had little to do with climate change. They were based around pollution. Pollution is not the same as exaggerated theoretical climate change.
Comparative advantage
Comparative advantage simply means that a company specializes in specific products or services and concentrates on those to make a profit while having a low opportunity cost. Countries that make more efficient use of resources to produce more goods or services are said to have a comparative advantage. There are two qualities that make comparative advantage attractive: the efficiency of production and the low opportunity cost.
Comparative advantage policies do not mean that a country should confine itself to just one product or service, even if that product or service is its strong suit. Financial woes grace countries that rarely, if ever, diversify; “resource curses,” in the words of Interests, Interactions, Institutions, are a notorious example for many developing countries that did not diversify from an initially lucrative natural resource. They had a comparative advantage, briefly, but needed to branch out to other products.
Disruptive technologies might impact comparative advantage strongly, mainly through competition between them and older products or services. People may have to produce fewer manual cars in favor of autonomous cars, even if their comparative advantage was in manual cars. The Internet would force businesses to move online and sell products that way, or make products programmed with internet-based technology. Through the Internet, though, businesses can also find out about competition and new investments quickly.
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