Lecture 1 Notes – International Environmental Issues & Types of Goods

Learning Goals

• Five learning goals span this lecture and the next two:

  1. Understand how the global environment and international politics intersect and how this shapes challenges in addressing global environmental issues.

  2. Comprehend a "types‐of‐goods" model that classifies goods by excludability and rivalrousness, then apply this to government action on environmental issues.

  3. Master the concepts of free riding and collective-action problems that emerge from the model.

  4. Grasp the notion of common resources and the tragedy of the commons (again, derived from the model).

  5. Apply free riding, collective action, and tragedy-of-the-commons concepts to explain how countries behave when confronting global environmental problems.

What Counts as an International (Global) Environmental Issue?

• Broad working definition: an environmental issue that

  • Impacts more than one country and / or

  • Can be influenced by more than one country.

• Spectrum of examples (from local-looking to overtly global):

  • Drought in one country ➜ seemingly domestic, but cumulative drought can alter global environmental conditions (e.g.
    – desertification, food-price shocks).

  • Deforestation inside national borders ➜ local activity with spill-over effects on global biodiversity & climate.

  • Rising global temperatures (climate change) ➜ quintessential multi-country impact; effective mitigation requires many nations to cut greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions.

• Key diagnostic questions:

  • How many countries are affected?

  • How many countries must participate in the solution?

  • If both answers >1, the problem is international; if both =1, it is local.

• Nearly all environmental issues have at least some cross-border component; purely local environmental externalities are rare.

Why International Politics Matters

• Once multiple nations are both affected and needed for a remedy, the problem shifts from domestic policy to international cooperation.

• Central puzzle addressed in this lecture series: Why don’t countries cooperate more effectively on international environmental issues?

A Model of Goods Provision: Excludability & Rivalrousness

• Widely used in economics and environmental studies to predict cooperation outcomes.

• Two orthogonal properties:

  1. Excludability: Can potential consumers be prevented (excluded) from accessing/using the good?

  • Excludable ➜ you can charge or block access (e.g., buying a car, paywall Wi-Fi).

  • Non-excludable ➜ impossible or prohibitively costly to keep people out (e.g., breathing air, open ocean fisheries).

  1. Rivalrousness: Does one person’s use diminish another’s ability to use the same good?

  • Rivalrous ➜ my consumption subtracts from yours (e.g., driving my car, catching a fish).

  • Non-rivalrous ➜ many can consume simultaneously without depletion (e.g., a broadcast signal, clean air—until congested).

2×2 Classification of Goods

• Combine the two dimensions to yield four categories:

1. Private Goods (Excludable & Rivalrous)

• You pay to obtain; only one user at a time; your use leaves less (or none) for others.

• Examples:

  • Cars (cannot drive mine while I’m driving it).

  • Food purchased in a grocery store.

  • Laptops, houses, other consumer products.

2. Club Goods (Excludable & Non-rivalrous)

• Access can be restricted via price/fees, yet multiple people can consume simultaneously without significant interference.

• Examples:

  • Cell-phone service.

  • Paid internet/Wi-Fi network.

  • Gym membership.

  • Note: At extreme congestion these goods can become rivalrous, but under typical loads they are treated as non-rival.

3. Public Goods (Non-excludable & Non-rivalrous)

• No practical way to keep anyone from benefiting; one person’s use does not diminish another’s.

• Classic examples:

  • Air (ambient, breathable atmosphere).

  • National defense—all residents benefit from deterrence, regardless of tax contribution.

  • Emergency services (fire, police, ambulances) in most jurisdictions; everyone potentially receives protection.

  • Practical caveat: under extreme demand (e.g., simultaneous fires), rivalrousness can emerge, but baseline assumption is non-rival.

4. Common (Pool) Resources (Non-excludable & Rivalrous)

• Hard to stop users from accessing the resource, but each unit extracted reduces what’s left for others.

• Examples:

  • Wild fish stocks.

  • Open grazing lands.

  • Groundwater aquifers.

• Bridge concept to be explored later: tragedy of the commons—over-exploitation when each user maximizes private gain without regard for collective depletion.

Implications for International Environmental Cooperation (Preview)

• Types of goods inform likely political dynamics:

  • Public goods at the global scale (e.g., climate stability) = high incentive to free ride ➜ weak voluntary cooperation.

  • Common resources (e.g., high-seas fisheries, shared river basins) = risk of tragedy of the commons ➜ need for collective rules, monitoring, or property rights.

• As the number of countries required for a solution increases, coordination and enforcement become harder.

• The next lectures will build on this framework to analyze:

  1. How free riding manifests among states.

  2. Why collective-action problems persist.

  3. Historical and contemporary case studies (e.g., ozone depletion, climate accords).

Key Takeaways So Far

• Defining environmental problems as international hinges on both multi-country impact and multi-country remedy requirements.

• Excludability and rivalrousness offer a powerful lens to classify environmental goods/resources and predict political challenges.

• Public goods & common resources dominate the environmental arena, raising cooperation dilemmas like free riding and the tragedy of the commons, which will be dissected in detail in subsequent lectures.

Public Goods, Free Riding, and the Politics of International Environmental Cooperation

Recap – 4-Fold Typology of Goods

• Axes

  • Excludability: Can a user be kept from the good?

  • Excludable → provider controls access (can charge, fence, encrypt, etc.)

  • Non-excludable → impossible / prohibitively costly to block access.

  • Rivalry: Does one user’s consumption diminish another’s?

• Quadrants (intersection of the two axes):

  1. Private goods – Excludable & Rivalrous (e.g., food, apartments).

  2. Club (toll) goods – Excludable & Non-rivalrous up to a point (e.g., streaming services, toll roads at low traffic).

  3. Common-pool resources (CPRs) – Non-excludable & Rivalrous (e.g., fisheries, groundwater).

  4. Public goods – Non-excludable & Non-rivalrous (e.g., clean air, national defense).

• Memory aid: Type=f(Excludability,Rivalry)Type=f(Excludability,Rivalry)\text{Type} = f(\text{Excludability},\; \text{Rivalry})
  where each binary input (Yes/No) yields one quadrant.

Lecture Focus & Guiding Question

• Objective: Use the good-typology to explain why states do (or do not) cooperate on international environmental problems.

• Central claim:

  • The quadrant a good occupies → shapes the incentive structure for states.

  • Those incentives interact with the realities of international politics (anarchy, competition, domestic constituencies).

Excludable Goods (Private & Club)

• General Properties

  • Provider can charge users → monetary incentives align with care & maintenance.

  • Markets and pricing typically yield efficient provision (in theory).

• Relevance to global environmental issues

  • Limited, because the world’s hardest eco-problems revolve around non-excludable resources.

  • Still matters indirectly:

  • Example: Electric cars—private goods developed to replace more polluting private goods.

    • Innovation may mitigate carbon output, but that dynamic belongs to later lectures on private-sector adaptation.

• Key takeaway: Excludable goods rarely create major interstate cooperation hurdles.

Non-Excludable Goods & the Heart of Environmental Politics

Public Goods (Non-excludable & Non-rivalrous)

• Definitions & Classic Example

  • Air / stable climate: cannot exclude anyone; my breathing or my stable coastline does not reduce yours.

• Incentive Problem → No ownership → weak incentives to supply/maintain

  • Any actor who bears the cost of provision offers a benefit to everyone, including non-payers.

  • Result: “Why pay if I can enjoy it for free?”

• Key Vocabulary

  • Free riding: enjoying the benefit without contributing.

  • Collective-action problem: individual rationality (free ride) produces group irrationality (under-provision).

Illustrative Metaphor – The Apartment

• One-occupant flat → quasi-private good.

  • Cleaner = beneficiary → strong personal incentive.

• Multi-occupant flat → public-good dynamic.

  • Each roommate prefers someone else mop the floor Δ time cost.

  • If each waits, apartment stays dirty → manifestation of collective-action problem.

Comparison with Private Goods

• Private good owner recoups cost via sale/exclusion → incentive to produce.

• Public good provider cannot exclude → no extra payoff; only shared benefit.

Common-Pool Resources (briefly noted)

• Non-excludable but rivalrous → leads to over-extraction (the “tragedy of the commons”).

  • Today’s lecture zooms more on public goods; CPR dynamics covered elsewhere.

Solutions in Domestic Settings

Small Groups

• Social pressure / norms (shame, reciprocity)

  • Feasible when NNN (number of beneficiaries) is low → monitoring easy.

• Low-level bargains / side-payments

  • E.g., chore schedules; one roommate cleans, another buys groceries.

Large Groups / National Societies

• Hierarchy (government) solves the problem via coercive power:

  • Taxes = mandatory contributions → government funds public goods (defense, infrastructure).

  • Enforcement: fines, jail, asset seizure.

Why Those Domestic Solutions Fail Internationally

1. No Central World Government

   • UN ≠ global analogue of a state: cannot tax, conscript, or fine sovereign countries.

   • At best, international orgs can name & shame or restrict membership perks.

2. Inter-state Competition

   • States compete for growth, trade shares, geopolitical leverage.

   • Paying the cost for a public good may lower competitiveness if rivals freeride.

3. Domestic Political Constraints

   • Leaders (democratic or authoritarian) rely on domestic coalitions.

   • Spending on global goods = resources diverted from voters/cronies → risk to tenure.

Combined, these traits reinforce free-rider incentives and strip away the domestic fixes (hierarchy, dense social ties).

Case Study – Global Warming & CO₂ Emissions

• The Good: A stable, non-warming climate

  • Non-excludable: every country benefits if temperatures stop rising.

  • Non-rivalrous: one nation’s benefit does not curtail another’s.

• Collective-Action Manifestation

  • States pledge emission cuts (Paris Agreement, etc.) yet implement slowly or conditionally.

  • Economic cost of mitigation (e.g., shifting energy mix, carbon taxes) → reluctance if others lag.

  • Example rhetoric: “If the U.S. restricts coal while China doesn’t, U.S. industry loses edge.”

• Enforcement Gap

  • No global authority to penalize non-compliance.

  • Sanctions limited to shaming or voluntary trade adjustments.

• Negotiation Logic

  • Forums: UNFCCC summits, COP meetings → attempt to create transparency (so freeriding visible).

  • Idea: visibility + reputational cost = pseudo-incentive, but still weaker than domestic coercion.

Broader Implications & Connections

• Typology → Policy Difficulty Map:

  • Quadrants with non-excludability (public goods & CPRs) naturally align with the hardest transboundary environmental problems.

• Ethical dimension: fairness across generations (future people cannot “vote” or pay), across regions (small island states hit hardest though least responsible).

• Real-world link: ongoing debates on carbon border adjustment mechanisms, green technology subsidies, and financing for adaptation all revolve around reshaping incentive structures to overcome public-goods failures.

Take-Home Points

• Non-excludability is the root of cooperation hurdles in global environmental issues.

• Domestic tools (tax authority, legal coercion) do not scale to the international arena.

• Outcomes (e.g., climate inaction) are predictable once one maps the good into the public-goods quadrant.

• Future lectures:

  • How regimes, treaties, and market mechanisms (cap-and-trade, carbon pricing) attempt to engineer excludability or new incentives.

  • Role of private-good innovation (electric cars, renewables) in circumventing the collective-action trap.