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This paper tests the proposition that material interests played a decisive role in shaping national preferences over the design of the Kyoto Protocol, the world?s first global CO2 emissions control regime. That states act to defend their material interests when negotiating international regimes has long been a bedrock assumption of international relations scholarship, and is also a widely held belief among analysts of climate politics. This paper investigates whether the preferences of national governments over a global climate treaty are correlated with measures of the material interests that may have been at stake. States should oppose a stringent climate treaty if their economic output is highly dependent on fossil fuel consumption; if the real and opportunity costs of curbing CO2 emissions are relatively low; and if their vulnerability to climate change related damages is relatively small. The empirical evidence offers only limited support for these hypotheses. At best, material interests favoring emissions abatement may be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of support for a strong climate treaty. Case studies indicate that other determinants of state preferences may include ideational factors and the configuration of political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mega-cities of the developing world, environmental regulation has often been presumed to operate in a radically different context than in the developed world. The well-known hypothesis of the environmental Kuznets curve specifies that environmental problems and their solution in developed world cities will follow a similar path of worsening with intensive industrialization and urbanization, and will only improve with the generation of local wealth. The analysis of this paper shows that not only levels of development, but a host of other political, ecological, temporal and economic factors influence systematically influence local regulatory activities and outcomes. Our analysis derives from primary and secondary research as well as statistical indicators for 32 of the biggest urban regions in 18 countries around the Pacific Rim. Comparative historical analysis shows that adoption of national pollution standards has taken place in cross-national waves that extend to the developing as well as well as the developed world. Although foreign-led investment in industrial development has often contributed to worse pollution, vehicles have increasing replaced factories as the main sources of urban pollution around the world. In developing and newly industrialized countries, the economic interests of urban service industries in environmental quality and the political position of capital cities have fostered intensified efforts toward regulation. Democratization has sometimes contributed to this process, but often more at the local than at the national level. These influences highlight the need to move beyond the Kuznets curve toward a transnational political economy of environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]