Hybrid International Regime Theory: Epistemic, Rational Choice, Interdependency Models Applied to Kyoto Global Warming Treaty

Abstract

Through review of Krasner and others who attended a conference on international organization in 1982 which worked on developing a consensus definition of regime, Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger (1997a, chap. 2) try to present the arguments behind the development of a consensus definition for a regime; however, the concepts of a regime and how a regime functions both prove still to be ineffectively presented for common ground to grow further in the different schools of political science towards the path of integrated research. An explanation of the 1982 group's "bare bones" approach to a consensus definition would definitely have to include Krasner's 1983 expansion of the group's consensus definition. Under the expanded explanation Krasner stated that a regime consists of:

implicit or explicit norms, principles, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors converge in a given area of international relations. Principles are beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude. Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligation. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for action. Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for making and implementing collective choice (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, p.9).

This issue of defining and creating a consensus definition of a regime is problematic. However, the authors indicate it is, indeed, through creating or finding of consensus definitions where regime theory should try soon to focus on and improve itself. For example, before being able to determine what makes a regime robust, a good working definition as to what a robust regime looks like should be made clearer to all. In turn, if a regime is considered effective, how does one define effectiveness in terms of a regime? This linking of word and subject is very important to the eventual elegance of future regime theory related paradigms.

????	Power ->	????
????	???	<--Knowledge
????	<- Interest(s)	????

 

Power	Realist Perspective
Knowledge	Cognitivist Perspective
Interest	Neoliberal perspective
Which variable or variable is strongest?
Are there other dominating variables?

 There are naturally various strands of thinking about regimes and how they approach the concept of regimes within each of these major three schools of thought. : Which variable really has the upper hand within a regime or in regime creation? There might even be other variables which come to dominate in the future (See Figure 1 above.) The realist school is traditionally represented by a focus on the variable of power, the neoliberal school focuses on interests of the participants, and the cognitive school focuses on knowledge and ideas in regime formation, working relationships, as well as the behaviors, and rules of the regime.

The school of neoliberalism, considered the most mainstream of the three schools, breaks into two lines of thoughts discussed in the work, Theories of International Regimes (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a). There is the group which agrees fully with one of the tenets of the realist school that self-interested states are the primary movers and shakers in regime formation. This group of neoliberals set out to subsume the realist perspective under their hegemonic theories of regimes (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, chap. 4). Krasner, Kindleberger, Snidal, and Grieco have been representative of this side of the neoliberal dialectic.

The other neoliberal view of regimes focuses more on the interests of the movers and shakers and is more likely to say that the situation determines the prized interest--which in turn directs the decision making of policy makers (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, Chpt. 3). This group of theorists describes the perceived interests of the actors involved and how these interests influence policy choice. Policy choices are described in game theory terms, such as various forms of the prisoner's dilemma . Mayer, Rittberger, Young, Zurn, and early Keohane have been representative of this branch of the neoliberal school.

It should also be emphasized that the realist and cognitive schools have strong splits as well. One side of the realist school downplays the role of regimes significantly in their relationship to and influences on state decisions or policymaking at the international level. Others, though, lean towards the hegemonic view of regimes as posited by the neoliberals. Among the crossovers would be Duncan Sidal, who in 1985 talked of the two strands of leaders, the coercive leadership model which sees:

[T]he highly asymmetric "size" of the actors in the issue-area does not only (or primarily) mean that there is likely to be some one state whose individual interest in the good is so great that it is willing to supply for itself and the rest of the group. Rather, the model assumes that the hegemon can and does use its superior power to force others to contribute as well, de facto "taxing" them for the collective good provided under their leadership (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997, p. 91).

These distinctions between realist tendencies within neoliberalism towards neorealism show up in the cognitive schools as well. The so-called strong cognitivists deny that states are acting as utilitarian maximizers; whereas, the weak cognitivist school accepts the concept of power and wealth as motivators for states--along side of needing to reduce uncertainties in making decisions through knowledge and leadership of epistemic communities. Thus, along side the other variables of interest and power, the weak cognivitists feel that those who supply knowledge can exert great influence on choices.
 

Realist School	Neoliberal School	Cognitivist School
#1 variable-power,  other variables are dependent	#1 variable-interests and often situational variables play a role	#1 variable-knowledge  and ideas play a role in defining interests and allowing for use of power

Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger (1997a) in writing about theories of international regimes believe that the next area for improvement, which regime theorists must specifically focus on in their future analyses, is to describe what makes regimes effective and robust. Further, how is it that they often outlast the very cause that they were originally set up to undertake? One need only to look at NATO's behavior and growth, for example, in the present end of this millenium to see this. The Tuebingen authors believe that insufficient work on these two concepts create limits to regime theory development. In all likelihood, no school will be able to dominate in creating a working consensus definition for these terms; however, the schools must start filling in the gaps which now exist in regime theory designs and explanations.

Focusing on the reality of the effectiveness question, for example, weak cognivitists have already challenged liberal and realist egoist arguments for explaining state behavior. Hasenclever, et. al. seem to support Goldstein and Keohane comments on all egoist arguments. Egoist arguments rely on a double null hypothesis of reality. Egoist theories assume:

first, that--given a set of 'egoist interests'--behavior can be explained without reference to ideas (e.g. normative beliefs about right and wrong behavior) which might be thought to intervene; and second, interests do not change as a result of changes in beliefs that actors hold (i.e., in relation to interests, ideas do not function as an independent variable (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, p.142).

"New thinking" would certainly seem to be able to describe changes in the western alliance and foreign policies in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even the theory of sovereignty has come under attack in recent weeks with NATO attacks on Serbia. Apparently, at this time in world history a new concept of state and international regime interest in human rights may be a more important force in rulemaking for international behavior (and in defining the rights of legitimate states to handle problems within their own territory) than the concept of sovereignty, which has had a powerful 500+ year run as a basic concept in the theories of states in the global community.

There might exist in hegemonic theory a simple explanation for this shift in these basic concepts of states rights; however, the very existence in historical terms of such shifts in ideas as major factors in regime theory would seem to lead one to dispel hegemonic theory entirely. Meanwhile, the strong cognivitist views the creation of stable hegemonies as just a happenstance of history. In short, how one particular hegemon comes into being must be seen in a historical dialectic, where one social and political condition may not really manifest itself-- but in some other form later in the future.

Cognitivists take the bull by the horn and ask deeper questions such as: Can we say that a state even actually existed before a community of states did? The force of their important cognitive understandings on neoliberal and hegemonic explanations of rules-governed systems of behavior cannot be ignored in the future. Weak cognivitists, such as Ikenberry, Jackson and ,recently, Keohane, clearly claim that both "principled and causal beliefs" (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, p. 143) play important roles in decision making processes. One of the strong cognitivists, Robert Cox, meanwhile, has taken one step further, indicating that a prescriptive rather than descriptive approach to regime theory is demanded when one understands the influence of ideas on both domestic and international politics. Further, the domestic factors which have had an effect on foreign relations and regime development are relatively neglected by much rationalist regime theory (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, p. 143).

Cognitivists have seen that the rules of regime building, just like rules of a table game enable one to know how the game is to be played as in checker or chess. However, they do not lead a player to play the game in only one particular way. Regimes help nations and institutions respond to each other in meaningful ways. That is not all. Cox claims that critical theories are needed to protect and stabilize regimes. That is, neoliberal or realist theorists may have the unintended role of promoting their own theories and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through leadership influenced by their explanations (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, pp. 165-6).

Critical theories, led by cognitivisism, are needed to demonstrate the contradictions within a given regime and open up support of counter hegemonic reflection, especially if justice, human rights, and legitimacy are issues. It could well be that neoliberalism is a mainstream regime theory because it happens to support the current arrangement of a currently stable hegemonic body or regime. This may be useful for understanding short term events and regime creation and development. However, hegemonic theory looks at only small parts of history. Critical theory, advocated by Cox, however, is concerned more with the whole of history (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, pp. 201-204).

Cox is critical of the current world order and the regimes, which have formed within it. He feels that the current order is not justice ordered and advocates critical theory to lead the way for its transformation (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, p. 206). Many other theorists are not so critical of the current international system but find fruit in the cognitivists' recent integration into the larger picture. The focus on changing ideas about what a regime should work towards certainly might explain better the multinational operations of war in Serbia and the peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia over the last years than many non-integrated theories would.

Wendt notes that in undertaking regime theory, cognitivists must walk a fine line between the extremes of holism, looking at the parts and institutions of systems as though they were human actors; while at the other extreme, individualism, a path often walked by rationalists leads to the mistaken belief that theory and social systems do not affect the actors (Hasenclever, et. al., 1997a, pp. 168-9). It would seem that such advice would be good for all regime and political theorists as well as cognitivists. By walking between these extremes, more integrated or unified and sounder theory will result in future investigation, especially in the modeling of complex problems involving power, interests, and knowledge within and among individual actors and systematic or institutional actors .

The following sections of this paper will demonstrate how integrated modeling might develop in the present age once change in ideas and society, especially the economic and environmental facets of society, create changes in regime formation (and changes in the identities of the actors in the regime) as well as changes in identities of the regime itself. A look at the events leading up to the Kyoto Framework Treaty on Climate Change will be made followed by an analysis of the behaviors of the actors. Less appropriate theory will then be weeded out through critical evaluation--leaving a stronger integrated format for analyzing complicated regime formation phenomena.

Once again, it is important to note while reading, however, that a framework treaty is not the same as a regime. It is more easily seen as a subset of the body of actors which make up a regime. Also, in the wake of disagreement on the adequacy of the consensus definitions of regimes in the 1980s mentioned above, an attempt is here given at defining what a regime is without referring to the consensus definition.

A regime functions as an institution which fashions, creates or maintains stability in relations between and among states through rule-like behavior which states follow in their behaviors and/or which states control through their decisions and behaviors in multi-state and intrastate fashion.⁽¹⁾

Introduction of the Issues Involved in a Global Warming Regime Framework

According to Henry Shuh (1993), the 1992 Rio Protocol on Climate Change, under pressure from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, had been completed "without teeth". In the absence of significant progress on global climate action the parties met again in Berlin in 1995. Problems for the U.S., as an Annex I nation, in making any strides towards the goals of Rio to reduce its emissions by the year 2000 had been accentuated by the decline in oil prices and the unanticipated successful expansion of its own economy. The U.S expressed its view in Berlin that a new agreement should include (1) realistic and binding targets, (2) flexibility in implementation, and (3) the participation of developing countries. It was subsequently intended that the Kyoto Conference in 1997 would address these topics (Climate Action Report 1997).

The U.S. Senate (Resolution 98) further put pressure on the U.S. negotiating delegation to Kyoto, demanding that the U.S. not be made party to a treaty with unrealistic or harmful obligations. Specifically, the Senate asked that nothing be given away at the conference that would adversely affect the continued development of the U.S. economy and job markets. At the Kyoto conference David Bank, who represented the Global Climate Coalition which lobbies for the world's largest companies and carmakers, opposed the setting of arbitrary emissions targets which would be "neither realistic nor economically efficient" (Lardner, 1997, p. 2).

In recent years, the U.S. political climate had negated the possibility of the U.S government offering to use negative tax instruments to reduce emissions. Instead the U.S. advocated trading of emissions credits among parties and said it planned to only target emission changes through tax incentives to reduce emissions. Further resistance in the U.S. to a strong Kyoto treaty was aided by conflicting claims by some Congressmen that need for global action to reduce global climate change had yet to be proven scientifically. The Clinton administration, as well as Europe and Japan, responded that they stood behind the 2000 member Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had clearly anticipated the following climatic impacts and subsequent needed adaptations and mitigated responses due to the process of global warming. This process had been set in motion by the world's high energy path to modern development which had centuries ago begun to be set in place. Climatic Science found the following points to be of major concern and/or in need of great international focus in the near future

1. Scientific Findings:
• Global temperatures have increased about 0.5 to 1.0F degrees in the last century.
• Human activities are changing the atmospheric concentrations of and distributions of greenhouse gases and aerosols.
• Midrange scenarios project an increase of 3.7F degrees by the year 2100.
• Sea level is projected to rise due to the thermal expansion of oceans and melting of glaciers by 20 inches by 2100.
• Even after the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures would continue to increase for several decades, and sea level would rise for centuries.
2. Areas of Vulnerability, Likely Impacts, and Possible Responses:
• Climate changes are likely to have mostly adverse affects on health. Direct and indirect effects can be expected to lead to an increased mortality.
• Coastal infrastructure is likely to be expected to be more and more vulnerable.
• Natural and managed ecosystems--forests, agriculture, aquatic and marine areas--are at risk.
• Significant reductions in greenhouse gases are technically and economically feasible using an array of policy measures, technologies, and technology transfers.
3. Socioeconomic Issues
• Early mitigation may increase flexibility in moving toward a stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Economic advancements rapid abatements must be balanced against risks of delay.
• Next steps must recognize equity considerations.
• Costs of stabilization of emissions at 1990 levels in OECD countries could range considerably over the next decades from a gain of $60 billion to a loss of about $240 billion.

 The important issue of "ambiguity" in predicting economic gains and losses related to action and in-actions by policymakers and nations will be discussed further in a later section of this paper. Suffice it to say that such uncertainty in measures and predictions may be further refined over time but in the meantime such related "ambiguities" have provided ammunition for those parties in the U.S. and abroad who have argued against the existence of sufficient scientific data to support the hypotheses concerning global change and in turn have ridiculed any talks on global change as a "sky is falling" phenomena.⁽²⁾

European nations and Japan came to the Kyoto Conference asking that the U.S. be prepared to take more drastic action and make a stronger commitment to global climate action than it had been willing to do in the past. Japan asked that the U.S be willing to join the world in committing itself to a 5% reduction under 1990 levels by the year 2010 (EU Keeps Pressure On, 1997). Ritt Bjerregard, the environmental commissioner for the European Union, stated that even a 15% reduction below 1990 levels wouldn't solve the greenhouse gases issue but that the U.S should seek such a target as a minimum. She added that the EU was prepared to use all policy instruments available--including energy taxes--in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In implementing such instruments and policies, the EU claimed it would create 475,000 jobs by the year 2005 in Europe alone. It also aimed to double its proportion of energy derived from solar, wind, water, and biomass--as well as negotiating with automakers to set voluntary targets to cut CO2 output. Bjerregaard even went so far as to threaten that if no voluntary targets were negotiable, she would introduce a bill to the European Commission to not allow the production of any cars which burned more than five liters of fuel per 75 miles.

Besides the struggle between the U.S. and European nations over the extent of the cut-back in global warming emissions to be required by developed nations in the next 15 years, the other major battleground for the conference participants in Kyoto would be the extent to which developing nations were to be included in a final treaty. From a "polluter's pay perspective", President Fernando Henrique Cardosa of Brazil came to Kyoto on the eve of the conference and stated, "Now, the developed countries must assume their share of the responsibility and not ask us to pay for the destruction they have caused, not leave us to shoulder the costs of repairing the damage caused by a lack of ecological awareness in the past" (Christie, 1997). In contrast the U.S. Senate, despite the fact that the U.S. alone was contributing over 25% of the world's global warming emissions annually, had already told American negotiators that without a commitment by the developing nations to the treaty, no support would be found on Capitol Hill for eventual passage of the Kyoto Protocol.

American negotiators at the conference offered third world nations the opportunity to participate in the implementation of new technology via technology transfers if they indicated that they, too, were committed to reducing global emissions. Further, the developing nations were encouraged to participate in the process as partners in trading emissions for further development aid in projects which would benefit both parties. In this way, the U.S. initiative could basically be interpreted as a way to make certain that this next round of protocols was as comprehensive as possible. Unlike previous protocols, the U.S. expected developing nations to sign on to the agreement. The more comprehensive approach was further demonstrated by the U.S. demand that the Kyoto Protocol include not just three global warming gases but the six major gases related to global climate warming.⁽³⁾ Lastly, the conference would also seek to include the creation and preservation of global "sinks" such as forests, which help reduce the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere. Sink creation and building would also be encouraged through credits and technological transfers.

The New Protocol

In accordance to each nation's circumstances, the parties in Annex I promised to implement or expand policies and measures:

(i) To enhance efficiency in relevant sectors of the national economy
(ii) To protect and enhance sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases.
(iii) To promote sustainable forms of agriculture in light of climate change.
(iv) To promote use and development of new and renewable forms of energy and energy technologies.
(v) To progressively reduce or phase out market imperfections such as fiscal incentives which run counter to the objectives of the convention.
(vi) To encourage appropriate reforms and policies which measure, limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
(vii) To limit and reduce methane through recovery and use in waste management.

Besides having to agree to the 6% reduction level, the United States was also forced to agree to a final protocol which failed to include developing nations as specified actors in the new protocol. Naturally, these other actors would be allowed to join the protocol if they apply and accept the terms and commitments of this new protocol (and further protocols which will be created in the next century). Despite their non-inclusion as specified actors in the new protocol, developing nations were brought into the protocol through provisions related to (1) creations of "sinks", (2) their own national policies on climate change outside the Annex I commitments but in line with the Protocol, and

(3) joint cooperation with developed nations on projects or programs where technology is transferred or programs are implemented to reduce global emissions. In other words, a clean development mechanism or means of providing for sustainable development while working towards objectives of the conventions is provided. Certified emissions reductions from such activities by Annex I parties will be treated as contributing to achievement of that developed nation's quantified emissions limitation.

The United States, represented by Vice-President Al Gore in Kyoto, lauded the protocol, saying that it is"based on the simple idea that it will not be government bureaucrats or regulators, but free markets and free minds that will be our best bet to win the battle against global warming, while lifting the lives and the hopes of citizens around the world" (Remarks, 1997). On the other hand, the United States immediately indicated that it would seek inclusion of key developing nations such as China⁽⁴⁾ and India in the process through bilateral negotiations before submitting the new protocol to Congress in order to not give developing nations an unnecessary advantage in world markets during the next few years at the same time their economies are growing and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Factors of Uncertainty and Ambiguity in Policy Formulation

The IPCC is made up of over two thousand scientific representatives. Naturally, there will be disagreement among representatives in such a large body. However, there have been relatively few scientific actors who do not believe that by the year 2100 that the greenhouse gas problem will be out of control unless some action is taken much sooner. The important questions are (1) when to take action and (2) what action should be taken. The answers to these questions were what the Kyoto Framework representatives worked out.

The problems concerning measurements of and predictions about global climate change are further complicated by the fact that the world has already enjoyed a 150+ year hiatus in modern development while producing large quantities of greenhouse gases. These gases may continue to have certain effects on our climate in the present and future for years to come. A new treaty to reduce such gas emissions will not soon stop these older gases from having their effects. A new treaty could not possibly eliminate all greenhouse gas production but would only hold out the hope of reducing emissions over a number of years. Rather than waiting for further signs of worsening environmental conditions before taking action, policymakers have decided to opt for the earliest possible action in this matter.

The consensus for taking these actions now has been arrived at through a change in the learning curve whereby more and more major actors have come to consider the effects of greenhouse gases on the climate as an important issue. More importantly, these same actors have developed the understanding that this particular problem is bigger than any one nation or small group of nations could tackle by themselves. Since the Rio Treaty was signed, systems analysts such as Eismont and Welsch (1996) have focused more and more on "uncertainty models' of the parameters of damage posed by global warming and the anticipated results of any actions to intervene in global development. These same analysts came to the conclusion through such modeling that there are so many potential losses involved in global warming, that the risks involved in not-taking-action-at-all would be far heavier and costly than taking preemptory actions involving economies of scale. In other words, the actors involved should take action to control the situation because modeling shows the risks for inaction as too high unless further learning in the next decades leads scientists and politicians to evaluate the situation vastly different than is the current state of affairs. Only over time can the learning curve in this subject area be gradually improved concerning the issues of global warming (most specifically, the effect that global technological development has on the planet's warming), so that the world's policy instruments can be further refined in order to maximize the utility of certain policy and developmental instruments (Peck and Teisberg, 1993).

Peck and Teisberg (1993) also evaluated the major policy instruments and concluded that some policy instruments would work equally well if used separately--rather than together at the same time or over the same period of time. The instruments they evaluated in relation to economic development were (1) the use of official limits as emissions in order to create efficiency versus (2) tax instruments to penalize production of emissions so as to encourage conservation. Both types of instruments seemed to work optimally in the short and long run. However, when combined, the results for the economy as a whole were not as good, as far as reducing greenhouse gases were concerned, as doing just one option or the other. On the other hand, using both instruments simultaneously seemed to provide the best employment results. This may be reflected by the fact that the Europeans may use negative tax instruments to cut down on greenhouse gases while the U.S. tries to avoid such instruments.

Another sense of ambiguity in policymaking is observed by Parikh and Gokarn (1993) in their study of India and climate change. They looked at their nation sectorally and advocated that a nation like India might rationally choose to continue to reduce its oil consumption (an import) while increasing its use of (indigenous) coal in order to power its economic development while at the same time continuing to meet future energy emissions target limits it might set for itself under climate control treaties. They indicated that efficiency changes in the construction industry, the largest energy consuming sector of the Indian economy, might lead to such a situation. In other words, while most of the developed nations have substituted oil and nuclear energy for coal in recent years--often with the belief that they are making the environment cleaner--alternative ways of tackling emission reduction in some developing countries could follow quite different paths to the same goal.

The problem with any global climate change treaty developed before Kyoto was the fact that no distinction had been made between subsistence and luxury emissions. The issue is one of fairness. Henry Shuh (1993) had criticized this aspect of the Framework Treaty from Rio. The Kyoto Protocol with its incentives for international cooperation and trading of emissions with third world nations goes part way to correct this imbalance by clearly recognizing that each developing nation has the right to develop and not have its options cut off by agreements with the developed nations which bind them to certain emissions levels. The new framework convention clearly recognizes that all policies should be implemented in accordance with national circumstances and not be dictated from outside. Apparently the failure of the United States to explicitly include certain developing nations in the new protocol has by default allowed nations living closer to subsistence levels to have a fairer hand in choosing their own development destiny by not restricting them through binding agreements on growth. On the other hand, once developing nations begin to swap emissions rights under the protocol in the future, they may in the end actually be exchanging either some subsistence or luxury emission privileges in order to develop to levels more equal to the nations who are able to pay and have had more privileges than they have had in the economies of nations.

Interdependency Model

The scientific community and a community of educators have been at the forefront of the awareness movement concerned with the problems of global warming. This has led to elected officials who have become particularly concerned with such issues--and elected officials who have considerable political clout leading the way for action. This is exemplified by traditional politicians such as Vice President Al Gore's high profile attendance at the both Rio and the Kyoto conferences.

Together, members of the many communities of actors in Kyoto, called for a new international regime. There were over 160 nations in attendance plus many other global actors. Of these actors, there were 39 Annex I nations who bound themselves to the treaty and these nations make up the bulk of the major world economies. Such an international regime is a primary characteristic of an interdependent world according to interdependency theorists. The rules or regulations of an international regime dictate behavior at the international level. Adherents to the new Kyoto Protocol are expected to bind themselves to certain reductions of particular greenhouse gas emissions because they, as important global actors, do not feel that by simply trying to reduce such emissions by themselves that they can solve the problems created by global warning.

Short of invading a fellow nation which is considered to be polluting excessively, military power seems to play next to no significant role in solving this dilemma of global warming. The impotence of military power to solve international problems is a further characteristic of interdependency.

The issues of sensitivity and vulnerability are also important characteristics of interdependence and were evident in the global warming debates and action options discussed at Kyoto . Certain nations, particularly coastal ones, are likely to be more affected by global warming than others. This has already led to parallel regimes coming together, which bridge the developed and undeveloped nation dichotomy. Nations as diverse in development as Oman, Taiwan, and the U.S. have been coming together for several years collaborating on policies related to climate change through the International Coastal Management (International Workshop, 1997).

The differing perceived notions of vulnerability related to the potential rise of the sea may provide for greater linkage through such new regimes in the future. On the other hand, protectionist national and corporate actors might also be viewed as bodies who feel that they may be less sensitive to certain amounts of global warming than other actors. They, therefore, may be expected to act differently than more concerned actors and refuse to participate in certain regimes related to global warming management in the future. This may especially be the case for some underdeveloped nations who perceive that the costs related to underdevelopment may outweigh costs related to global warming--even in the long term. This could mean that certain non-Annex I nations may never join the community of nations participating in global warming gases reduction agreements.⁽⁵⁾

Rational Choice Analysis Model

Another important concept for rational choice theorists is that by operating in a collective an actor can maximize its self-interest. This was probably the key for U.S. accession to the final protocol despite lack of any binding agreement with third world actors. In other words, the problem for the U.S. was "How should it define its own self interests?" In the end, the U.S. saw the benefit of joining other actors and possibly reducing its own overall costs while realizing it still had great influence over the body or regime that was being created.

The problem of defining one's self-interest is the most important question for a rational actor. Should personal interest be defined in the short term, long term, or both? Marxists, and idealists of the interdependency theory persuasion have advocated that "me first" should be eliminated by "we first". In all this is a concept of a public good that is shared in by all parties regardless of contributions. Global warming is obviously a problem with global consequences and should thus be handled globally in an economically just way. On the other hand, acting equally fairly to all or creating real

justice for all parties may not be necessary for a regime or interdependent body to function. In the long run solving the problem is good for everyone. In turn, interdepence theory liberals especially extol the opinion that long-term gains will be reaped by short-term investments or costs related to changing their economies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By acting in a collective both the liberals and Marxists believe that self-interest on this particular issue can be maximized by collectivization and further collectivization--transferring technologies, etc. In contrast, realists tend to take the zero-sum view of rational relationships. They would ask the question "What's the most I can get out of this relationship with the least amount of effort and as little discomfort as possible?" Jointly reducing emissions and sharing overall costs in reducing greenhouse gas emissions might seem the most advantageous way to work towards solutions.

Realists at the Kyoto conference included labor unions and auto companies, who feared that too much would be given away for far too little return. Third world nations, who did not join the Annex I countries in committing themselves to the agreement, may be making a choice to free ride on the system as long as possible--reaping the benefits of reduced emission by other nations without reducing or adapting their own developing strategies accordingly. On the other hand, the possibility of participating in the regime through technology transfers or through emissions trading agreements may encourage maximum participation of the global community at an early stage in the emissions reduction process.

The one realist critique of the Kyoto agreement, which will hauntingly remain for years, was the same one which stalled the U.S. from making binding agreements with other nations at the Rio and Berlin conferences. By following inappropriate emissions control policies advocated by the new protocol or by tying themselves down to a worldview which may be proven contrary to the facts over the long haul, this realist critique states that parties to the protocol will be wasting money and destroying economies. ⁽⁶⁾ If the U.S. Senate fails to approve of the global agreements, this particular argument may be one of the leading ones in making a decision against U.S. participation in the treaty.

Epistemic Community Model

Regimes are likely to constrain state behavior when they mediate relationships of equal power. This might explain how the United States was persuaded to capitulate on two apparently firm stances with which it approached the Kyoto conference: (1) The U.S. belief that developing nations and newly developed nations should be bound by the new protocol and that (2) the U.S. should not bind itself in an agreement to emission reductions as strong as the Japanese and European governments were asking it to promise.

The epistemic community model would further clarify this decision making process by the American actors through indicating that the U.S. negotiators included a significant number of persons who are experts in their scientific, security, and economic fields (Briefing, 1997). These experts were then able to reach an agreement on policies in a way different from the way individual governments might want to have handled the matter. Convergence of policy occurs when these experts begin to speak in a unified voice. A review of the December 4, 1997 White House press conference, which included the director of the national economic council, chair of the council of environmental quality, and the vice president's national security advisor, demonstrates a great unity and mastery of the issues related to the greenhouse gas negotiations. The current U.S. Global Action Plan (1997) further exemplifies the importance of education in this process. The aforementioned IPCC, whose work was the basis of the new plan, showed how the scientific community speaking in a unified voice slowly convinced political actors or dominant political figures of their message through education.

It should be noted here that NGOs, too, can play an important role in epistemic/regime formation. Helmut Breitmeier and Volker Rittberger have recently written on the power of Environmental NGOS in an Emerging Global Civil Society stating that among the most influential NGOs have been the environmental ones. The regime leading statesmen have prominently dealt with environmental regimes (Bretimeier and Rittberger, 1998, p.2). Even though NGO access to core discussions and the decision making inner circles of a regime may be limited, within the field of environmental science the larger environmental NGOs have been able to achieve high levels of legitimacy as major players by proving that their members and scientists are leaders in their fields.

As long as regimes are moving towards more democratization, and that seems to be a trend in the growth of regime formation according to Breitmeier and Volker, NGOs will be able to make a dent in regimes and will be essential for enabling civil society to retain some of its power. Civil society has been seeing this power seepage as sovereign governments more and more devolve some authority to a larger regime, as has occurred in Western Europe with the building of the European Economic Union. In a way, the world has been moving towards, from an interdependency and epistemic perspective, a sort of new medievalism whereby;

on the one hand, on the observation that sovereign state authority is increasingly transferred to international organizations as well as to nongovernmental organizations and transnational corporations, and that these organizations increasingly interfere with the domestic affairs of the states. On the other hand, it is viewed as the result of "globalization", i.e. the fact that transnational, above all economic, actors are increasingly able to allocate significant values beyond the reach and control of state actors (Hasenclever, Mayer, Rittberger, Schimmelfennig, Schrade, 1996, p. 5).

Even more importantly, being a societal response to the erosion of the democratic process posed by other transnational actors, NGOs can also work quite well outside the formal international political processes. They can provide community education and encourage more local participation in the community development process at grassroots levels. In short, large NGOs can serve as main actors in a large epistemic, where they can take their case more directly to the regime's leadership, while these same large NGOs-- along with many more smaller ones--can still put pressure on traditional government and business community leadership at the community level.

Critiques of the Epistemic/Rational Choice/Interdependency Hybrid Models

By choosing not to participate in the Annex I part of the Framework Treaty, dependency theorists would argue that the developing nations have effectively delinked themselves from a detrimental and exploitive process, a process which would have had the poor underdeveloped nations effectively pay for the pollution or greenhouse gases of the wealthy nations. The treaty essentially divides the world into two blocks whereby the developing nations will have the opportunity to grow and expand while reaping the benefits of the treaty. Better still, the treaty guarantees that the biggest greenhouse gas polluters will pay for the reorientation of their own economies and also pay for greenhouse sinks and investments in the developing nations--as part of emission swaps through which the independent developing nations might choose later to still feel free to participate in or not. The world economic system will stay essentially the same but the peripheral nations will be allowed to move up the development ladder while the developed nations will be somewhat restricted as signatorees to the protocol.

The neo-realist or statist international politico-economic view of the framework agreement would state that the security interest of the individual governments, not economic interests nor major corporations, motivate U.S. policy towards Japan, Europe, and the rest of the world (Crane and Amawi, 1997). Therefore, when faced with risks and dangers posed by uncontrolled global warming, the U.S. security advisors decided that action would be better than no action and that shared costs with the global community would be better than trying to solve the problem alone. In other words, the neo-realist and world systems narration of the Kyoto Protocol would say that the most powerful nations create the context for international activities. Therefore, structure of the international political system will constrain the global economy. By signing on to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. has persuaded other current major global actors to follow its course. The MNCs, too, will have to fall in line with the treaty.

In short, neo-realists say that the current system of liberalism is in play only because the dominant world power wants it that way. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the successful international cooperation in the Gulf War, the U.S. has come to be the undisputed number one power but would like to have the world's share in the costs associated with its power and economy. It therefore prefers multinational international agreements to solve problems. If the developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil, do not wish to sign on to the new protocol, the U.S. is prepared to pursue those nations in negotiation and trade agreements until they do. If this doesn't work, it will try again at another bilateral level to ensure participation of these states through transfer agreements, emissions sharing or emissions trades, and through the creation of new global sinks. This is what Sidal had referred to in the introductory section of this paper as a coercive leadership model.(Hasenclever, et. al., 1997, p.91).

Basically, the U.S. will continue to pursue its liberal approach to solving the global warming crisis, because its main policymakers believe in liberal policy approaches, as do the Europeans--and have the Japanese in recent years. The U.S. will, however, seek to reduce emissions only through positive market incentives and a reduction of taxes. (In turn any nation which subsidizes oil or coal industries would be probably be pursued by the U.S. to eliminate such price reductions.) In other words, the U.S. has no intention of forcing changes in automobile production by outlawing the production of particular auto models or through negative tax incentives against car owners whose cars are less efficient. This is the case even though such policies have been discussed by the European commissioners for possible EU actions in recent months; meanwhile, some European governments have been conducting such policies on their own for years already. The reason for not implementing such policies in the U.S. is simply because such policies are not currently popular in America and could lead to Congressmen being voted out of power if put into law. Power is the name of the game, after all, from the realist's perspective.

One of the reasons why the statist model proves not to be as parsimonious as the interdependency, epistemic, and rational choice models in an evaluation of the greenhouse gas protocol is that the state interests of the dominant actor probably will not win out if the protocol is implemented as outlined in its final draft. Another statist theory tenant is that the most powerful nation creates context for transnational cooperation. If this were the case in Kyoto, the U.S. probably never would have capitulated on its stances that (1) the U.S. should not sign a treaty binding it to anything less than 1990 production levels of greenhouse gas emissions and that (2) no treaty would be completed without including some Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) or other future major developing nations.

By agreeing to an emissions levels of 6% below the 1990 levels, while planning to maintain economic growth, the U.S. leadership has put itself at risk politically and economically according to the realist perspective. Further, by not including economically important actors such as South Korea and Brazil in the protocol, the U.S places itself in a potentially poor negotiating position according to the same statist theorists, who would prefer that the U.S. not work from a position of vulnerability to other actors. This is why, the three theories--rational choice, interdependence, and epistemic--are advocated as more parsimonious models for describing the process leading up to the Kyoto protocol in 1997.

Likewise, the world systems model includes some understandings which do not seem to be at play in the Kyoto Protocol. One core belief of the world economic systems theories is that the global economic system does not allow itself to be concerned about social issues or politics. Obviously, in cooperating in reducing greenhouse gases which affect the entire global community and by creating a global treaty related to improving the world's climate, major world actors are behaving quite differently than Marxist theorists predict under both dependency and world perestroika theories.

One of the oldest arguments against a theory of global warming is the anti-Malthusian one. Thomas Malthus argued in the late 1790s that there were limits to growth in the developments in world population and food production which would leave life "nasty, brutish, and short"--as Hobbes would say. The mathematical assumptions of Malthus were, of course, proven false in a few short years and Malthus himself later backed off on most of his predictions (Pinkerton, 1998). Technological shifts in industrial and agricultural development along with mass migrations from Europe, especially England and Ireland, led to a quite different historical development by the turn of the next century from that world that Malthus had been experiencing when he first wrote his thesis. Pinkerton critiques global warming theory by saying that generally an actor's concerns are from an ephemeral nature as science and technologies are developed to improve the food production system in the free market. He states that Malthuseans often fail to read of Malthus' own later capitulations and thus distort the whole theory of limits to growth.

The problem with Pinkerton's anti-Malthusian critique of global warming theory and consequently his critique of the Kyoto framework treaty is that such a critique fails to consider that the world's atmosphere and stratosphere in fact have had real limits for centuries and thus pose an actual limit on the system. Paul Kennedy, highly acclaimed as author of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers in the 1980s, explained in his subsequent book, called Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, that economic, social and political winners and losers in the coming fifty years would have to learn to handle new types of issues and that these matters would call for increased cooperation between powers to resolve. Kennedy explained the likely reality of global warming as one of the three most serious international matters in the coming century and did so in very clear laymen's terms.

In thermodynamic terms, the earth is a closed system, meaning that no material enters or leaves it except the sun's radiant energy; and that the only processes that can occur are those in which material is changed from one form to another. For example, burning autumn leaves or using up a tank full of gasoline on a lengthy journey does not eliminate that material, it merely transforms it elsewhere in a different form. If this closed system is run indefinitely, therefore, the transformation process must ultimately constitute a closed cycle, in which material returns to its original form: new resource becomes waste which is then absorbed back into the ecosystem to become future raw material. When functioning properly, it is a beautiful and wonderful self-sustaining cycle of life (Kennedy, 1993 p. 105).

Hybrid Epistemic, Rational Choice, Interdependency Model

A current management body for the new protocol, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had already determined the gases of concern, will monitor each Annex I member's data on its emissions levels on global greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC along with a second scientific body set up to give advice on technology and policy will jointly monitor application of the protocol. They will also monitor progress of policies and make suggestions on changes in practices and advocate improvements in measuring instruments related to global warming (Article 6, Kyoto Protocol to Framework Convention).

Expert review teams, under coordination by the new secretariat created in the Protocol, will be selected from nominations by the parties of the adherents to the protocol (Article 8, Kyoto Protocol). In some ways, the monitoring system will be similar to that set up under the WTO to monitor, advise, and judge participation by the adherents to that agreement. The sort of educational process, system of further research to push the learning curve, and the participation of expert actors in the field of security, economics, and science from the various countries on various continents--including some former Soviet bloc actors who are still making a transition to market economies--are reminiscent of communities outlined in most epistemic community models.

Provisions are made in the Kyoto Protocol for further parties to join the agreement by adhering to the rules outlined therein. The protocol also makes room for participation by non-adherents in the form of aid and joint cooperation in creating global "sinks" and in efforts to reduce total global greenhouse gas emissions. These provisions particularly emphasize and outline characteristics of an interdependent model world view.

The reason all three of the paradigms--epistemic communities model, interdependency theory, and rationale choice theory--remain basically both liberal and cognitive in character, especially when integrated in explaining the formation of a Climate Change Control and Monitoring Regime in Kyoto as of December 1997, is: First, liberalism explains the nature of the global regime formation situation now existing. (In contrast, the egoist model, of which the hegemonic model is to be included may have prevailed prior to the current half century.) Second, according to Hasenclever, Mayer, Rittenberger in Regimes as Links between States: Three Theoretical Perspectives, cognitive understandings about and within the social construct of modern nations have seen themselves redefined in the past centuries from a previous status quo to a newly reconstructed one with new identities and interests through new understandings of an intersubjective nature (Hasenclever, Mayer, Rittenberger 1997b, p.14).

In December 1997, in carefully weighing the risks against non-participation or non-action, all major actors making up the 39-member Annex I participants of the protocol seem to have made a rationale choice decision for participation--not based necessarily on classical liberal theory but on the possibility of working in coordination to limit damage as central banks of G-7 nations often do in meeting together and coordinating activities to monitor and control the global economy. In other words, there may be free riders in the Kyoto Protocol system who contribute less than others; nonetheless, the major actors are and will be so pleased with the overall outcome, that their desire for the creation of this new regime outweighs their misgivings about their own costs in participation. As in the creation of NATO, where the existence of perceived outside enemies, led to cost sharing of an unequal nature, the Kyoto Protocol Annex I actors have found a global enemy in greenhouse gas emissions and dispersion, which they wish to contain in order to maintain global economic, political, environmental, and social stability.

Conclusion

Nothing succeeds like success--this phrase--can define power building as well as the creation of a dominating concept of any age. Interests, too, as cognitivism indicates, can be derived from concepts of power and what makes a nation powerful. In contrast, the post-modernist way of viewing the world confuses these issues with an emphasis on relativity. Relativity is not necessarily the view of cognitivists. The bundle of theories which make up the hybrid theory posed by this paper are chosen as an example of the dominating way of thinking associated with the postmodern period in which the developed world is currently in.

The post-modern world is not to be confused with post-modernism. The post-modern world refers to the communication-service-technological age where economic transformations--including loss of industrial jobs and mass migrations from south to north and even from East to West--, ideas, and change are outstripping industrial development. It is an age where both telecommunications and biotechnology are seeming to outstrip man's ability to accept the change or transformations--a malaise which most American's were feeling to a great degree before the recent mid-1990s economic boom in the U.S.. Most of the world, however, continues to face both pre-industrial and post-industrial change along with dislocations and economic expansions and retractions simultaneously. This set of multiple developmental experience make up the post-modern world.

In Western Europe, one of the most advanced industrial areas of the globe, unemployment has been near or above ten percent most of this decade. The situation in Western Europe exemplifies the sense of post-modern alienation and hopelessness--as the world appears more and more complex, the numbers and size of parallel regions of the world with great unemployment grow, where high illiteracy, great needs for migration, and a lack of progress in developmental experience exist side by side on this planet.

In the 1990s more nations and peoples are striving for nationhood than ever before. They exist along side Western European nations who are seeking to unify themselves further rather than promoting further divisions on their continent. Politicians are realizing more and more that the earth of the turn of the century consists of multitudes of worlds and political economic experiences. In the poorest of the poor world communities, such as in Somalia, Sub-Saharan Africa, or Haiti, many times the amount of unemployment and illiteracy exist that are to be found in even the other most troubled Eastern European, Central Asian, or Latin American countries of today. Political Scientists talk no more about first or third worlds--there are broken worlds, very broken worlds, wealthier worlds, extremely wealthy worlds--the definitions go on. The technological and economic developmental differences between peoples make up the post modern world. Nonetheless, at this time and place in history (starting especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s) most of the world has distinctly moved away from an import substitution and/or command economic models of development. These models were representative of realist and Marxist approaches to development presented through dependency theories. Most of the planet moved at varying speeds towards a more liberal economic order, which is seen so easily today.

In this world, neither Marxist-Leninist, nor old statist, as well as no Smithian liberal theories have as much explanatory power for what has been happening as hybrid theories based in liberal and cognitive learning traditions. Theorists now have to work together in an interdependent world. Models must be molded together as in this paper. The theories or models that come forth--after undertaking the evaluation of the various other models--must be the most parsimonious. At this time in history almost all models of state, interstate, and intrastate behavior must take shape around some form of liberal economic theory.

However, in focusing on the activity of basing theories upon hybrids of liberal economic tradition, theoreticians must take seriously the warning of the cognitivists, such as Cox, that once they, the theorists, begin defining what the system which dominates in a particular age is, the theorists have to be careful not to actually promote their particular model as the whole reality for all present and future developments. Hybrid theory will have to be explanatory for the immediate past, the present, and helpful in predicting the future, but the theory based on the dominant paradigm of an age will not necessarily explain all events in those periods. A search will need to be continued to see what other factors come into play. Descriptions of the model for any particular historical politico-economic model must also reflect the opposing arguments--outside the theory and critical of the hybrid models parts--, so that these opposing arguments can be used more effectively in developing better theoretical models. In short, no theory, as historians and philosophers have warned, may enter the same river twice. Only by folding in previous working models can regime theory continue to grow and be more explanatory now that almost all borders, which may have limited exchange through trade as well as exchanges of ideas in the past, are now becoming more and more borderless through movements of transnational actors (including MNCs) and through advances in communication technologies.

Cognitivists warn that being able to predict what will happen should not be confused with making it happen. If, for example, the U.S. Senate or some future president decides, contrary to the wishes of the current executive branch, that the U.S. should not pursue the goals of the Kyoto global warming treaty, the theories and models--such as the hybrid one posed in this paper--should still be able to explain this. (In these next paragraphs an attempt is made to do this so that the hybrid model of rational choice, epistemic community, and interdependency theory will be more helpful and complete.) In this paper, countering arguments were presented against the hybrid. Also, combination Marxist/liberal/realist arguments for rational choice, interdependence, epistemic community model were introduced to give depth to the theory. In these arguments, the seeds for explanation of subsequent actions or behaviors have been made clear.

In this way, no post-modernist set of arguments have been created, but rather only a multi-dialectical synthesis of explanations have followed. In contrast, the post-modernist view might one day freely decide to put a square peg through a round hole and then turn around the next day and on a whim put a triangle through the same round hole. This sort of irregular leap in behaviors is not explanatory, whereas hybrid models do so in the long- and short-run. In short, it needs again to be emphasized that a post-modernist view does not equal the models that will be formed and put together through integrating models under a cognitive guise, such as has been done in the climate change control treaty formation model put forth in this paper.

In the search for models with explanatory power, it is important to answer the difficult cognitivist questions posed at the beginning of this work. The first point to be clarified is to explain clearly what a robust regime means or looks like whenever putting together a model. Using the example presented in this paper, it appears that until the U.S. participates more fully in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it is predicted that the regime will not be robust. In turn, if China continues to grow to be an ever more major actor in the next century and yet still fails to participate in achieving better pollution controls then the Kyoto treaty targets, the regime cannot be considered robust (nor is it likely to be effective). Regimes are defined or described as robust if the major players in a regime are active in working towards the goals of the regime. This means that the regime is not robust enough to handle the changing system or not enough major actors are participating actively enough in the regime. In short, the regime will not function robustly without fuller participation from the bigger players.

The definition for robust in the model advocated in this paper is that a robust regime equals one which at least finds full ( not necessarily complete) participation by the major actors in the achieving the goals of the regime. A robust regime could be a regime like NATO from the late 1940s through early 1990s with the U.S. dominating and footing large bill. It could be like the EU with Germany willing to foot more than its share to keep the body that makes up the EU together. It doesn't matter so much to either actor, the U.S. or Germany, that Greece or Portugal participates fully.

However, hindering the major actor or actors aims could be destructive if repeated too often. Eventually the major actors would likely bail out or at least take the regime less seriously. This had happened over the last 50 years as the U.S. has had less and less confidence and control of the United Nations. In the Reagan years, less U.S. trust and involvement led to the U.N. becoming less robust than it has been in the 1990s (in the wake of the Gulf War) under the Clinton Administration.⁽⁷⁾

Now, the things that make a regime effective are not necessarily the overt or robust participation on the part of any particular or even all major actors--although that might help make a regime more effective. The real issue in describing a regime in terms of being effective is whether the regime meets its main goals or adapts well to meeting newer--considered more important--targets. For example, the growth of NATO into Eastern Europe in 1999 could possibly be considered as effective if it increased actually increased stability in Europe as is one of the main goals of the original decision to expand. On the other hand, if the recent change in NATO's goals to protecting people from invasion and genocide within the boundaries of another sovereign nation, are not matched by successful NATO performance in the actions by NATO against Serbia, one would have to say that NATO was ineffective.⁽⁸⁾

Using the example of the climate control regime which was the focus of this paper, assume that (1) the thermodynamic premises for global warming theory accepted currently by well over the majority of scientists are found within a few short years to be true and (2) that the U.S. never signs the Framework agreement. The world would seem to then be well on a beeline for a major developmental catastrophe. At this point, one could say that the regime was neither both robust nor effective. (See column #1 in Figure 3 below.)

Finally, assume that a situation, as follows occurs. Assume(1) that the miraculous aforementioned hydrogen, solar, and water technologies are created in the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe. These can provide for continued energy usage by both developed and developed state actors. Now, assume (2) that the transfer of these technologies from the developed nations to the developing ones because the poorer developing nations, who are not Annex I signatories to the Kyoto Framework agreement and cannot afford the technologies without assistance from the Annex I states, fails to take place. In this situation nations, such as China, India, and Brazil, must continue to follow the traditional non-renewable resources such as oil, gas, coal energy models for development. The earth's atmosphere continues to heat up. In this case, the global warming regime will have been considered both ineffective and not robust. (See column #3 in figure 3 above.) Failure to follow the Kyoto conventions guidelines to transfer the aforementioned technologies to non-signatories, one of the basic tenets of the interdependency/epistemic community/rational choice model espoused in this paper would no longer be in play as all three parts of the hybrid require the sharing of the new greenhouse gas reducing technologies.⁽⁹⁾

If, on the one hand, future technological breakthroughs were to actually occur and new technologies were indeed shared throughout the planet, decreasing the chances of increased global warming, many anti-Malthusians arguments would also seem to have been proven true. However, while it is true that technology may have saved the day as anti-Malthusians predict is possible (and as actually occurred in 18^th and 19^th century Europe in the form of energy, agricultural, and production technologies of the industrial revolution), one key assumption would remain unproven. The one key assumption of those positivists, who had criticized already early Malthus' predictions, that would remain unproven in such an event of drastic technological transformation or improvements would be the likelihood that the earth is, indeed, a closed system and hence affected by greenhouse gas emissions. (Positivists may or may not hold out hope at that moment that the closed system theory of global warming theory is proved wrong at some later date.) Simply put, only through technological change--directed under an essentially liberal-oriented-world order of science and technicians--was a regime or group of world actors able to create the changes for necessary for solving the global warming problem. In short, the hybrid rational choice/ interdependent/epistemic community model remains strong in predicting future as well as explaining present events. This makes the hybrid model a parsimonious model and an important starting point for future modeling, especially in the area of environmental regimes, in the coming century.

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Endnotes

2. Arguably the strongest case for proving that the amount of global warming gases in the environment are increasing is provided by studies of ice at the Antarctic, on glaciers, and icebergs. Bubbles of air from different ages of ice provide evidence of significant changes in the amount of greenhouse gases in recent years.

3. Co2 emissions from fuel burning are responsible for approximately 87% of global warming. The Kyoto conference originally targeted Nitrous Oxide (N2O), which comes from nitrogen-based fertilizers and methane which, is naturally occurring but also comes from flammable gases. Leading man made sources are landfills, livestock, and wetland rice cultivation. The U.S. sought that hydrofluorocarbon gases (HFCs), perfluorocarbon gases (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluorides (SF6) be included in Kyoto so as to make the ban more comprehensive in discouraging further development development and use of such gases.

4. When Premier Zhu Ronji visited the U.S. in the Spring of 1999 to discuss China's entry into the WTO, China had already announced plans to spend $27.7 billion to combat erosion and pollution in the Yangtze andYellow river valleys. At his meetings with Bill Clinton that April, the Premier spent a good bit of time discussing environmental issues along with the topic of entry in the WTO.

5. Of course, small island nations may be more concerned than any large developing nation about the effects of global sea rises.

5. But, this point has been discussed in the section on ambiguity, statisticians such asEismont and Welsch (1996) and Peck and Teisberg (1993) have shown that as long as policy instruments are continually refined, the optimum choice is to act now rather than to wait for more evidence later.

7. This increase in the robustness of the U.S. has occurred in the 1990s despite Jesse Helms, a strong realist in military terms, being in charge of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

8. It should be noted, however, that even in defeat of an attempted but ineffective policy, NATO might still remain robust as long as the main core of NATO parties continue to stick together and prepare to act militarily in unison in the future.

9. This would not necessarily mean that the hybrid theory espoused in this paper was necessarily wrong in explaining the formation of the climate control regime through the Kyoto agreement--only that the liberal paradigms most in force in 1997 at the time of the signing of the Kyoto Framework treaty were no longer dominating decision making for the major players in the regime, i.e. the Annex I signatories, world view(s) had changed at some later period in history, leaving the regime non-robust and likely non-effective.

10. Positivists may or may not hold out hope at that future that the closed system theory of global warming theory is proved wrong at some later date. Of course, small island nations may be more concerned than any large developing nation about the effects of global sea rises.