Green agenda in the modern practice of countries and regions: In search of a unified approach

Abstract

Although international environmental cooperation goes back several decades, negotiation and rule-making processes aimed at ensuring sustainable development of the individual regions and world economy have intensified in last years. In the context of the simultaneous intensification of international pressure to “green up” world economy and the growing contradictions between the international actors, the team of authors set a goal to identify the areas of common interest and main disagreements in the positions of key actors on the transition to low carbon development. The research is based on the use of historical and systemic approaches, analytical, bibliographic, logical, structural methods. The authors put forward and test the hypothesis about the primacy of the international approach to the “greening up” of the modern economy. The evolution of the perception of greenhouse gas emissions from a natural satellite of economic progress (before the 1960s) to the main cause of global warming (since the 1990s) is shown. Key international climate agreements and initiatives were systematized, to record the transition from strict top-down benchmarks of harmful emissions reduction to softer self-determined commitments and “green” projects. The conducted correlation analysis revealed the reasons for national differences in the formation of the climate agenda. For the studied group of countries, population and GDP have the greatest impact on CO2 emissions. Developed countries are characterized by an inverse relationship: population growth and GDP growth lead to a decrease in emissions, which can be explained by the predominant share of the service sector in the national economy. Industry and foreign direct investment are the key generators of hydrocarbon pollution in the EU, in India and China respectively. The impossibility of resolving problems at the regional level has led to the delegation of authority to national and international institutions. The article will be of interest to specialists involved in the shaping environmental programs, experts in the field of the regional economy.