Global warming and Antarctica: Causes, effects, and policies

This paper analyzes the politico-economic aspects of the strategic environmental relationship that exists between the global warming phenomenon and the world’s seventh continent, Antarctica.  The continent of Antarctica, inclusive of its adjacent Southern Ocean waters, is on the “receiving end” of the globally critical effects of global warming, which are caused by excess carbon emissions into the global atmosphere by industrial and other activities generated on the “other six” continents.  Even though Antarctica does not cause the harmful effects of global warming, it is nonetheless subject to significant negative externality effects from global warming on its environment and natural resources.  Moreover, due to the critical environmental linkage between the Antarctic environment and the global atmosphere and oceans, such negative externalities received in Antarctica from global warming caused elsewhere are exported back to populations living in 200 sovereign nations on the other continents.  This “two-way flow” of significant global warming effects -- both to and from Antarctica -- arises because Antarctica is an integral component of global atmospheric and oceanic natural systems, making Antarctica itself a unique global commons resource, a feature that is not a characteristic of the other continents.

Meanwhile, the existing governance structure of Antarctica does not possess the “sovereign government authority” to directly impose the appropriate corrective policies for global warming.  Instead, Antarctica is governed under the “non-sovereign authority” of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), established under several international treaties ratified by sovereign nations, which nations hold the ultimate sovereign authority to impose carbon mitigation policies.  Moreover, no sovereign global government exists that corresponds in scope to the planet-wide scope of the global warming problem.  Consequently, “non-sovereign treaty governance” is the only means of corrective policy mitigation at the global level, as well.  Although individual nations may initiate their own corrective policies, free-rider incentives discourage such efforts. 

Efficient economic policy for curbing excessive global carbon emissions is difficult to attain under treaty-governance arrangements.  The Copenhagen conference in 2009 that sought a viable global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol is a case in point.   Major reduction of global warming effects on the Antarctic environment that originate on the “other six continents” is subject to such treaty negotiations.  However, “internal Antarctic policies,” initiated under the ATS governance regime, can make meaningful, though secondary, policy contributions to the global warming problem in a variety of ways.  These include:  (1) support of the valuable scientific research activities in Antarctica that pertain to global warming, and (2) the efficient application of the Protocol on Environmental Protection (to the Antarctic Treaty).   These policy areas will be carefully analyzed.

The methodology of the paper utilizes public economics and environmental economics via an interface with political institutions and international law.  The paper does not employ an empirical model, but does draw upon relevant economic and public sector data to support its analytical framework and argumentation.  Its primary focus is of a microeconomic nature.