Shallow Green Ecology
Shallow green ecology takes an anthropocentric (human-centred) approach to the environment. In this view, people should love and protect biodiversity and ecosystems so that they can continue to sustain human life in the future, a perspective sometimes called ‘enlightened anthropocentrism’. Different environmental issues (climate change, pollution, deforestation, etc.) are seen as separate problems that can be tackled with individual campaigns and solutions.
Shallow greens favour weak sustainability or sustainable development, the idea that we can continue to industrialise and get richer while maintaining the environment’s health. Earth’s ‘natural capital’ (resources) can be used up as long as we replace it with ‘manufactured capital’ (infrastructure) of equal value. Solutions include:
- Green capitalism: Using private companies and the free market to deliver green technology (wind, solar, nuclear) as consumers become more ecologically aware and demand changes
- Managerialism: Government regulations imposing targets and limits on corporations, via domestic legislation (e.g. UK Climate Change Act 2008) or international treaties (Kyoto, Paris). Governments can impose taxes to make harmful activities more expensive and incentivise a shift to alternatives
- Technological solutions: Innovating new technologies like carbon capture, more efficient farming methods, and better battery technology for renewable energy storage
Shallow greens argue that the solutions to the tragedy of the commons are governmental: greater intergovernmental regulation, permit systems for carbon emissions, or privatisation of aspects of the global commons.
Deep Green Ecology
Deep green ecology takes an ecocentric approach: humans are not more important than the natural world, all living things are valuable components of an overall ecosystem. Nature should be protected because it is of intrinsic value (ecocentrism). Unlike shallow greens, deep greens see all environmental issues as fundamentally interlinked and rooted in humanity’s exploitative relationship with the environment.
Deep greens favour strong sustainability and reject ‘sustainable development’ as a merely symbolic concession. They argue that indefinite economic growth, materialism and consumerism are fundamentally incompatible with preserving the environment. States will not deliver meaningful change because accepting lower living standards would be electoral suicide in a democracy. Corporations will engage in ‘greenwashing’, spending huge sums on PR to appear environmentally friendly while making no fundamental changes behind the scenes.
Deep green solutions are radical: living economies rooted in sustainable, local manufacturing and production rather than global trade networks; and living democracy based on ‘bio-regions’ and local democracy rather than existing national boundaries. Deep greens argue the solutions to the tragedy of the commons are non-governmental: as long as our harmful, exploitative attitude towards Nature persists, no level of regulation will fix things. We need to radically reformulate our way of life and perspectives.
It is worth noting that the structures of global environmental governance are clearly based on shallow green rather than deep green ideas, because the latter would require a radical philosophical reformulation that no state actor currently has the appetite to make.
Tragedy of the Commons
- Tragedy of the Commons: A situation in which multiple individuals, all of whom have unfettered access to a common resource which is not governed by any rules or laws, exploit the resource for their individual benefit whilst the negative consequences are externalised. Eventually, this uncoordinated exploitation leads to a depletion and destruction of the common resource.
The concept originates from the literal commons, areas of unenclosed public pasture in medieval and early modern Europe. Farmers would graze their cattle on the commons, which would fatten the cattle but deplete the grass. The benefit would be individual (a farmer getting bigger cattle) whereas the negative consequence (reduction of grass) was externalised and not specific to the individual, since the commons was owned by everyone. In the long run, the individually selfish nature of each farmer would lead to the overgrazing of the commons, in the short run, since the action was individually beneficial, no one would want to unilaterally stop (because to do so might entail others carrying on and benefiting whilst the individual forgoes the benefits!)
In global environmental governance, this applies directly to GHG emissions. Individual states emit greenhouse gases as a by-product of industrial economic activity, which benefits them individually. However, the negative consequences (global warming) are externalised and shared by all states. Since no state has an incentive to stop their own personal enrichment, the commons will eventually be destroyed by the accumulation of each state’s selfish actions (runaway climate change).
Climate change cannot be solved by unilateral action, since even if one state stops emitting, emissions elsewhere would render the action ineffective. Even if every state agrees that “something must be done”, getting individual states to commit to state-specific targets remains a tricky prospect.
The Role and Significance of Global Civil Society and Non-State Actors
Human Rights Issues
There are a number of very successful NGOs which have conducted pressure and educational campaigns in various states to achieve changes in policy. For example, Amnesty International has campaigned for the abolition of court fees for war-related rape victims in Bosnia and other conflict zones; influenced rights-based referendums globally, such as for the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland; and pushed for the abolition of the death penalty in most of Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Other NGOs have achieved notable successes in terms of influencing interstate agreements on rights, such as Human Rights Watch’s campaign to ban landmines. This led to the Ottawa Treaty (1997), for which Human Rights Watch collectively received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Global civil society and the increasing integration of a digital global world has raised greater organic awareness of human rights abuses and enabled transnational movements, in a way which then encourages people to put pressure on their governments to enact policy changes. Examples include:
- The ‘Free Palestine’ protests across the world in 2023-2024 in response to Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza
- The BLM movement for racial justice from 2020 onwards
- The MeToo movement, which focused on women’s rights from 2017 onwards
Environmental Issues
There are a number of very successful NGOs which have conducted pressure and educational campaigns in various states to achieve policy changes, e.g. the WWF’s campaign to reduce the demand for ivory in East Asia, thereby protecting African elephants and rhinoceroses from poaching; or Extinction Rebellion’s protests in the 2020s, which have arguably been partially responsible for driving UK policy changes.
Other NGOs have achieved notable successes in terms of influencing interstate agreements and treaties on the climate, for example Greenpeace playing a key role in propelling demand for institutions like the IPCC and having a seat at the table for UN discussions about climate change reduction and mitigation strategies.
Some NGOs are able to directly tackle the issue of climate change through their financial resources, e.g. the Gates Foundation’s establishment of ‘Breakthrough Energy’ (2015), a financial vehicle with a returns horizon of 20 years to fund promising research into new green energy technologies, such as Verdox’s carbon capture mechanisms.
Global civil society is also able to organically raise the profile of climate issues through high-profile individuals and media campaigns. Greta Thunberg is probably the most famous of these, addressing a UN summit in 2019 at the age of sixteen and admonishing world leaders for their inaction in a speech which went viral. Another example is the renowned presenter David Attenborough, whose documentaries viewed by millions (e.g. Planet Earth) carry strong messages on climate change.
The Limitations of Global Civil Society
However, it is worth noting two significant limitations on the power of global civil society:
- They can be obstructed by states: In a world of sovereign states, many aspects of global civil society have been significantly constrained by state governments which are hostile to their goals. This is particularly the case in non-democratic states, where freedom of expression is limited. For example, the pro-democracy ‘Arab Spring’ movement in the Middle East during the 2010s was largely crushed by authoritarian governments; and NGOs can simply be barred from operating in territories, e.g. Israel banning Amnesty International from the occupied Palestinian West Bank, or China banning Human Rights Watch from Xinjiang province, where the Uighur genocide is ongoing.
- They are often seen as ‘extreme’: Because global civil society inherently operates outside of the bounds of state governments and wealthy corporate activity, they rely on ‘outsider’ methods to raise the profile of their causes and pressure governments into adapting existing policies. This may lead to them being seen as extreme by citizens, which limits their appeal and allows state governments to ignore them. For example, Extinction Rebellion has been generally perceived as an obstructive body full of radicals, utopians and non-pragmatic idealists who are ‘out of touch’ with the concerns of ‘ordinary people’. Just Stop Oil faced a similar public backlash after adopting a strategy of gluing themselves to major roads to cause disruption. Governments may more cynically portray perfectly neutral NGOs as extreme to likewise drain support, e.g. the White Helmets rescue group in Syria being mischaracterised as terrorists by the Assad government.
The ‘Free Palestine’ movement has existed for decades but has recently seen a surge in activity and support after hostilities broke out between Israel and Hamas in October 2023 and Israel subsequently launched a destructive invasion of the Gaza Strip. The movement, a loose coalition of individuals and smaller groups, has led to the (sometimes carefully coordinated, sometimes relatively spontaneous) organisation of protest marches. For example, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) organised a march of thousands in London in May 2024 calling for a “ceasefire now” and criticising the UK government’s support for Israel. The movement has had some success in pressuring major party leaders in Western countries to endorse calls for a ceasefire, e.g. Sunak (UK) and Biden (USA) in April 2024, and in encouraging Western leaders in Canada, the UK and France to recognise a Palestinian state in 2025.
Nevertheless, the movement has been limited by the participation of Hamas-sympathising members and groups, which clearly sap the movement of legitimacy in many countries. Arguably, this has been cynically exaggerated by governments to crack down on all pro-Palestinian activism, such as restrictions on the Palestinian flag, the keffiyeh and popular slogans such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” (which has been characterised as calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from that territory), as well as the UK proscribing Palestine Action as a terror group in 2025. In addition, the uncoordinated nature of its methods means that its effectiveness has been limited, e.g. boycotts of tenuously “Israel-linked” companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks rather than the more focused boycott list published by BDS, which would have a more tangible impact on Israel’s economy.
Finally, direct attempts to engage in the Israel-Hamas conflict have met with widespread failure. The “Global Sumud Flotilla”, a civilian fleet of ships which sailed across the Mediterranean, ostensibly to deliver aid to Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli forces, with all activists (including Greta Thunberg) arrested and deported. Although this arguably raised the profile of the Palestinian plight, it did not achieve anything tangible in alleviating the humanitarian crisis.
Evaluating Environmental Governance
Some of the obstacles and challenges to environmental governance are more intractable than others. It does now seem possible to ‘decouple’ living standards from GHG emissions, even when accounting for emissions from offshored production. This demonstrates that countries do not need to make a choice between a growth in living standards and lowering GHG emissions. Nevertheless, many countries have not yet achieved this ‘decoupling’ and may not have the technology to do so effectively.
Built Global Scientific Consensus
The IPCC has been remarkably successful in convincing nearly every major government that climate change is happening and is anthropogenic. This is a necessary first step to tackling the problem. The percentage of people who believe that climate change is an urgent problem is already remarkably high, well above 80% in most major GHG-emitting countries, and the worsening impacts of climate change may further undermine the viability of denialism.
Awareness Has Not Translated Into Action
Despite near-universal scientific consensus and high public concern, global emissions have continued to rise every year for decades, and they do not appear to be slowing down by any appreciable amount. Climate change denialism remains a significant obstacle, particularly in the USA under Trump. If we pass +3°C, we will not be able to stop a runaway greenhouse effect because the positive feedback loops will continue to accelerate the process.
Created Lasting Frameworks
The UNFCCC has produced legally binding commitments (Kyoto, Paris), established key principles like ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, and provided ongoing forums for negotiation through annual COPs. Each successive agreement has secured broader participation and more ambitious targets, demonstrating the ratchet mechanism in practice.
Enforcement Gap Remains Critical
UNFCCC treaties are fundamentally unenforceable. Although states may be legally bound to general commitments, their specific actions are open to interpretation. Paris’s NDCs are largely self-regulating, or rely on some sense of reward or guilt from the international community. NDCs vary wildly in ambition, some (Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia) would lead to +4°C if replicated globally. A state can set non-ambitious targets, or miss their targets, with no real consequences.
Paris Secured Unprecedented Participation
The Paris Agreement had much broader participation than Kyoto, including the USA, China and India. China made an unprecedented net-zero pledge for 2060 and India for 2070. Collective pledges should keep warming to approximately +2.5°C, compared to nearly +5°C without any intervention at all.
Emissions Are Still Rising
Despite Paris, global emissions continue to rise. The +1.5°C target is now virtually unachievable, in order to achieve it, global net-zero must be reached by the 2030s. Current trends point to +2.5–2.9°C of warming by end of century, which would trigger the collapse of Greenland’s ice sheets. The Glasgow coal pledge was diluted from ‘phase out’ to ‘phase down’ because of Chinese and Indian opposition. COP29’s climate finance deal of $300bn falls far short of the $1.3tn needed.
Established Powerful Global Norms
Environmental governance has popularised ‘sustainable development’ as a dominant and recurring theme in environmental politics and established the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ for tackling climate change. Many countries have achieved a ‘decoupling’ of living standards from GHG emissions, largely because of the shift to cleaner fossil fuels like gas and a shift towards more renewable sources of energy.
Economic Interests Still Prevail
Despite rhetorical commitment to environmental norms, economic interests consistently prevail when it comes to concrete action. COP29 was held in Azerbaijan, where President Ilham Aliyev declared oil and gas were a “gift of God”. The USA’s second Trump presidency has promised to dramatically boost fossil fuel production. China and India refuse to ‘phase out’ coal. The Green Climate Fund target was missed by about a 20% margin by the 2021 review.
Another serious ecological problem faced by the world in the past was that of ozone depletion. In the late 1970s, it was observed that the ozone layer was becoming depleted by approximately 4% and a ‘hole’ was emerging over the Antarctic region. Scientists discovered that ozone depletion was being caused by CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) used in fridges and aerosols. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed in which virtually every state agreed to ban the production of CFCs. By 1990, ozone levels had stabilised and began to rise back towards their natural levels in the 2010s.
Some would argue that the Montreal Protocol and the way in which the global community effectively coordinated to solve the ozone crisis is evidence that the same thing can be done with GHG emissions and climate change. Nevertheless, others would argue that the two issues are distinct and that the Montreal Protocol is not a precedent since (i) CFCs were only a small part of modern life, and there were readily available alternatives, unlike GHGs and energy production; (ii) the CFC issue was less complex in terms of ‘allocating responsibility’, since all states had begun producing them at approximately the same time and no one had benefited ‘disproportionately’, unlike GHG emissions; and (iii) CFCs and spiking skin cancer rates had immediate and evenly spread-out global effects, which sparked an immediate coordinated countermeasure, unlike GHGs and climate change which will disproportionately affect some countries.