Reader in Environmental Economics Professor of Networks and Innovation; Director of Graduate Studies; Director of MRes Programme
Recent decades have seen hundreds of environmental agreements reached between different countries around the world, from air and water pollution to ecosystems and natural resources. New research is using these treaties to understand how connections between countries emerge and evolve over time.
“Climate change is a problem that cannot be solved by one country alone; it naturally requires collaboration between all countries,” says Dr Caterina Gennaioli. “If one country commits to taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emission, but the neighbouring country doesn’t, those emissions will still be in the atmosphere.”
Dr Gennaioli is an Associate Professor in Environmental Economics at Queen Mary University of London. “My research explores effects of climate policy, drivers of climate policy adoption at the country and international levels, and environmental issues in developing countries,” she explains.
Dr Gennaioli joined Queen Mary’s School of Business and Management from the London School of Economics where she collaborated with co-researchers Professor Sam Fankhauser and Dr Stefano Carattini. She says: “We were studying how climate policy that is adopted in one country can diffuse to another country. We started looking at international environmental agreements because that’s how countries meet and negotiate, learn from each other, and cooperate.” The team began using ECOLEX, a database that holds information on international environmental agreements.
Connecting the dots
When she moved to Queen Mary University of London Dr Gennaioli met Pietro Panzarasa, Professor of Networks and Innovation, who suggested the idea of using network analysis to make sense of the data from ECOLEX. Network analysis is a way of modelling a real connected system – in this case made of countries signing environmental agreements – to make it easier to ask questions about how it functions.
Dr Gennaioli continues: “The advantage of network analysis is that it enables us to describe the links between countries established through international environmental agreements. It connects the dots to create graphic representations of the network.”
The team of researchers were joined by PhD student, Dr Jianjian Gao. Together they used network analysis to study 546 environmental treaties, involving more than 200 countries, signed between 1948 and 2015. Their findings have recently been published in the journal Ecological Economics.
Growth of the network
“Now we can look at the network to see how it has evolved over time. We can see that the number of agreements between countries has been growing over the years, suggesting an increase in international cooperation. And this really began in 1972 when 114 countries signed the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm.
“We can also look at the links between countries and see how they have become stronger as more agreements are reached. The network has become more cohesive as a result. This potentially creates more effective platforms for policy coordination and knowledge diffusion. Individual countries are also less isolated when they’re dealing with environmental problems.
“Our analysis showed a leadership role played by European countries, particularly the UK and more recently France and Germany. This means that, at some point, these countries have facilitated agreements among other countries. We take it as a positive sign because it indicates cooperation between countries, and we assume this implies knowledge diffusion and learning.
“We can also look at how the network evolves depending on which environmental issue is at stake. International environmental coordination started with the oceans and fisheries but is now most intense around issues of hazardous waste. On the subject of air pollution and the atmosphere, the network is heavily reliant on UN-sponsored treaties. We can see that if you removed these multi-lateral treaties, the network would collapse.”
Looking ahead
Dr Gennaioli points out that this type of analysis does not address the impacts of international cooperation on environmental outcomes: “We would also like to understand whether the signing of these agreements had any effect. For instance, it would be helpful to link this study to data on the impacts of agreements on climate change.
“It would be useful to understand to what extent this network led to policy change at the country level. For example, if two countries are collaborating, do we see any indication that domestic policy on climate mitigation is shared and adopted across borders? And is there any evidence of growing collaboration in other sectors?”
Finally, she adds: “In this study, we don’t investigate what made these links between countries emerge. We don’t know why two countries choose to cooperate in the first place. If we want to see international collaboration continuing and increasing, we need to understand what can push two countries to collaborate in these important areas.”