Global environmental norms are necessary but impossible under capitalism – even perceived threat to entrenched industry means global spillover is impossible or becomes too diluted to solve the case.

Truly global environmental norms are rare, emerging only when a clear danger exists or when they are consistent with the liberal order. They have universal or near-universal acceptance. Holdouts are to be expected, as with the anti-whaling norm, but writ large, a global environmental norm is one in which a broad consensus has emerged around the appropriate way to address an environmental problem. Unequal implementation is also common as these norms globalize. A global consensus on the dangers of leaded gasoline, for instance, did not prevent sales from rising in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s and early 2000s before a global phaseout occurred. These sales did not reflect, however, a challenge to the appropriateness of using leaded gas, but was a result of economic exploitation of unequal regulatory standards between the global North and global South. Importantly, the meaning and consequences of global environmental norms do not end up coopted or altered significantly in different locales as the norm spreads. The translocal politics of these norms, rather than fragmenting them, ends up supporting a relatively uniform understanding of what they mean and how they should be implemented. Examples of “taken-for-granted” global norms include environmental stewardship, sustainable development, anti-leaded gasoline, anti-CFCs, anti-whaling, and common but differentiated responsibilities. Environmental stewardship and sustainable development were both responses to the threat that capitalist enterprise could pose to the environment if left entirely unregulated and unmitigated. The 1992 Earth Summit led to what Bernstein (2001) calls “the compromise of liberal environmentalism,” in which states committed to environmental protection as long as it did not infringe on economic growth and development. This compromise has meant that, to succeed globally, environmental norms have tended to need conditions of weak industry opposition, high scientific certainty, easy commercial solutions, low consumer cost, and significant business opportunities. Norms that fit these criteria tend to serve the interests of wealthy countries in the global North, but there are exceptions. The common but differentiated responsibilities norm is one, emerging out of the global South to push advanced economies to consider the economic needs of developing countries when addressing environmental degradation arising primarily from the global North (Stalley, 2018). There are relatively few global environmental norms in part because the political economy of environmental problems is rarely conducive to strong support from the most powerful segments of industry, as eventually was the case with eliminating CFCs and leaded gasoline. The challenge is not just that many environmental ideas challenge the growth model, but that, even when this is not the case, there are often established industries that block reforms. Consider the “green energy revolution.” The advent of low-cost solar and wind energy makes a transition to green energy both technically and economically viable, without sacrificing growth. Yet such a transition has consequences for oil and gas firms, their workers, and for governments that rely on the sector for economic stability and growth. What could (and should) be a revolution has instead been a (too-) gradual transition. Many environmental ideas and norms by their very nature call for an end to (or restrictions on) certain economic activities. And they inevitably face an uphill battle to attain global norm status given the current paradigm of liberal environmentalism.