Can a World Go to War Over Permits to Pollute? : Environment: The poor countries want the good life, too. But rich nations, anxious about global warming, may not give them ‘emission room.’

New types of international conflicts may arise over the right to contribute to global pollution.

The rich industrial countries use three-fourths of the world’s resources for a quarter of the world’s people. They also contribute at least three-fourths of the pollution, ozone depletion, greenhouse warming and other environmental problems that threaten to destabilize the Earth’s life-support systems.

Now the developing countries are about to emerge as significant global polluters. Nations such as China and India, with combined populations of nearly 2 billion, are striving to increase their living standards. China reportedly wants a refrigerator in every household before the turn of the century. That would mean hundreds of millions of refrigerators containing large quantities of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons, not to mention all the coal that will have to be burned to power them.

It is hard to expect China or India, Indonesia or Nigeria to refrain from using coal, oil or chlorofluorocarbons to further their economic development. It is more likely that these countries will propose that the industrialized world cut back their polluting to leave “emission room” for them.

Nations with tropical forests may continue deforestation, regardless of its effect on climate or on Earth’s biodiversity, because they need timber and cleared land. They are already resisting interference from richer countries in their internal affairs. The foreign minister of Brazil, Roberto Costa de Abreu Sodre, has announced, “We cannot make the Amazon into some kind of national park for mankind. We must give highest priority to our own development. We shall listen to international proposals, but we do not accept a reduction of our autonomy.”

A new type of warfare could erupt as a result of such behavior. One nation might deliberately interfere with ecological systems in a way that appears in another region of the world--or a nation could use force against another to prevent such action. Environmental threats might be used by totalitarian forces for political suppression at home or abroad.

This “eco-fascism” could take many forms. When emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons from developing countries begin to make a significant contribution to global environmental problems, the industrial countries may be tempted to adopt sanctions to force their reduction. If a global catastrophe is seen to be approaching, they could even consider the use of military power. Short of that, economic aid could easily be cut off.

Aid from industrial countries to the developing world is already modest. If they now find an ecological excuse for further reducing aid, this will reinforce the rich-poor gap and the possibility of confrontation between nations.

The alternative to eco-fascism might perhaps be called eco-solidarity. This means, among other things, that the industrial countries adopt the 1987 energy and environmental recommendations of the World Commission on Environment and Development. These include a requirement that the industrial nations cut their per capita energy consumption by half over the next 30 to 40 years, while shifting to renewable energy sources.

This may sound ambitious, even impossible. But a group of energy experts from several Danish universities has worked out a path of energy evolution for Denmark that will bring it into compliance with the world-commission guidelines without sacrificing living standards or economic productivity. Denmark is already twice as energy-efficient as the United States in terms of per capita energy use or per unit of gross national product. However, we think we can still cut our energy use in half without curtailing services and with currently available technologies.

Another element of eco-solidarity is a commitment by industrial nations to help the developing world adopt the most energy-conserving and environmentally benign technologies possible. That does not imply the transfer of second-rate technologies. Rather, it means transferring the methods that industrialized countries should be adopting for themselves. Otherwise, the strategy is not credible.

The main technologies needed are energy-efficient appliances and systems and ways of obtaining energy from solar, wind, hydropower and biomass sources. (It will make a huge difference whether those Chinese refrigerators each use 700 kilowatt-hours a year, as a typical American one does, or 350 kilowatt-hours a year, as the average Danish one does, or 90 kilowatt-hours a year, as the best refrigerator on the Danish market does.)

If such eco-solidarity proposals sound like hopeless altruism, that’s only because we still think in terms of divisions rather than in those of interconnectedness, the true state of the world. In Denmark, we have calculated that if we increase our energy efficiency, switch to renewable energy sources, reduce our pollution emissions and help the Third World do the same, we will do more than protect global well-being and further the cause of justice. We will also reap some direct benefits, such as:

Greatly improving our own environment.

Producing the same goods and services at lower cost.

Creating local employment.

Improving our international competitiveness and foreign-exchange balance.

Increasing our energy-supply security.

Stabilizing energy prices.

Decreasing, at least a little, international tensions and conflicts.

Considering that the same benefits could accrue to any industrialized country that takes eco-solidarity seriously, the world-commission report looks not so much like starry-eyed idealism as a practical plan for a sustainable world.