|
Europe, Russia, and Central Asia have strong historical
ties, yet most of their many nations have retained
their
distinct geographic and cultural characteristics. The
Mongol Empire of Central Asia once ruled much of
Europe
and Asia. More recently, the powerful cultural and
military presences of Great Britain, France, Germany,
Russia,
and other European nations have been felt around the
world.
European colonization during the fifteenth
through the nineteenth centuries spread to every continent
as Europeans built global empires. In North America
and Australia, English and French colonists established
new nations that led to the near elimination of various
Indigenous populations through disease, slavery, and
genocide. In Latin America, many Indigenous peoples
intermarried with Spanish and Portuguese colonists,
creating
a new national, racial identity. Africa, West Asia,
South Asia, and Southeast Asia were also colonized,
but eventually reclaimed their sovereignty from Europe.
In Antarctica, several European nations and former
European
colonies made claims of sovereignty to different parts
of the continent in the early twentieth century, but
in 1959 they agreed to dedicate Antarctica as a “natural
reserve devoted to peace and science.”1
Russian colonization took a different
form. Russians did not need to cross seas or oceans
to add to their empire. They concentrated their efforts
on lands that were nearby, such as northern and central
Asia. Yet Russian colonization also replicated many
of the same patterns found in British, French, and
German
colonization. In northern Asia, for example, Russians
marginalized and overwhelmed the Indigenous peoples
of Siberia. Russians also settled in Central Asia,
but their efforts to colonize this area were challenged
and they have since become an ethnic minority in the
eight nations of Central Asia. Central Asia gained
independence
from Russian domination after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991.2
The people of Central Asia and Mongolia
themselves once ruled a vast territory. In the thirteenth
and fourteenth century, Central Asia lay near the heart
of the Mongol Empire (in present-day Mongolia), one
of the largest empires in the history of civilization.
By the late nineteenth century, Russia had conquered
much of the former Empire. Continuing industrial and
geographic ties to Russia enable Central Asian nations
to maintain strong ties with Europe. For example, all
fifty-two nations in Europe and Central Asia are members
of the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE), an organization that works to prevent
and mediate military conflicts.
Although these regions
share a history
of colonizing, they have different political, religious,
and environmental characteristics. For several centuries,
the languages, religious traditions, military conquests,
government systems, and corporations of these regions
have influenced countries throughout the world.
As they conquered foreign lands, most Europeans were
governed at home by a feudal system of kings and queens.
From the thirteenth through twentieth centuries, various
reforms and revolutions have worn away at the power
of European royal families and property-owners, replacing
their rule with the most democratic electoral systems
in the world.
World Wars I and II arose in Europe and
led to a higher death toll than any previous conflict.
This included unprecedented concentration camps where
millions of minority people—Jews, Soviet prisoners
of war, Poles, persons with disabilities, Roma, homosexuals,
and Jehovah’s Witnesses—were systematically
killed by the German Nazi government. Shocked by
the way nationalism and imperialism had catalyzed
the wars,
France and Germany, long-standing adversaries, joined
together in 1950 with four other nations to found
the European Union (EU). In the aftermath of World
War
II,
European empires began to re-evaluate their desire
to control far-off lands. By the 1960s, nearly all
the
colonies of the European nations spread throughout
Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, had won their independence,
some through armed revolt, others by mutual agreement.
From
the late 1940s through 1991, the Cold War split Europe
into two halves, each militarily
allied with the United States and the Soviet Union,
respectively. Wars between the ideological and military
allies of these two “superpowers” killed
millions of people on other continents (e.g., wars
in Viet Nam,
in Korea, between Iran and Iraq, in Angola, in Sri
Lanka, and in Colombia). Yet throughout the Cold
War, no major
armed conflicts occurred in Europe.
During the Cold
War, the Soviet Union was comprised of six European
nations, in addition to Russia, which
politically dominated the Soviet Union.3 Eight
more European nations were militarily allied, and
to a great
extent controlled, by the Soviet Union.4 From
the late 1940s through the late 1980s and into the
early 1990s,
these nations had centrally planned economies and
one-party governments, much like those in the Soviet
Union. Widespread
demonstrations in 1989 quickly led to the establishment
of multiple political parties, and by the 1990s,
to
the establishment of capitalist economic structures.
All
European governments currently use multi-party electoral
systems, though there has been
some international criticism of specific elections
as
corrupt (e.g., 2001 elections in Belarus). Four portions
of Yugoslavia successfully seceded from Yugoslavia
in
the 1990s—Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia,
and Macedonia. The secession of Croatia and Bosnia
and
Herzegovina led to major warfare among the ethnic Croats,
Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims of the region. As a result,
rather than electing one president to represent an
entire nation, the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
rotates
between
the elected leaders of Croats, Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims.
The
largest major cultural group in the world without their
own nation are the Kurds, a group
of 20–25 million people who comprise minority
populations in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Seeking
independence
or regional autonomy, Kurdish rebels have fought the
Iraqi government since 1974, and the Turkish government
since 1984. The Kurdish conflict has affected much
of
Europe, with hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees
now living in other countries. Kurdish political and
cultural organizations have been banned by Germany
and
France to reduce the support and organizational efforts
of terrorist attacks by rebels.5
Although a few large cultural groups still
struggle as minority populations, and the borders of
most European nations have changed regularly for centuries,
in most cases the countries of Europe correspond to
the cultural influences of people living in those regions.
Europeans created the institutions that built the modern
nation-state. Yet in Europe the allegiance to independent
nation-states is weakening as the European Union (EU)
is given further powers. As of 2002, fifteen of the
forty-four European
countries have already joined the EU and
thirteen additional countries have applied to join.6 European
leaders are currently debating whether the EU should
become a fully federalist European government.
As the EU develops, Europeans continue to explore which
levels of government—local, national, or multi-national—that
are most appropriate for their different types of public
policy.
European colonization has brought changes in religious
diversity to many places throughout the world. Although
Europe was once the homeland of Christianity, there
are now many more Christians in postcolonial countries
on other continents than there are in Europe itself.
There are now more Roman Catholic parishioners in Latin
America than there are in Europe, more Protestants
in
North America than there are in Europe, and more Anglicans
in Africa than there are in Europe. The Orthodox Christian
tradition remains the only Christian denomination where
the majority of its adherents are still primarily located
in Europe. Also, Europe maintains a high percentage
of “nominal” Christians who express membership
in Christian denominations but do not attend church
services or believe in church doctrine.
Since the eighth
century, Islam has been the dominant faith in parts
of southern Europe, first
in Spain, then in Turkey, and the Balkan regions of
Bosnia,
Herzegovina, and Albania. As late as the secessionist
insurrection of the primarily Muslim Kosovars against
Yugoslavia from 1997–1999, violent conflicts in
Europe have often followed Christian/Muslim lines.
Yet, due
to recent increases in Muslim immigration
from war-torn areas and former European colonies,
large Christian and Muslim populations are
co-existing peacefully in some of the largest
cities in Europe (e.g., Moscow, London, Paris) .
Europe is a coastal continent; no spot in western
and central Europe lies more than 500 miles from
a sea or
an ocean. The warm Gulf Stream currents cross the
Atlantic Ocean and make portions of Europe much
warmer than other
places in the world that are at the same northern
latitude. This effect produces a variety of climatic
changes within
a small region, ranging from the semi-arid climate
of the Mediterranean Sea to the moist climates
and cold
winters of central Europe. Although Europe includes
many different climatic areas, the biological diversity
of the flora and fauna in this region is relatively
homogenous, due in part to the high density of
human
settlement.
In western Europe, the nations of the
European Union are together only twenty-two percent
forested, and most
of these forests are managed for timber production.7 In
central Europe, temperate broadleaf forests support
a wide variety of insects and a limited number of mammals.
Forests are more widespread in the northern Sweden,
Finland, and Norway, where evergreen “taiga”
forests are supported by “podsol” soils with
high humus concentrations.
Europe has a variety of environmental issues including
such large-scale problems as industrial pollution,
airborne
radioactive release, and desertification. The second
environment assessment of the European Environment
Agency
(EEA) found four sectors—industry, transportation,
energy, and agriculture—to be the “driving
forces” of environmental change in Europe.8 Two
of the largest environmental changes stemming from
all
four sectors are acid rain and global climate change.
Many
historical factors have contributed to the environmental
issues of this region. Wars have
brought some environmental degradation, but most of
the damage has been wrought through various forms of
modern industrialization. For example, pollution levels
were extremely high in the nations of Eastern Europe
when central planners kept coal as the region’s
main energy source, virtually ignoring environmental
concerns in economic planning. The radiation released
by the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear
power plant was one of many major pollution events
in
the history of Eastern Europe and Russia.
Eastern European
and Central Asian governments had banned calls for
political reform, so reform movements
in those regions employed environmental concerns
to help organize people for the uprisings that toppled
centrally-planned systems in the late 1980s. Yet
change
in environmental policy since the adoption of market
economies has been slow to nonexistent, and the widespread
conversion of heavy-polluting industries has not
yet occurred. Of special concern is the concrete encasement
covering the wreckage of the Chernobyl reactor. Over
the past decade, the encasement has been leaking
radioactive
dust and is now being rebuilt in order to prevent
what many see as the inevitable catastrophic radiation
release
that would occur if the structure were to collapse.9
As of the 1990s, both Eastern and Western
European nations are taking steps to significantly
reduce sulfur emissions, the main cause of acid rain
that is
responsible for heavily damaging forest ecosystems
in the area. Europe has also stabilized its production
of greenhouse gases responsible for driving global
climate
change. In addition, most European nations have signed
onto the Kyoto Protocol, committing to limit or reduce
their carbon emissions by as much as eight percent
of 1990 levels by 2008.10 Environmental
protection is increasingly integrated into the planning
of all government ministries
of this area. In addition, regional organizations (e.g.,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
are spreading innovations in pollution prevention and
energy efficiency.
Desertification is a serious environmental
issue in southern Europe. The “red soils” of
this region are mostly devoid of organic matter, and
support scrublands rather than forests. Italy, Spain,
Greece,
and Portugal, in particular, are now
moving toward environmental policies that address the
growing threat to their agricultural industries. These
policies include greater limits on water pollution,
improved land-use planning, the promotion of agricultural
tillage techniques that reduce soil erosion, the promotion
of year-round vegetation cover to maintain soil structure,
and the promotion of low-salinity irrigation, in an
effort
to maintain favorable soil chemical compositions.11
Over several centuries, Russia invaded neighboring
and annexed territories, thereby increasing its surface
area and becoming the largest country in the world.
Russian dominance increased again as it built the Soviet
Union.
Most Russians lived as impoverished serfs,
controlled by landowners, until the mid-nineteenth
century. Discontent toward the ruling czars grew until
1917,
when the czar was overthrown by workers and peasants.
The revolutionaries formed industrial councils, called “Soviets,” that together governed the country.
By 1940, fifteen regional “Soviet republics” had
been established, representing Russia and the fourteen
other nations Russians had conquered over several centuries.12 About
half of the population of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics lived in Russia; the other half
lived in the other fourteen Soviet republics.
From 1928
through 1932, the Soviet government, under Joseph
Stalin, quickly invested in industrialization
and ordered peasants to work on collective farms
owned by the state, not by individuals. Central government
planners took so much food from these farms that
millions
of peasants starved to death.13 Ironically
the rapid industrialization may have enabled the
Soviet Union
to successfully defend itself against Germany in
World War II, a war in which tens of millions of
Soviet citizens
were killed.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991, Russia and the other fourteen Soviet republics
all became independent nations. The Russian Communist
Party declined in the 1990s as Russia allowed new
political
parties to participate in a multi-party electoral system.
The three major political blocs in Russian politics
are now the Communists, capitalists, and nationalists.
Media ownership remains concentrated in the hands
of
the government and a few major media “oligarchs.” The
success of the transition to multiple party political
organization and to a capitalistic economic structure
has been questioned by the Russian people.
Many Russians currently view the government and various
business sectors as having been severely corrupted
due
to the lack of effective regulations required by the
new free-market economy.
Today Russia is a federation
of eighty-nine cities and regions. Twenty-one of
the regions are autonomous
republics. These autonomous republics serve as homelands
for minorities including Indigenous Siberians and
Russian Muslims. Chechnya is one of these autonomous
republics.
The people of Chechnya have fought Russian domination
since the first Russian invasions in the early eighteenth
century. Stalin expelled the Chechens from
their
homeland,
an exile that lasted thirteen years. In the twentieth
century, petroleum production in Chechnya made control
of the region even more
valuable to Russia.
In 1991 Chechnya
declared independence from Russia, leading to Russian
attempts to occupy the
republic from 1994 to 1996, and again beginning in
1999. The Chechen war has killed hundreds of thousands
of
soldiers and civilians and demolished the Chechen
capital city of Grozny. Throughout the period, Russian
politicians
have sharply debated military and peacemaking strategies
for ending the conflict. As of 2002 the Russian military
had successfully occupied most major Chechen towns,
but Chechen guerillas continued regular raids on
Russian troops.
The tenth-century prince of the city of Kiev, Vladimir
I, selected Orthodox Christianity to be the primary
religious expression of his country and forcefully
imposed
it on his people. Yet the previous nature-based beliefs
of Russian people persisted to a remarkable extent
through
the early twentieth century. “The Russian pagan
and his nineteenth-century descendant were both farmers
whose primary concerns were fertility and bounty,” says
US literature professor Linda Ivanits.14
For centuries, however, most Russians
have also participated in the Russian Orthodox church,
which met its greatest challenge during the establishment
of the Soviet Union. The early Soviet government closed
most churches and persecuted Orthodox clergy. After
the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian
Orthodox leaders claimed there was an upsurge in church
participation. Yet as a result of decades of government
opposition to religion, many Russians are currently
atheists or agnostics. Russian Orthodoxy remains the
largest religious tradition in Russia— somewhere between
fifteen and forty percent of the Russian population
has been formally enrolled through the ritual of baptism.
In comparison, about one tenth of all Russian citizens
practice Islam.15
Openness to religious diversity is currently
a major political issue in Russia. The 1997 Russian “Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations”
highlighted the “special contribution” of
Orthodoxy to this region and stated “respect”
for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism as an
“inseparable part of the historical heritage of
Russia’s peoples.”16The new law also placed
limits on the development of or migration of new religious
groups, which has effectively limited the growth of
evangelical and New Age churches arriving from Western
Europe and North America.17
Russia has the largest land area in the world. It
covers large parts of Europe and Asia. Most of
Russia’s
population lives in western section of the country
in
major metropolitan areas such as Moscow and St. Petersburg,
which are geographically located in Europe. Russian
land located geographically in Asia, east of the
Aral Mountains, is very lightly populated.
Russian
land areas consist of vast expanses of polar tundra,
boreal forests, grassland ecosystems,
and high
mountain ranges. Regions with similar mixes of flora
and fauna stretch for thousands of miles (e.g.,
the
East Siberian taiga, the world’s largest area
of unbroken forest). The Siberian tundra, a boggy region
supporting dozens of species of breading birds, is
located
north of the taiga. South of the taiga, grasslands
support domestic food production, though the most fertile
areas
of the former Soviet Union were in the Ukraine, outside
of Russia. The Sayan Mountains of southeastern Russia
include the isolated habitat of Lake Baikal, the deepest
lake in the world. Three-quarters of the species living
in this aquatic ecosystem are found nowhere else in
the world.18
Most of Russia lies very far from the oceanic weather
systems that moderate temperatures on land. As a result
of its location in the center of Asia, the largest
continent on earth, the Siberian region of central
Russia features
the greatest range of temperatures on Earth. Hot summers
and extremely cold winters have produced unique challenges
for flora and fauna. The dominant mammals in many parts
of contemporary Russia, for example, are the brown
bear
and elk. Although the tiger genus first evolved in
Russia, it is now endangered there.
From the rapid industrialization under Stalin through
the 1980s, the centralized decisions of the Soviet
government
have consistently prioritized economic growth over
environmental protection.19 Decades
of energy production, mining for raw materials, and
the building/testing of nuclear weapons
have left many Russian cities and industrial areas
with tremendous pollution problems, including dangerously
high levels of radioactive waste. Additional environmental
problems have been created by Russia’s growing
petroleum industry. Russia, now the largest producer
of petroleum in the world, transports much of its petroleum
through aging pipelines that have created some of the
largest oil spills in history.
Clearcutting is a common
practice in the Siberian forests. Increased logging
of the taiga in Russia releases stored
carbon, and these releases are contributing factors
in global climate change. The additional warming of
exposed peat
soil
in northern
climates also incites the release of stored carbon
and methane gases.20 This
release increases temperatures and melts permafrost
in the region. As the permafrost
melts and the ground softens, buildings are shifting,
causing major structural damage.21
The eight independent nations of Central Asia occupy
two regions, one on each side of the Caspian Sea. The
first region is comprised of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and
Armenia, which lie in the Caucasus Mountains region
between the Black and Caspian Seas. The second region
is located on the east side of the Caspian Sea and
is
comprised of the five adjacent countries of Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
Russia
annexed most of the Caucasus Mountain region
in the early nineteenth century and invaded the major
population centers east of the Caspian in the 1860s.
The Russian government soon established large-scale
cotton production for the entire country in central
Asia east of the Caspian. Prior to the dissolution
of
the Soviet Union in 1991, all eight countries were
Soviet republics. After the dissolution of the Soviet
Union,
these countries retained their borders but became
independent nations.
Wars have often developed in Central
Asia between neighboring communities with different
religious and cultural histories.
During World War I, the actions of the government
of Turkey, a primarily Muslim nation, led to the genocide
of over a million Armenians, mostly Orthodox Christians
living in Turkey. After gaining its independent status
in 1991, the government of Armenia, a primarily Orthodox
Christian nation, invaded the primarily Muslim nation
of Azerbaijan. The Azeri people were then driven
out
of the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Civil
wars have also challenged the nations of Central Asia.
In Georgia, the Abkhazians are considered a
separate
ethnic group that waged an unsuccessful war for secession
in the early 1990s. Also in the 1990s, secular and
fundamentalist
Muslims have clashed in Tajikistan, each seeking control
of that nation’s government.
The nations of
Central Asia have had mixed success with advancing
democratic governmental structures and
procedures. Human rights and elections are weak or
non-existent in the region, especially in Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan,
and Turkmenistan, and development in these economically
challenged countries is progressing at a relatively
slow rate. As independent nations, they have succeeded
in receiving direct financial assistance from international
financial institutions, yet the future of assistance
to Central Asia may be contingent on improvements
in
the democracy of these countries. Foreign oil trade
and development may eventually have an impact on some
governmental structures in this region. The region
has significant
oil reserves, and many countries have
already
established contracts with multi-national corporations
to drill oil and to build pipelines. It is still unclear
whether these new relationships will impact the progression
of democracy in the region.
The dominant religion of most of the Central Asian
countries is Islam, although some of the religious
traditions
practiced by ethnic groups prior to the arrival of
Islam still survive in a synchronistic format.
Two countries
in the region, Armenia and Georgia, hold Christian
Orthodoxy as their primary religious orientation.
There is also
a small minority of ethnic Russians who practice
Orthodox Christianity in the region. They have
become a sizable
minority in Kazakhstan.
There is a significant amount of biological diversity
in Central Asia due to the temperate diversity found
in various mountain, grassland, and desert ecosystems
of the region. Alpine ecosystems dominate many of
the
mountainous regions. The high Pamirs, Tien Shan, and
Altai Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan form
alpine
deserts with large Argali wild sheep and mountainous
grasslands known for their many wild fruit trees.
As
part of an alpine ecosystem, Lake Issyk-Kyl in Kyrgyzstan
is one of the world’s largest and deepest mountain
lakes.
The large Central Asian desert spreads over
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and much of Kazakhstan.
Saksaul trees are
the keystone species of this desert ecosystem, providing
shade for animals and stabilizing the sandy soil.
Jerboas,
a family of rodents that includes gerbils, are widespread
in the desert, and the insect and reptile populations
are very diverse in this region. Farther north
in Kazakhstan,
much of the grassland steppe has been converted to
industrial agriculture. The Caucasus nations of
Armenia, Azerbaijan,
and Georgia consist primarily of lowland steppes
and high mountainous forests. Flora and fauna from
Europe
and Asia intermix in the Caucasus, creating many
species
specific to these mountains such as the Caucasian
salamanders, black grouse, and snowcocks.
The soil, water, and ecosystems of Central Asia have
been severely impacted by Soviet agricultural policies
that encouraged the heavy use of chemical fertilizers,
herbicides, and pesticides. In addition, rivers
have
been diverted to irrigate large areas for mechanized
monoculture. With its source waters used for irrigation,
the level of the Aral Sea has dropped dramatically,
shrinking to less than half of its former size.
Salt
and dust from the dry Aral bed blow in windstorms
for hundreds of miles, sterilizing fields and damaging
human
health.
The Caspian Sea, however, is rising as
upstream glaciers continue to melt due to increased
temperatures
caused by global climate change. The rising Caspian
threatens to submerge cities and oil fields along
the
coastal areas of the sea while pollution from the region’s
industry, especially along Russia’s Volga River,
has decimated the Caspian’s stock of sturgeon
and furthered the decline of the Caspian Sea.
Nuclear
waste has also been a problem in this region. Most
Soviet Union nuclear weapons testing, for example,
has historically occurred
in Kazakhstan and this has caused a number of environmentally
related problems. In 1989, protesters took to the streets
in many Kazakh cities
and forced
the
government
to close its Kazakh test site at Semipalatinsk. The
protest movement named itself the “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” in
order to emphasize their common cause with anti-nuclear
protests in Nevada, United States, and to deter any
notion that the movement was taking sides against the
Soviet Union in the Cold War.22 Even
with the end of nuclear tests, high levels of radiation
still plague
many locations in Central Asia.
Europe, Russia, and Central Asia have examples of
nearly all the world’s leading environmental
challenges. The nations of this region have been
world leaders
in
the political debate on three topics: global climate
change, nuclear energy, and the establishment of
environmental ministries.
In an effort to reduce emissions and thereby slow
the rate of global climatic change, the United Nations
Framework
Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCC) Kyoto
Protocol sets target levels of carbon dioxide emissions
for
thirty-eight
industrialized nations. Annex I of the Protocol lists
thirty-four industrialized nations that had submitted
measurements of their 1990 carbon dioxide emissions
when the Protocol was drafted in 1997. Half of all
the
carbon emissions from these nations come from Europe;
about fourty percent originate in North America. 23
As of early 2003, the Protocol was poised to enter
into force, once Russia ratifies the protocol, as it
pledged to do at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg. In order for the Kyoto
Protocol to enter into force, most major carbon dioxide
producers must ratify the document. The countries that
ratified needed to have produced at least fifty-five
percent of the carbon dioxide emissions produced in
1990 by Annex
I
countries.
The Kyoto Protocol does not set targets
for less-industrialized nations, including China
and India, because these nations
are being allowed to pursue needed industrialization
in order to reduce the poverty of their populations.
This aspect of the Protocol has led to accusations
by
some politicians in developed countries that the
Protocol is biased against them. Yet China, in particular,
is
currently acting to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions
by a greater percentage than nearly any other country,
through government-led technological conversions
such as from coal to natural gas and other relatively
cleaner
technologies.
European nations have been leaders in
efforts to set targets for slowing global climate
change. By late 2002
most European nations had ratified the Kyoto Protocol,
even after the United States announced it would not
ratify its commitment.24 Australia
also announced that it will not ratify the Kyoto
Protocol, though it may
be reconsidering. In 2002 there were fears that the
Protocol would go into effect with specific reduction
commitments from only European nations and Japan.
Some
European leaders questioned the desirability of a
global climate change effort based mostly on one
continent.
Late decisions, by Canada and New Zealand, to ratify
the protocol have expanded participation to two additional
regions. The proposed emission-trading system of
the
Kyoto Protocol will effect many US based multi-national
corporations, requiring them to meet new standards
in
countries that have ratified the Protocol.
About half of the nuclear power reactors in the world
are located in Europe and Central Asia.25 The
worst nuclear-power accident in history, the explosion
at
the Chernobyl, Ukraine, plant in 1986, only increased
the already widespread debate in Europe about the
safety
of nuclear power. France is the only country in the
world to produce the majority of its electricity
with
nuclear power. National referenda in Austria (1978)
and Italy (1987) halted nuclear energy development
in
those nations, and in 2001, the German government
finalized its plan to phase out nuclear energy.
Belgium, the Netherlands,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland also plan to phase
out their nuclear power industries. Many nuclear
plants
in Eastern Europe and Russia will be shut down earlier
than expected because of concerns regarding the
unsafe
design of nuclear power plants.
European governments
are struggling to develop replacement plans for
nuclear energy that do not increase carbon
dioxide emissions. Governments find that the prospects
of meeting emissions goals under the Kyoto Protocol
are much more difficult without maintaining or expanding
their nuclear capacity. For example, Finland’s
government has seriously discussed building a new
nuclear
reactor in order to meet its Kyoto goal. Denmark produces
an increasing percentage of its electricity from
renewable
sources, and has successfully become the world leader
in wind turbine technology.26
The
Japanese nuclear-power industry is in crisis after
it falsified reports in order to hide the existence
of cracks in the protective stainless-steel envelopes
around several nuclear reactors. Engineers believe
a
new design, the pebble bed modular reactor, could be
more efficient than those currently in use and that
this design may be able to address many of the safety
concerns surrounding older nuclear power plants.
Critics
disagree, arguing that the pebble bed modular design
will not serve to retrofit existing, more dangerous
nuclear reactors, nor will they address the environmental
dangers created by wastes from nuclear reactors.
The
first pebble bed modular reactor, scheduled to begin
production in 2005, is being built in South Africa.27
Many of the nuclear reactors currently in the planning
and construction stages are located in China, India,
and other developing countries.
Most Western European nations created environmental
ministries in the 1970s, led by notably strong environmental
initiatives in the Netherlands. The European Union (EU)
has also played an increasingly prominent role in environmental
debate and policy. Through its expansion process, the
EU is helping most Eastern European nations to develop
more effective environmental laws, plans, and ministries.
Many innovative environmental policies are being developed
in Europe, such as environmentally based taxes, called “ecotaxes.” European
countries are currently taxing the emission of sulfur
dioxide, the production
of toxic wastes, and the use of leaded fuels.
In Russia,
establishing effective environmental policy in the “transition economy” of once centrally-planned
nations has provided quite a challenge. Russian environmental
policy is defined primarily by the 1991 Law on Environmental
Protection, which declared the right to a favorable
and healthful environment and created rules for issuing
permits, standards, and economic incentives. Subsequent
policy initiatives have included numerous supplemental
laws on specific environmental issues (e.g., wildlife,
water, and specially protected areas).28
Russia has prioritized the export of raw materials
in its economic development strategy, which has negatively
impacted Russian environmental policy. In 2000, Russian
President Vladimir Putin eliminated the State Committee
for Protection of the Environment, thereby deferring
its responsibilities to the Ministry of Natural Resources,
which is pursuing the development of non-sustainable
extractive industries. Petroleum production has led
to massive oil spills and habitat loss, and unsustainable
timber production methods have led to water pollution,
soil erosion, and potential deforestation.
Central Asian
environmental ministries have been relatively
weak and ineffective. Many rely on significant financial
assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
World Bank, the United States, and Europe to implement
environmental initiatives. Most Central Asian countries
have developed National Environmental Action Plans
(NEAPs),
often with technical assistance from Europe through
the Regional Environmental Center for Central and
Eastern Europe and the Regional Environmental Center
of Central
Asia. Many Central Asian nations increasingly focus
on oil production and the development of oil delivery
systems (e.g., pipelines) as leading sources of economic
growth, but there are few efforts to develop this
industry in a way that minimizes pollution.
Europe, Russia, and Central Asia have developed industrial
economies with complex environmental problems.
Acid
rain, radiation from nuclear weapons production
and testing, changing sea levels, and environmental
damage
from nuclear power production have all been more
extreme in this region than any other in the
world.
Since the
development of environmental policy during the
1970s, the people of these regions have actively
debated
a
number of key environmentally related issues (e.g.,
whether to use nuclear power reactors, how to
slow global
climate change, and how to best reduce pollution
in market, centrally-planned, and transition
economies).
European culture has defined economic
and governmental systems
for much of the world. In the current era,
Europeans
are the world’s leading innovators in developing
sustainable development policies. After inventing
industrialized technology and creating globalization
in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, Europe is now at the forefront
of addressing the tremendous social and environmental
challenges created by these European ideas. As Eastern
Europe, Russia, and Central Asia replace centralized
planning with free-market economies, Western Europeans
have focused their technological and monetary assistance
on improving the environmental conditions of their
neighbors
to the east. This assistance will be especially important
as Russian and Central Asian petroleum industries
develop as world leaders in petroleum production
and transportation.
For additional information
on Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, consider consulting
the resources listed in our Europe,
Russia, and Central Asia
Links section.
1 The seven nations that
claimed portions of Antarctica consisted of Argentina,
Australia,
Chile, France, Great
Britain, New Zealand, and Norway. For additional information
see: Adam Kearney, “Frozen
Assets,” Harvard International Review
15, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 38–40.
Return to text
2 The eight nations of Central
Asia include (in order of population): Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan,
Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Armenia.
Return to text
3 Of the fifteen nations in the
Soviet Union, seven were European. These included
(in order of population): Russia,
the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estonia.
Return to text
4 The eight European nations militarily
allied with the Soviet Union from World War II through
1989 included (in order of population in the year
2000): Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia,
East Germany,
Hungary, Bulgaria,
and Albania. Since this time, East Germany and West
Germany have unified to become Germany (1990); Croatia,
Bosnia, and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia, and Slovenia have declared independence
from Yugoslavia (1991); Czechoslovakia has split into
the Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993); and the remaining
republics of Yugoslavia have discarded the name Yugoslavia
and adopted a new national name, Serbia and Montenegro
(2003).
Return to text
5 Vera Eccarius-Kelly, “Political Movements and
Leverage Points: Kurdish Activism in the European Diaspora,”
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22, no.
1 (April 2002): 91–118.
Return to text
6 The fifteen member countries
of the European Union (EU) include (in order of population):
Germany, the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, France, Italy,
Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, Belgium, Portugal,
Sweden,
Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
The thirteen countries applying to join the EU include
(in order of population): Turkey, Poland, Romania,
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia,
Lithuania,
Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta. The remaining
sixteen countries in Europe include (in order of population):
Russia, the Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro, Belarus,
Switzerland, Norway, Moldova, Croatia, Bosnia, and
Herzegovina,
Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Iceland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino.
Note that the population and land mass of Turkey are
more in Asia than Europe. Turkey’s history
is intertwined with that of Greece and Turkey has
been
a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
military alliance since 1952. As such it is included
as part of Europe,
not Asia, by many United Nations (UN) documents.
Return to text
7 European Environment Agency
(EEA), “Land Cover: Annual Topic Update 2000,” Topic Report 4/2001 (Copenhagen: European Environment Agency, 2001) 17,
updated 2001, http://reports.eea.eu.int/Topic_report_No_042001/en/Topic_report_No_042001.pdf
(cited 10 June 2002).
Return to text
8 European Environment Agency (EEA), Environment
in the European Union at the Turn of the Century,
updated 1999,
http://reports.eea.eu.int/92-9157-202-0/index_html (cited
27 May 2002).
Return to text
9 Richard Stone, “Living in the Shadow of Chernobyl,”
Science 292, no. 5516 (20 April 2001): 420–26.
Return to text
10 The United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) negotiated the
text of the Kyoto Protocol, in
which each participating nation makes a commitment
to reduce their total anthropogenic carbon-dioxide
emissions
in order to reduce the overall release of various
greenhouse gases. A commitment was described as being
a certain level of carbon-dioxide emissions through
the period of 2008 to 2012. The base standard for
emissions
levels was the level of carbon emitted in a particular
country as of 1990. Therefore, if a country emitted
one million gigagrams of carbon dioxide in 1990, the
commitment emit at a level eight percent lower (920,000
gigagrams)
per year during the 2008–2012 period. Participating
countries negotiated different commitments based on
a variety of factors, such as ongoing trends in energy
production and their economic need for further industrial
development. The commitments made when negotiating
the Kyoto Protocol were as folows: Australia (no more
than an 8% increase),
Austria (8% decrease), Belgium (8% decrease), Bulgaria
(8% decrease), Canada (6% decrease), Croatia (5% decrease),
Czech Republic (8% decrease), Denmark (8% decrease),
Estonia (8% decrease), Finland (8% decrease), France
(8% decrease), Germany (8% decrease), Greece (8% decrease),
Hungary (6% decrease), Iceland (no more than a 10%
increase),
Ireland (8% decrease), Italy (8% decrease), Japan (6%
decrease), Latvia (8% decrease), Liechtenstein (8%
decrease),
Lithuania (8% decrease), Luxembourg (8% decrease),
Monaco (8% decrease), Netherlands (8% decrease), New
Zealand
(no increase), Norway (no more than a 1% increase),
Poland (6% decrease), Portugal (8% decrease), Romania
(8% decrease), Russia (no increase), Slovakia (8% decrease),
Slovenia (8% decrease), Spain (8% decrease), Sweden
(8% decrease), Switzerland (8% decrease), Ukraine (no
increase), United Kingdom (8% decrease), and the United
States (7% decrease). For additional information see:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Kyoto
Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate
Change,”
updated 1997, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html
(cited 11 July 2002).
Return to text
11 MEDACTION, “National
Team Reports on Published and Unpublished References
on Policy Implementation
and Desertification at the Local, Regional and National
Level in Project Research Countries,” eds. James
Jenkins and Geoff Wilson, Deliverable 16 (August 2001), http://www.icis.unimaas.nl/medaction/downs/deliverable_16.doc
(cited 20 February 2003).
Return to text
12 During the period of 1940
to 1990, fifteen nations were member republics of
the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. These included (in order of population
in the year 2000): Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan, Moldova, Lithuania, Armenia, Latvia,
and Estonia.
Return to text
13 United States Library of Congress,
Federal Research Division, “Transformation and
Terror” in Russia,
A Country Study, Library of Congress Country Studies,
updated 1996, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/rutoc.html
(cited 11 July 2002).
Return to text
14 Linda Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief (Armonk,
N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989) 5.
Return to text
15 Peter Brierly, World Churches
Handbook (London:
Christian Research, 1997), cited by http://www.adherents.com,
updated 2002 (cited 7 June 2002);
Michael Kort, Russia, Nations in Transition
series (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1995) 132,
cited by
http://www.adherents.com,
updated 2002 (cited 7 June 2002);
Beverly Nickles, “Restrictions on Religion Get
Uneven Enforcement,” Christianity Today
42, no. 4 (6 April 1998): 20; Aleksei Malashenko,
“Islam in Russia” Russian Social Science
Review 41, no. 6 (November/December 2000):
57–65.
Return to text
16 Russian Federation, “Federal
Law on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Association” (September
19, 1997), preamble (E.T. from Keston Institute, Oxford),
cited in Jonathan Luxmoore, “New Myths for Old:
Proselytism and Transition in Post-Communist Europe,”
Journal of Ecumenical Studies 36, nos. 1–2
(Winter/Spring 1999): 43–60.
Return to text
17 Jonathan Luxmoore, “New
Myths for Old: Proselytism and Transition in Post-Communist
Europe,” Journal
of Ecumenical Studies 36, nos. 1–2 (Winter/Spring
1999): 43–60.
Return to text
18 Erica B. Goldman, “A Tale of Two Lakes,”
Sciences 41, no. 1 (January/February 2001):
9–13.
Return to text
19 Barbara Jancar, “Democracy and the Environment
in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,” Harvard
International Review 12, no. 4 (Summer 1990):
13–18.
Return to text
20 World Commission on Forests
and Sustainable Development (WCSFD), Our Forests,
Our Future: Summary Report of the World Commission
on Forests and Sustainable Development
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),
updated 1999, http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pdf/wcfsdsummary.pdf
(cited 16 May 2002).
Return to text
21 Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, Climate
Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
section 16.2.5.3, updated n.d., http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/607.htm
(cited 10 June 2002).
Return to text
22 Edward A. D. Schatz, “Notes
on the ‘Dog
That Didn’t Bark,’ Eco-Internationalism in
Late Soviet Kazakhstan,” Ethnic & Racial
Studies 22 (January 1999): 136–61.
Return to text
23 United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCC),
“Addendum to the Report of the Conference of the
Parties on its Third Session, Held at Kyoto from 1
to
11 December 1997,” FCCC/CP/1997/7/Add.1, updated
1997, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop3/07a01.htm
(cited 22 May 2002). The thirty-four Annex I nations
whose ratification furthers the entering into force
of the Kyoto Protocol, and their share of total 1990
carbon dioxide emissions by the entire group of thirty-four,
are as follows: the United States (36.1%), Russia (17.4%),
Japan (8.5%), Germany (7.4%), the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland (4.3%), Canada (3.3%),
Italy (3.1%), Poland (3.0%), France (2.7%), Australia
(2.1%), Spain (1.9%), Romania (1.2%), the Czech Republic
(1.2%), the Netherlands (1.2%), Belgium (0.8%), Bulgaria
(0.6%), Greece (0.6%), Hungary (0.5%), Sweden (0.4%),
Austria (0.4%), Slovakia (0.4%), Finland (0.4%), Denmark
(0.4%), Switzerland (0.3%), Portugal (0.3%), Estonia
(0.3%), Norway (0.3%), Ireland (0.2%), New Zealand
(0.2%),
Latvia (0.2%), Luxembourg (0.1%), Iceland (0.02%),
Liechtenstein (0.002%), and Monaco (0.0005%).
Return to text
24 As of January 3, 2003, the
Annex I countries that had ratified the Kyoto Protocol,
and their contribution
to the fifty-five percent threshold needed to enter
the Protocol into force, were Japan (8.5%), Germany
(7.4%), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland (4.3%), Canada (3.3%), Italy (3.1%), Poland
(3.0%), France (2.7%), Spain (1.9%), Romania (1.2%),
the Czech Republic (1.2%), the Netherlands (1.2%),
Belgium
(0.8%), Bulgaria (0.6%), Greece (0.6%), Hungary (0.5%),
Sweden (0.4%), Austria (0.4%), Slovakia (0.4%), Finland
(0.4%), Denmark (0.4%), Portugal (0.3%), Estonia (0.3%),
Norway (0.3%), Ireland (0.2%), Latvia (0.2%), New
Zealand
(0.2%), Luxembourg (0.1%), Iceland (0.02%), Lithuania
(none), and Slovenia (none). This represented a total
of 43.9% of the Annex I 1990 emissions counted towards
the 55% needed to enter the Protocol into force. The
Annex I countries that had not ratified the Kyoto Protocol
were the United States (36.1%), Russia (17.4%), Australia
(2.1%), Switzerland (0.3%), Liechtenstein (0.002%),
Monaco (0.0005%), Croatia (none), and Ukraine (none).
Four nations – Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and
Ukraine – are listed in Annex I, produce significant
emissions of carbon dioxide, and made reduction commitments
when they originally signed the Protocol, but these
are not counted towards the fifty-five percent threshold
needed
to enter the Protocol into force.
Return to text
25 International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) Power Reactor Information System, “Nuclear
Power Plants Information: Operational and Under Construction
Reactors by Country,”
updated 2002, http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/
(cited 22 May 2002). As of May 20, 2002, of the
438 operating nuclear power reactors in the world,
217
are in Europe and Central Asia. The thirty nations
with operating nuclear power reactors include: the
United
States (104 reactors), France (59), Japan (54), the
United Kingdom (33), Russia (30), Germany (19), South
Korea (16), Canada (14), India (14), Ukraine (13),
Sweden (11), China (Taiwan 6, Mainland 3), Spain (9),
Belgium
(7), Bulgaria (6), Slovakia (6), the Czech Republic
(5), Switzerland (5), Finland (4), Hungary (4), Argentina
(2), Brazil (2), Lithuania (2), Mexico (2), Pakistan
(2), South Africa (2), Armenia (1), the Netherlands
(1), Romania (1), and Slovenia (1).
Return to text
26 Denmark generates thirteen
percent of its electricity with windmills. For additional
information see: Colin Woodward, “Wind
Turbines Sprout from Europe to US,” Christian
Science Monitor 93 (14
March 2001): 7.
Return to text
27 Energy Information Administration,
United States Department of Energy, “Nuclear
Power,” International
Energy Outlook 2001, updated 2002,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/ieo01/nuclear.html
(cited 22 May 2002).
Return to text
28 Irina Krasnova, “Survey of the Modern Ecological
Law,” Environmental Policy & Law 29
(1999): 244–46.
Return to text
|
|
