Ngo's Role In Global Environmental Politics

Global environmental problems have become one of the most concerned affairs nowadays. They not only affect the existence and development of human society, but also challenge the current international politics. International system with the center of nation-state has showed imperfections in the process of resolving global environmental problems. There are contradictions between the public good of environmental problems and the selfishness of national interest, between transnational environmental problems and limited national sovereignty. State is much larger than it should be in meeting the local environmental needs and is much smaller than it should be while governing global environmental problems. The insufficiency of state and the features of global environmental problems lead to the participation of other actors. International environmental NGOs rely on what are different from state and commercial actors. They have the characters as follows: They provide public goods in terms of environmental protection; They are equipped with strong environmental expertise; They have the competence of linking the people of all kinds of life. Environmental NGOs make up for the insufficiency of top-bottom model and play an important role in global environmental politics. At the same time, as the non-governmental strengths, they bring a far-reaching effect on the global society by taking part in the global environmental protection.Environmental NGOs rose up in the industrial countries first, so western scholars pay more attention to environmental NGOs and have an in-depth and wide-range analysis. But currently there is not enough studies of environmental NGOs in China. And it lacks the whole analysis of environmental NGOs based on international relations. The thesis is trying to systematically analyze the roles played by environmental NGOs and their future trends, on the basis of absorbing and sorting out the analysis of scholars in China and foreign countries and with the relevant angles of international relations.The article consists of five parts. The fist part introduces the basic knowledge ofenvironmental NGOs, including its definition and the state of analysis about them at home and abroad. The second part mainly discusses the concept, characters of global environmental politics and the developments and types of international environmental NGOs. The third part analyzes in details how the environmental NGOs affect the state, international organizations, transnational companies, global society and briefly introduces their participation in the process of UNCED. The fourth part analyzes the internal factors which promote environmental NGOs to play great roles in global environmental politics. The fifth part aims to forecast the trends of the roles played by environmental NGOs in global environmental politics in the future.