Abstract

Industrialization, modernization and technological breakthrough are posing a greater challenge in contemporary international politics. They have paved a new dimension in the study of international relations and politics in the area of environmental security, cooperation and even interdependence. This paper is a critical theoretical approach to the study of international green politics, encompassing the nature of international cooperation at a collective level towards providing a better solution to the green gas emission. It analyses the politics that holds in the interplay among states as it relates to national interests, group identity and legalistic and moralistic approach to the study of international green politics. it is part of the findings of this paper that, despite the theoretical exposition of political variables from the angles of classical realism, the advanced capitalist countries especially the United States, still maintain the rationality of national interest and what can be economically termed as ‘national wealth’ rather than the collective bargaining of the united nations; not compromising the national interests with what is obtainable from the outcome of the collective cooperative principles of nation states as they relate to climate change (Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen summit resolutions). The paper concludes that, if the third world countries continue to slumber, the advanced economies of Europe and America will continue to machinate against their population in saving the climate and capitalize on that to create a new global economic and political hegemony, among other things. The paper recommends prudence in dealing with issues that relate to climate change and due consideration be given to the developing states interalia.

Key words: Kyoto to Copenhagen, politics of climate change, international green politics, theoretical approach, cooperation, dependency.