Global Climate Change Negotiations, the Treadmill of Destruction, and World Society

This study engages two sociological perspectives, treadmill of destruction and world society theory, to analyze the effects of militarization and connection to the world polity on the Kyoto Protocol ratification of countries. Although the original Kyoto Protocol expired at the end of 2012, a second commitment period was agreed upon at COP18 in Doha. Results from survival analysis using Cox proportional hazards models indicate that higher levels of militarization are associated with longer times until ratification or failure to ratify, which supports the propositions of treadmill of destruction theory. World society connections are found to have either weak or nonsignificant effects on ratification. Additional results are consistent with past research, including the effects of economic development and levels of country-level carbon emissions.