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Article: Divergent paths: environmental policy in Germany, the United States, and Japan.
- Article from:
- Environment
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The United States, Japan, and Germany are respectively the world's first, second, and third largest economies. Together they account for almost half of the global gross national product. Their economic activities and environmental policy choices have especially large direct and indirect impacts on the global environment. As major consumers of natural resources and producers of waste and emissions, their ecological footprints are large.
This is particularly true of the United States, which produces almost one-quarter of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and an annual per capita waste level of 720 kilograms (approximately 1,600 ...