Regime analysts tend to assume that for environmental agreements to be effective the environmental problem at stake must be relatively simple or “benign.” This means, inter alia, that scientists should have reached consensus on causes and effects and that interests between and within countries are deemed to be not too conflicting. The implication of this assumption is, however, that international environmental regimes cannot effectively address more complex issues, such as the current global environmental issue of sustainability and climate change. This article outlines an alternative approach. Building upon a typology of policy problems developed in the policy sciences, it argues that, for addressing different kinds of environmental problems, we need different kinds of environmental regimes. It then goes on to develop a typology of environmental regimes which can deal with different types of environmental problems.
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