Because states have souvereign rights, they can choose whether or not they want to participate in international environmental agreements. Therefore often countries that are most interested in changing something, need to convince others that are less interested or not interested at all to join. This means that the final international policy often represents the lowest-common-denominator measures that countries are willing to accept. So the most reluctant, necessary actor, sets the bar.

Negotiations need to be set, policies agreed to by souvereign states, treaties formally ratified by governments, treaties need to be implemented and national policies undertaken over a long period of time to be effective.

During the time in which the policy is established environmental processes keep moving, sometimes worsening the problem. Therefore by the time policy is set, irreversable damage could have been done already.