KEY ISSUES

• What are the main environmental policy instruments?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory and market-based instruments?

• How do national regulatory styles differ?

• Why are there so few market-based instruments?

• What policy instruments can be used to prevent climate change?

Chapter 10 assessed progress towards sustainable development by examining various ways in which governments have tried to build environmental considerations into the policy-making process. Another way of judging progress towards sustainable development is to examine the policy outputs that emerge from that process. A key element in the policy-making and implementation processes concerns the choice of policy instrument, or levers, by which a government tries to achieve its policy objectives. Policy instruments should be enforceable, effective and educative: they should change the behaviour of target groups, achieve the stated policy objectives and help spread environmental values throughout society. It is conventional to distinguish four broad types of policy instrument available for a government to use in pursuing its environmental objectives: regulation, voluntary action, government expenditure and market-based instruments (MBIs). Trends in the use of different policy instruments provide some clues about progress towards sustainable development and ecological modernisation. A distinguishing characteristic of the traditional environmental policy paradigm was its reliance on regulatory, or ‘command and control’, instruments. During the 1970s and 1980s, new environmental legislation created an extensive regulatory framework in most countries, but as many environmental problems continued to worsen despite this growing regulatory ‘burden’, the use of regulation was increasingly criticised, particularly by economists, industrialists and right-wing politicians.

The discussion of environmental policy in Part III is in many respects a long way away from some of the abstract debates covered in Part I, or even the ambitious aspirations of some forms of environmental activism examined in Part II. It focuses on the practical challenges facing governments today. The interdependence of environmental issues poses a distinctive set of problems for policy-makers. Few other policy areas can match it for sheer complexity. Nor are failures in most other policy areas likely to be as catastrophic or irredeemable as those affecting the environment, especially if the more pessimistic harbingers of environmental doom are correct.

The belief that economic growth must be given priority over environmental protection continues to govern the way many policy-makers approach environmental issues. This traditional policy paradigm has proved inadequate for resolving the intractable problems posed by contemporary environmental issues. Consequently, since the late 1980s, the alternative policy paradigm of sustainable development has gradually come to dominate thinking about environmental policy. The central premise of sustainable development is that there need not be a trade-off between economic growth and environment; no longer need policy-makers think in terms of the environment versus the economy. This message has made sustainable development politically appealing, with most governments, international institutions, political parties, business organisations and environmental NGOs now keen to proclaim their commitment to sustainable development. The broad aim of Part III is to examine the difficulties facing governments seeking to make the transition to sustainable development.

KEY ISSUES

• How powerful is the contemporary environmental movement?

• In what ways – size, organisation, strategy, tactics – do groups differ?

• How do groups exert influence? How has this changed over time?

• Why has there been a resurgence of grassroots activism?

• What impact have environmental groups had?

Environmental pressure groups (EPGs) are probably the most visible expression of contemporary environmental concern. The publicity-seeking stunts and daring deeds of the direct action protesters, whether tiny Greenpeace dinghies bobbing on the waves alongside ocean whalers or anti-road protesters perched at the top of trees, have attracted enormous public attention. Most pressure-group activity, however, involves rather more mundane conventional political activities such as lobbying and education. The rapid growth of the environmental movement since the mid-1980s has provided the resources for some groups to become highly professional organisations and to win regular access to policy elites. There is little doubt that environmental groups have been the most effective force for progressive environmental change, particularly in those countries such as the USA and UK where there is no successful green party and established parties have been largely unresponsive to environmental problems. Nevertheless, this process of institutionalisation has involved compromises that have blunted the radical edge of large groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, and contributed to the resurgence of grassroots environmental groups, including the UK anti-roads protesters and the US environmental justice movement.

KEY ISSUES

• What is sustainable development?

• Why is it such a complex and contestable concept?

• What are its core principles?

• What is ecological modernisation?

• What are its strengths and weaknesses?

The tension between economic growth and environmental protection lies at the heart of environmental politics. The concept of sustainable development is a direct attempt to resolve this dichotomy by sending the message that it is possible to have economic development whilst also protecting the environment. Not surprisingly, policy-makers the world over, told that they can have their cake and eat it, have seized on the idea. Almost every country is now committed, at least on paper, to the principles of sustainable development. Yet sustainable development is an ambiguous concept, with a meaning that is contested and complex. This elusiveness is both a strength and a weakness: it allows a multitude of political and economic interests to unite under one banner, while attracting the criticism that it is an empty slogan with little substance. Policy-makers have also found it difficult to turn this loose set of ideas into practical policies. Indeed, in those industrialised countries that boast the most progressive environmental policies, the narrower concept of ecological modernisation has acquired increasing resonance.

Sustainable development and its half-sister, ecological modernisation, offer an alternative policy paradigm to the traditional model of environmental policy. The first part of this chapter examines the various meanings attributed to sustainable development and identifies five core principles underpinning most definitions of the concept.

KEY ISSUES

• What are the core characteristics of environmental problems?

• What theories and models explain environmental policy-making?

• Where does power lie in environmental policy-making?

• What are the structural and institutional barriers to policy change?

• Why does policy change?

Policy-makers have been slow to recognise or acknowledge that environmental problems might require special treatment. When new environmental imperatives emerged during the 1960s, forcing policy-makers to confront the environment as a broad policy issue for the first time, all governments adopted a technocentric perspective which regarded environmental problems as the unfortunate side-effects of economic growth (see Box 3.8). It was assumed that most environmental problems had solutions and that there was no need to question the underlying commitment to economic growth or to the political-institutional structures of the modern liberal democratic state. The standard approach to environmental problems – here called the ‘traditional policy paradigm’ – was reactive, tactical, piecemeal and end-of-pipe. This traditional paradigm has been found wanting, unable to stem long-standing problems of pollution and resource depletion or to deal with the new tranche of global problems that have emerged in recent years. Consequently, during the 1980s the traditional paradigm was increasingly challenged by the alternative paradigm of sustainable development. However, despite the mounting environmental crisis and the rhetorical commitment of policy elites to sustainable development, many elements of the traditional model remain firmly entrenched, even in those countries that have pioneered progressive environmental policies (Andersen and Liefferink 1997a). Why has this traditional paradigm proved so resilient?

KEY ISSUES

• How would the principles of sustainable development change the way governments work?

• How might administrative methods improve the integration of environmental considerations throughout government?

• What is green planning?

• How democratic is environmental policy-making?

• Can institutional reforms overcome the political and economic obstacles to greener government?

In the final two chapters the focus moves down to the national and sub-national levels of government where most environmental policy is made and implemented: Chapter 10 is concerned with the way governments build environmental considerations into the policy-making process and Chapter 11 examines the policy instruments that governments use to implement policy.

Sustainable development, even in its weaker forms, has major implications for the way government works. Environmental governance means that institutions, administrative procedures and decision-making processes all need to be overhauled. Policy elites have to re-think the way they perceive the world so that environmental considerations are integrated across government and penetrate routine policy-making processes within every sector. In short, to achieve the environmental policy integration necessary for sustainable development, government must first transform itself.

KEY ISSUES

• What has been the impact of the environment on party politics?

• What is distinctive about green party organisation and strategy?

• Has electoral success and entry to government changed green parties?

• Does support for environmentalism follow partisan lines?

• What factors influence the greening of established parties?

Chapter 4 charted the electoral appearance of green parties across Europe. Yet the simple fact of green representation does not guarantee any influence in the parliamentary arena, particularly as Green MPs frequently advocate radical policies and behave in unconventional ways. Where green parties gain electoral success, their political influence will partly be determined by the way they adapt to the pressures of conventional party politics. However, as green parties remain of marginal importance in most countries, for the foreseeable future much will depend on how the political elites respond to the broad environmental challenge. This chapter assesses the impact of environmental issues on party politics by looking at both these issues. The first part examines the experience of green parties in parliament by analysing how they have dealt with the transition from pressure politics to parliamentary opposition and, recently, into government, focusing primarily on the evolution of Die Grünen in Germany. The second half of the chapter uses case studies of Germany, Britain and the USA to assess how far established parties have absorbed environmental ideas and to identify the main factors shaping their responsiveness to the environmental agenda.

Part I examines how political theorists think about environmental issues. Specifically, it asks the question: is there a sufficiently comprehensive, coherent and distinctive view of environmental issues to justify talking about a green political ideology which, following Dobson (2000), can be called ecologism?

There has been a phenomenal growth in the literature on environmental philosophy and political thought in recent years. The distinction between reformist and radical approaches provides a useful shorthand means of categorising two quite different ways of thinking about environmental problems. Broadly speaking, reformist approaches adopt ‘a managerial approach to environmental problems, secure in the belief that they can be solved without fundamental changes in present values or patterns of production and consumption’ whereas radical positions (i.e. ecologism) argue that ‘a sustainable and fulfilling existence pre-supposes radical changes in our relationship with the non-human natural world, and in our mode of social and political life’ (Dobson 2000: 2). In short, reformist and radical approaches represent qualitatively different interpretations of environmental problems.

Dobson also makes the bigger and bolder claim that ecologism should be regarded as a distinct political ideology. To cohere as an ideology, ecologism must have three basic features: (1) a common set of concepts and values providing a critique of the existing social and political systems; (2) a political prescription based on an alternative outline of how a society ought to look; (3) a programme for political action with strategies for getting from the existing society to the alternative outline.

KEY ISSUES

• What are the main theories and debates in environmental philosophy?

• Does nature have value independent of human needs?

• Are some parts of nature more valuable than others?

• On what grounds might humans have duties towards the natural world?

• Can environmental philosophy provide the moral basis for a green ideology?

Environmental politics is suffused with ethical dilemmas. Should we reduce the employment prospects of poor people in order to save an endangered species? Are draconian controls on population growth justified if we are to reduce the pressure on the natural environment? Is it wrong to eat meat? Should we ban commercial seal-hunting in order to preserve the Inuit way of life in Canada? Environmental ethics, by examining questions about how humans ought to think about and act towards nature, provides a link between theory and practice. It is primarily concerned with values. Does nature have value separate from its role in meeting human needs? If so, why? Which parts of nature possess value and are some parts more valuable than others?

There is a strong normative element to environmental philosophy. Many leading contributors are also committed activists whose main objective is to develop a robust environmental ethical theory to underpin green activism.

KEY ISSUES

• What is environmental diplomacy?

• How can the growth of international environmental co-operation be explained?

• What are the obstacles to international environmental co-operation?

• Are environmental treaties effective?

• Has international environmental co-operation contributed to sustainable development?

International environmental problems pose major challenges to the achievement of sustainable development. The distinguishing feature of an international environmental problem is that it does not respect national boundaries. Some transboundary issues, such as the conservation of endangered wildlife, natural habitats and marine life, have been around for many years. Other problems which were once predominantly regional or local in cause and effect, such as deforestation, desertification and water scarcity, now have international dimensions. A ‘new’ range of issues, including climate change, ozone depletion and biodiversity loss, are truly global in that they affect everyone. All states contribute to problems of the global commons and all suffer the consequences, although the extent to which each country is culpable for causing a particular problem and vulnerable to its effects varies enormously. Thus industrialised countries have made the largest contribution to climate change, while low-lying countries, such as Bangladesh and Egypt, face the greatest risk from rising sea-levels caused by global warming.

International environmental problems require international solutions; they cannot be solved by nation states acting alone. Only if individual nation states cooperate with each other can environmental problems be resolved. As governments have grown increasingly aware of their mutual vulnerability, environmental issues have become firmly established on the international policy agenda.

KEY ISSUES

• Is there a distinct and coherent green ideology?

• What would a ‘green’ society look like?

• What are the distinguishing principles of green political theory?

• How have traditional political doctrines responded to the green challenge?

• Where does green politics lie on the left-right spectrum?

Is ecologism a distinct and coherent ideology? Do the two core ideas underpinning the ecological imperative – the need to reassess human-nature relations (discussed in Chapter 2) and the existence of ecological limits to growth – supplemented by a set of principles drawn from other doctrines, justify talking about ecologism as an ideology in its own right? If so, can it accommodate the broad range of competing perspectives and discourses within contemporary green political thought?

This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part examines the central themes of ecologism. It starts by assessing the significance of the ‘limits to growth’ thesis as a green principle. As all ideologies need a vision of the ‘good society’ different from our own, the next section outlines the main features that characterise the dominant model of a green sustainable society. The following sections assess whether the driving idea behind green politics – the ecological imperative that we need to save the planet – requires that a green polity be built on the core political principles that characterise most versions of a green society, namely grassroots democracy, decentralisation, social justice and non-violence. The second part of the chapter focuses on the way traditional political doctrines have responded to the environmental challenge.