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The politics of EU renewable energy policy and legislation is analysed and an apparent paradox investigated. The liberalising philosophy of the internal market inspired an electricity liberalisation law in the mid-1990s. Continued support for neoliberal instruments (especially in key departments of the European Commission) further bolstered Commission plans to introduce a quota and certificate scheme. Despite this support, such schemes were rejected by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in the legislative process leading up to the renewable energy laws of 2001 and 2009. The article investigates this apparent paradox using an analytical research framework based on discursive institutionalism. Relying on textual analysis and extensive interviews, it argues that the Commissions preference for Tradable Green Certificates can primarily be attributed to its conformity with the market-oriented macro-discourse dominant in EU institutions, and shared by a substantial discursive issue network. The opposing coalition, however, was able to build a discourse around subsidiarity, good governance and flexibility that ultimately swayed the Parliament and Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What institutional conditions seem relevant for multi-sector environmental policy integration (EPI) and its outcomes? Analysing the Swedish bioenergy policy process, which represents a positive case of multi-sector environmental policy integration, it is argued that open actor access, use of environmental knowledge, monitoring mechanisms, and both environment-sectoral and inter-sectoral policy coordination are conducive for multi-sector environmental policy integration, which is also affected by external events. To achieve outcomes from multi-sector environmental policy integration, monitoring mechanisms as well as inter-sectoral policy coordination are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the rise and fall of sustainability in Western Australia (WA). The authors note that successive governments in WA have traditionally pursued economic development, but that with the election of the Labor Party in 2001 came a professed commitment to sustainable development that implied a departure from economic developmentalism. They argue that the lack of a lasting break with the economic development policy agenda led to the failure of government sustainability initiatives. Topics include an overview of sustainability in the Labor government, led by Premier Geoff Gallop from 2001-2005, sustainability after the 2005 elections, and the environmental policy of the Labor Party government.

Various insurance schemes are increasingly considered as part of a comprehensive set of responses aimed at adapting the world to future climate change. Insurance is believed to provide resources needed to rebuild societies following adverse effects of extreme weather events, and do so in a way that encourages preventive, risk-reducing action. After investigating the idea of climate insurance from a normative standpoint, it is argued that when understood conventionally - i.e. commercially - climate insurance is a highly unattractive idea. There are more defensible models of reactive adaptation that retain aspects of insurance, including, in particular, a model that is more reminiscent of a (global) social insurance model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing climate change mitigation policies are particularly concerned with the reconciliation of two seemingly conflicting aims: environmental protection and economic efficiency. The normative principles underlying these policies meanwhile focus on two central ideas: fair burden-sharing and agents' responsibility. However, both existing policy instruments and their supporting philosophical principles are highly problematic in terms of intergenerational justice and truly effective climate change mitigation. Three competing conceptions for allocating and distributing the burdens of climate change mitigation (cap-and-trade schemes, carbon emission taxes, and personal ecological space quotas) and their compatibility with principles of intra- and intergenerational justice are analysed and evaluated. None of the proposed instruments is able to satisfy the demands of effective mitigation and egalitarian justice on its own, which suggests that existing proposals for the distribution of emission rights and climate change-related costs need to be supported by a thicker account of intergenerational justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the government of Canada's close relationship with the biotechnology industry, critical social movement organisations have had a significant impact on the adoption of genetically modified organisms in that country. Two cases of products rejected after widespread resistance - recombinant bovine growth hormone (1999) and herbicide-tolerant Roundup Ready (RR) Wheat (2004) - are revisited. Informed by empirical research that brings to light new factors shaping the RR wheat outcome in particular, two theoretical arguments are advanced. First, in response to those critics of a neo-Gramscian framing of hegemony who see it as overly deterministic, these cases highlight just how deeply alliances with hegemonic ambitions may be forced to compromise. Second, these cases demonstrate that any study of civil society must still pay close attention to institutional and material 'relations of force' when seeking to explain the impact of social movements on environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four main components of social capital are identified: social trust, institutional trust, social networks and compliance with social norms. A theoretical analysis explores the links between these components and environmental behaviour and policy in order to lay the ground for an investigation of the influence of social capital on the implementation of environmental policy. The influence of social capital on citizens' behaviour connected with two solid waste management policies is investigated empirically by means of a survey. The findings indicate some differentiation regarding the influence of the components of social capital upon environmental behaviour in the context of different environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists the tables of contents and it provides an index of authors for Volume 19 of the journal published in 2010.

Willingness to pay to address environmental problems is influenced by partisanship in Australia. Ceteris paribus, the support base of environmental concerns is generally much stronger among Labor and Green supporters, postmaterialists, those who engage in eastern spiritual practices and professionals. Women are more likely than men to favour environmental protection over economic growth, to pay extra tax to protect the environment and to believe global warming will pose a serious threat during their lifetime. Support for renewable energy is stronger among younger Australians, suggesting demand may increase with generational replacement. Political leaders influence public concerns over global warming and other environmental issues across the partisan divide, yet while political elites remain divided over the implications of climatic change, the shift in public opinion and behaviour necessary to avert such problems is unlikely to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central issue of globalisation research is the question whether globalisation leads to the convergence of policies or whether domestic responses to global challenges remain strongly influenced by existing domestic structures. In the field of environmental policy, there is some analysis of the diffusion of policy innovations, but there is a lack of systematic knowledge as to whether this leads to policy convergence at a broad scale. To what extent does environmental policy convergence take place? The analysis of policy development uses a data-set covering 22 different environmental policy measures in 24 OECD countries from 1970 to 2005. It reveals increases in the similarity of individual policies across countries, in the homogeneity of their policy repertoires and, particularly, in the strictness of regulations, as well as processes of catching-up and overtaking among countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of the environment in Great Britain's 2010 general election. According to the authors, Great Britain's Labour Party promised to make the environment a priority when it assumed power in 1997. He notes that the Labour Party's success in maintaining the environment as its top priority has seen mixed results and cites several initiatives enacted by the Labour Party, including climate change legislation, support for renewable energy, and an eco-towns program. Topics include an overview the 2008 Climate Change Act, the role of the environment in the 2010 British political campaigns, and the Green Party's national strategy.

The article discusses the role of the environment on the 2010 elections in the Netherlands. A brief overview of five developments the author feels are worth noting is presented, including the election of members of the anti-Islamic party Partij voor Vrijheid (PVV), the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie's (VVD's) emergence as the largest party in the Netherlands, and the election of Animal Rights Party members to two parliamentary seats. A list of the solution strategies of three environmental issues by five political parties, including the VVD, and a comparison between the Green Left Party and the Animal Rights Party is also presented.

The article discusses climate change policy in China. According to the author, the issue of climate change in China does not involve a great deal of conflict because of the accepted view among government, business leaders, and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that climate commitment depends on the fulfillment of China's economic and social goals. Topics include an in-depth overview of Chinese nationalism and the author's hypothesis on why the dynamics of global politics is creating a political atmosphere in which the Chinese public remains loyal to the state's defense of autonomy when responding to climate change.

How has Europeanisation of environmental policy, as represented by the adoption of European Union (EU) biodiversity policies, influenced the agendas and repertoires of action employed by environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in Hungary, Poland and Romania? The EU's environmental acquis gave ENGOs new and often forceful tools to reach their aims by emphasising the importance of collaborative relations between state and non-state actors and by offering opportunities to civil society actors to circumvent their national governments in the policy process. Implementation of the EU's Natura 2000 network in Hungary, Poland and Romania further reinforced endogenously driven professionalisation and institutionalisation of civil society groups. While EU accession benefited from the expertise of professional ENGOs, the logic of the accession process together with the weakness of both state actors and civil society has not led to the development of sustainable cooperative state-society relations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational linkages are generally considered advantageous for environmental activists who face an unsympathetic government at home. Since the early 1990s, Russia's environmentalists have developed a number of transnational ties that have increased their leverage over the Russian government. However, transnational support interacts with domestic constraints on mobilisation in unpredictable ways, generating obstacles as well as opportunities. The recentralisation of state power in Russia has presented environmentalists with a dilemma as they attempt to engage constructively with state bodies that prioritise security and economic growth and have little tolerance for autonomous public mobilisation or transnationalism. A comparison of environmental mobilisation on the extraction of petroleum resources, climate change and forestry illustrates the power and limits of transnational influence on Russia's environmental movement in a context of renewed state authority and economic globalisation. Thus far, Russian environmentalists have found it easier to achieve rhetorical change than institutional change in environmental governance; institutional change appears most likely when environmental and economic goals coincide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest round in the UN climate change negotiations, COP15, held in Copenhagen in December 2009, was intended to determine binding goals, targets and measures for the time beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ends. Instead, it produced a non-binding political agreement - the Copenhagen Accord. To explain why, the key contributions of China and the United States are assessed. Domestic institutions and circumstances influenced and constrained these states' actions, with consequences that amplified longstanding weaknesses in the UNFCCC and shaped the COP's result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2007 France has been systematically renovating government policy under the banner of sustainable development. This process, called the Grenelle de l'environnement, extends the official role given to environmental associations in certain of the State's advisory bodies. The institutional roots of the Grenelle are located in various precedents for consultative environmental practice in French administration. The role of Nicolas Hulot's 2006 ecological pact in making democratised environmental policy a higher presidential priority is then reviewed. At a procedural level, the Grenelle is shown to take France's meso-corporatist practices in the direction of deliberative democracy. Its newly adopted Energy-Climate tax shows how environmental groups can use discursive power to shape environmental legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the European Union's (EU) adoption of the EU Treaty, also called the Lisbon Treaty, and how it may affect environmental policy making, noting the areas of agriculture, energy, and transportation. The authors also discuss the history of the Lisbon Treaty and its likely significance in the longer term. With passage of the Lisbon Treaty, consideration of sustainable development in external relations is a specific EU policy goal. The concept of environmental policy integration (EPI) also is mentioned.

The environmental movement is no longer a 'new' movement and what passed as 'new' and unconventional forms of action have waned, increasingly displaced by cyber campaigns and conventional lobbying of governments by environmental movement organisations. Examination of the social and political backgrounds of Australian environmental group members shows that members of protest-oriented environmental groups tend to be leftwing and younger than average. However, those who play active roles in environmental groups are not young and are far less likely to join protest groups. While young Australians are more environmentally aware than ever before, they may associate participation in environmental groups beyond monetary donations and virtual activism with the behaviour of their protest-oriented parents and grandparents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses environmental policy in Canada as influenced by the emergence of liberal-leaning, environmentally-concerned politicians. The article introduces the party system and parliamentary government of Canada, its Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the 2006 election that led to the resignation of Liberal party leader Paul Martin, and the rise of Stephane Dion to replace Martin. Dion's environmental leanings are said to have become prominent in the Liberal campaign. Canada's Conservative party leadership is noted for its influence on Governor-General Michaëlle Jean's decision to prorogue Canada's Parliament.

The ways in which Russian public discussion translates climate change into a policy problem that identifies the phenomenon and defines a course of action are examined in order to shed light on the underlying structures of belief, perception and appreciation that shape Russian conduct toward global climate policy. The discussion distinguishes between three frames: the mission, national interest and duty. The mission frame defines climate policy as a means to improve Russia's international image, while the national interest frame focuses on economic and political costs. Only the duty frame defines climate change as a problem that Russia must help solve. Despite these differences, a central premise of all three frames is the centuries-old idea of Russia as a Great Power with a special mission in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for co-ordinated international action to mitigate climate change makes it one of the most complex public policy problems of modern times. For the advanced democracies, public opinion is a key element in developing an appropriate policy response. Australian public opinion towards climate change and the public policies that have been proposed to deal with the problem, most notably the emissions trading scheme (ETS), are examined using national survey data collected in late 2008. The results show widespread public concern about climate change, and a majority of respondents support the introduction of an ETS. However, a significant minority of the public remains opposed. Most importantly, however, most people declare themselves willing to pay more for environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are actors enrolled and arguments crafted and mobilised in the resistance to wind farms? The discussion is based on a study of two wind farm projects in Norway, on Smøla and Høg-Jæren. By identifying strategies for making arguments of resistance effective and convincing, the ways are explored in which these strategies of representation evolve as a process of searching for arguments both adapted to local concerns and to national bodies of environment management. The resistance develops as a process where actor groups construct hybrid collectives by enrolling humans and non-humans. Adjusting the hybrid collectives to fit concerns implies employing nature objects and various concepts of nature that may work in favour or against resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit and elaborated at the Johannesburg Conference a decade later, sustainable consumption occupies an increasingly prominent political position. Numerous governmental ministries and supranational organisations have produced sustainable consumption plans. However, actual programmatic initiatives have been limited to modest information and education campaigns as policy proposals are constrained by political contexts. Researchers have documented flows of materials and energy, but have disregarded the political and economic dynamics that animate throughput movements. Inattention to factors that propel the global metabolism, scholarship largely failed to anticipate the ongoing global financial collapse. Work on the household economics and macroeconomics of consumption is reviewed and an international political economy of (un)sustainable consumption is developed. Realignment of the global economic order will require renegotiation of the tacit agreements that the USA strikes with its trading partners and the design of more efficacious systems of production and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technologies display unusually strong growth and are well on the way to establishing a 'mega-trend' in technology development. To exploit the associated economic opportunities, many industrialised countries have started to follow an innovation-oriented approach to environmental policy. Against this background, the ways are examined in which environmental policy can effectively 'govern' technological change and secure environmental improvements. What is needed is a clear focus on prioritising the ecological effectiveness of environmental innovations, devising 'smart regulation' through instrument mixes and addressing the inherent limitations of innovation-oriented policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind energy has divided environmentalists. To understand why, disparate groups from Victoria, Australia and the United Kingdom are characterised as discourse coalitions, and their views and arguments are digested into compelling storylines. Drawing on the literature that explains environmental conflicts in terms of contrasting values, a discourse analysis approach is used to identify and define the hybrid and plural values held by the groups within wind energy discourse coalitions. Importantly for future policy development, influences and views that motivate groups to participate in policy and project assessment are identified, the current battles over facts between coalitions are analysed, and the present ignorance of or preference for certain views and types of values are shown as hindering the policy making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current generation of crop-based biofuels is heavily contested for its negative consequences for the environment and the poor. Hence, the current biofuel system needs to be transformed in the direction of what can be labelled 'fair fuels': (bio)fuels that are environmentally and socially sustainable. Conventional state environmental authorities have limited power and legitimacy to effectively regulate the sustainability of current global biofuels. Hence, we witness the emergence of private market environmental authorities, moral environmental authorities and all kinds of hybrid authorities in biofuel regulation. These new forms of environmental authority should neither be condemned as ineffective and undemocratic nor celebrated as the modern answer to transnational environmental problems that face state failure. Further critical inquiry into the changing environmental authority structure under conditions of globalisation is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decades of conflict in Northern Ireland created divisions between communities, with few opportunities for cooperation. However, in the 1990s opposition to a proposed cross-border incinerator brought the divided communities together. The 1990s economic boom in the Republic of Ireland generated a waste management crisis as the by-products of rampant consumerism overwhelmed the state's rudimentary waste disposal system. Three Irish anti-incinerator campaigns which have pitted local communities against the Irish state or the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment are examined. Community attempts to gain leverage within the political governance frameworks in operation on both sides of the border are examined and the various ways in which environmental movements respond to the crisis of waste management under different governance regimes are illuminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing emphasis on risk-based approaches in the scientific and economic assessment of climate change, exemplified by the Stern Report and IPPC 4th Assessment. In the United Kingdom, risk discourse also increasingly dominates environmental policy-making and governance. The use of risk assessment, management and communication practices in climate change governance and policy is critically examined, utilising an interpretation of 'risk' as a knowledge practice for informing decision-making and an instrument for governing populations. In elucidating current risk practices, alongside key critiques and varied proposals for revised approaches to risk characterisation, both the capacities and limitations of a risk basis for policy aimed at delivering adaptation and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are examined. While contemporary risk approaches align well with dominant political rationalities in affluent Western democracies, they have serious limitations as a basis for the delivery of aggressive climate policy aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory and analysis of regulation provides an understanding of climate change regulation and its limitations leading to the identification of political strategies to improve such regulation by orientating it more towards public interest objectives. Public interest and private interest theories of regulation are considered together with regime theory, which understands regulatory regimes as dynamic interactions of a variety of forces that can be altered by external pressure. One possible pressure is governmental action to increase regime transparency. UK and EU climate change regulation is used to consider whether increased transparency, in particular focused around a carbon price-based instrument with quantified emissions reductions, can shift the climate regime towards meeting the public interest. This runs up against difficulties of sociocultural plurality and the one-dimensional nature of the price mechanism. More successful strategy requires a price-based instrument coupled to transparent complementary policies and regulations that address sociocultural pluralities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) attempts to produce policy assessments and evaluations that are both useful for policy and politics and scientifically valid. A 'boundary work' perspective is used to analyse how the interface between science and policy is produced and reproduced discursively. Analysis of the general discourse about the position of the MNP and the relation between science and policy is followed by a case study on the environmental effect assessment of political party election manifestos. Pielke's classification of scientists' roles in policy is used to typify the discourses identified. On a general level, MNP employed 'Science Arbiter' discourses, steering clear of political considerations but trying to meet policymakers' demands for assessment and information. However, in the case study, discourse moved in the direction of the 'issue advocate', with science used to steer policy in a certain direction. The dynamics behind these processes are analysed and their implications discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature connecting social capital with natural resources management has increased significantly in the past decade. Several studies have indicated that higher levels of social capital may lead to improved environmental management by communities. In this context, a multidimensional concept of social capital is used and its connection with environmental policy implementation is explored. The social capital components investigated are: social and institutional trust, social norms and social networks. This provides a first attempt to investigate the interconnections between these social capital components and different types of environmental policy instruments. Furthermore, social capital is connected to the constraints imposed by different instruments and the way that they are perceived by citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses of 'sustainable lifestyles' and 'lifestyle change' are becoming ubiquitous in media, comment and environmental policy, but there is ambiguity about what this means and entails. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork exploring 'sustainable lifestyles' from the perspective of persons who identify themselves as living, or attempting to live, in more sustainable and/or environmentally friendly ways, the tensions, constraints, rewards and opportunities detailed in respondents' narratives are described. 'Sustainable lifestyles' are far more complex than the rhetoric would suggest. They need to be understood in relation to wider social and cultural processes. 'Structural changes' to enable 'lifestyle choices' that are conducive to sustainability are needed, but it is important to look beyond 'sustainability' (however defined) and appeal to other agendas and identities in order to motivate pro-environmental behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, politicising the environment has often involved the development of green concepts of citizenship. Informed by these concepts, cultural anthropology is used to examine prevailing ideas and practices of stakeholder citizenship. Of central concern are conditions wherein heightened individuation coincides with increased awareness of environmental issues. In the prevalence of stakeholder citizenship norms, the social task of addressing the ecological challenge is represented as individual opportunities and personal responsibilities. One upshot of this is that, as stakeholders, citizens are led to feel personally responsible for resolving socially created problems. In such contexts, increased awareness of environmental issues has the paradoxical effect of compromising citizens' ethical commitments within the ecosphere. By privileging managed consultation over motivating citizens politically, the normalising of stakeholder citizenship poses a problem for green politics by making it difficult to put sustainability into practice, while obscuring the unsustainability of much social activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the emerging prominence of environmental considerations within the context of U.S. trade agreements. The nation utilizes a number of agreements to execute its trade policy, including Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The first time that environmental protection was referenced in relation to bilateral trade was beneath the auspices of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Beginning with a 1999 executive order issued by U.S. President Bill Clinton, such considerations have become standard. There are standards in place to protect trade from negatively impacting endangered species, marine ecology, and wetlands.

The article examines the implications that the 2008 election of U.S. President Barack Obama have for environmental protection and legislation within the nation. Sustainable development, renewable energy, and environmental accountability were all driving factors in his platform. The author contrasts Obama’s platform with that of his Republican opponent, John McCain. While Obama heavily favored fiscal appropriations to support biofuels and scientific research, McCain was a proponent of nuclear power and offshore drilling for oil. Alterations made in policies that had been instated by former U.S. President George W. Bush are discussed.

Ecological modernisation (EM), in both theory and practice, has much to commend it. Its main strengths lie in its promotion of win-win solutions to ecological risk and its utilisation of the very institutions of modernisation to foster industrial and ecological adaptation. EM is usefully conceptualised into its weak and strong forms, with distinctions also drawn between ecological modernisation and ecological restructuring, but even weak ecological modernisation may trigger ecological restructuring. Governments, particularly those governing energy-intensive economies, are increasingly caught up in this dynamic, to which they respond in different ways. A critical EM framework is used as a lens through which to consider Australia's climate policy, focusing on the sectoral politics that shape its modernisation-restructuring dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance for sustainable development requires new approaches to governance that go beyond the government versus market debate. Negotiated agreements and other new policy instruments have become quite popular in environmental governance, although not without debate. Based on the official evaluation of the Dutch system of environmental negotiated agreements, two central questions are answered. What is the degree of success (criteria for effectiveness, efficiency and positive side effects for learning and flexibility) of the use of negotiated environmental agreements in the Netherlands, and to what background factors is the degree of success related? What role is played by follow-up implementation after the agreements are signed and what is the interaction with other instruments? The assessment of the negotiated agreement as an instrument of environmental governance is generally positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001 the Dutch government adopted a new policy in its Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan. Its transitions approach seeks radically more sustainable socio-technical systems, and represents an attempt to reinvigorate ecological modernisation. To explain the rise of this distinct policy storyline, a coalition of researchers and policy-makers forming the transition storyline is analysed. The interpretative flexibility of the storyline in relation to prevailing institutional priorities explains its success but also builds in limits by making subsequent institutionalisation susceptible to capture by incumbent interests, as illustrated by implementation in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensity of conflict over water and water management has been increasing. Focusing on the recent federalist compact, the National Water Initiative (NWI), the use of market and property rights instruments in water governance in Australia are explored. Does the use of such instruments imply a reduced role for the state, as new instruments displace previous top down or regulatory modes of governance? The view that the new market-based system of governance can be self-managing is challenged. It is argued instead that the market requires substantial meta-governance, which challenges approaches to governance that assume a reduced role for the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is assessed and elaborated by applying it to the Swedish forestry policy subsystem, a dynamic subsystem in which environmental interests have challenged a dominating production coalition. Forest policy has changed as new ecological values and modes of governing have been introduced through an incremental, pragmatic learning process mediated by a pre-established partnership culture. This policy change is not satisfactorily explained by conventional ACF mechanisms (shocks and brokered learning). Policy change may be better understood if the ACF is nuanced and contextualised by recognising that the learning process has evolved over a long time within the ideological-discursive context of ecological modernisation, and that the forest sector has been under constant pressure due to its strong dependence on world markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial discusses Northern Ireland publishing a sustainable development strategy titled "First steps toward sustainability," and its applications for facilitating ecological modernisation in the nation. This publication allows the sustainability strategies of Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Scotland and Wales to be compared. Northern Ireland's strategy fails to embrace a global perspective and also disregards the necessity of intergenerational equity. While considering sustainable development, the country incorporated five founding principles, which consisted of living with environmental limits, ensuring a well and just society, creating a sustainable economy, advancing good governance, and using science responsibly.

An increasing number of green political theorists now base their arguments on some form of deliberative, or discursive, democracy. Some of these argue that through its commitment to the all-affected principle, deliberative democracy requires contemporary deliberators to be able to justify their decisions to persons in future generations, which would lead to significant environmental protections. This article cautions against such a strategy. It argues that the green deliberative democrats propounding it have paid insufficient attention to Derek Parfit's 'Non-Identity Problem'. It is claimed that a reading of the basic principles of deliberative democracy shows that it is based on a narrow person-affecting view, and is hence vulnerable to the non-identity problem. It therefore cannot by itself justify inclusion of future persons. An alternative approach, based on broadly Rawlsian lines, is offered as a solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that James Gustafson's 'modes of moral discourse' framework is highly valuable for conceptualising the ethics of climate politics, or 'climate ethics'. The moral-philosophical task of developing principles of climate justice, or the issue of how the burdens (and benefits) of global climate change should be distributed between and within generations, is essential to climate ethics, but it is also insufficient. Climate ethics should avoid focusing too exclusively on '(technical-)ethical' discourse, but also incorporate insights from 'narrative', 'policy', and 'prophetic' discourses about or relevant to climate change politics. Climate ethics is to be conceived as pluralist: broad and interdisciplinary, but presumably conflictual and tragic as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on changes which have been seen in governmental and consumers attitudes towards environmental justice as a result of an increase in awareness of global warming and climate change. An overview of climate related obligations and environmental policies that have been developed as a result of global warming is offered. A discussion of the scope and content of climate justice, and of the impact global and intergenerational democracy may have on climate change in the future, is presented.

Global climate change raises many questions for environmental political theorists. This article focuses on the question of identifying the agents that should bear the financial burden of preventing dangerous climate change. Identifying in a fair way the agents that should take the lead in climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as the precise burdens that these parties must bear, will be a key aspect of the next generation of global climate policies. After a critical review of four rival approaches to burden sharing, the paper argues that only a principled and philosophically robust reconciliation of at least three of these ('contribution to problem', 'ability to pay' and 'beneficiary pays') can generate a satisfactory mix of theoretical coherence and practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the literature in green political theory on global environmental threats one can often find dissatisfaction with liberal theories of justice. This is true even though liberal cosmopolitans regularly point to global environmental problems as one reason for expanding the scope of justice beyond the territorial limits of the state. One of the causes for scepticism towards liberal approaches is that many of the most notable anti-cosmopolitan theories are also advanced by liberals. In this paper, I first explain why one of the strongest expressions of liberal anti-cosmopolitanism cannot simply be dismissed because it may fail to support desired environmental ends. The political conception of justice represents one of the most important challenges to cosmopolitanism generally and is thus a serious challenge to viewing global environmental problems in terms of cosmopolitan justice. Second, I will show through the case of anthropogenic global warming that the political conception of justice under current conditions does have clear cosmopolitan implications despite its proponents' claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed 'sceptics' claim to be unbiased analysts combating 'junk science'. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 per cent of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are linked to conservative think tanks (CTTs). Further, we analyse CTTs involved with environmental issues and find that 90 per cent of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are consensus democracies more likely to enact environmentally friendly policies than majoritarian democracies? The relationship between democratic type and environmental effectiveness is more complex than previously assumed. What matters are not only institutions but also the nature of the policy issues, the types of institutions and veto players in the system. Four measures of effectiveness emerged from the data: mundane environmentalism; environmental taxation; conservation; and nuclear energy production. Environmental effectiveness in democratic systems differs depending upon which measure of effectiveness is examined and whether or not one looks at representational or organisational aspects of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the perspective of classical liberalism, and developing a comparative institutions framework through which to evaluate alternative proposals for environmental improvement, the case is made for a system of polycentric environmental law. Within this context, contemporary theories that favour an extension of state regulation in order to address the trans-boundary nature of environmental goods are challenged. Problems arising from the complexity of social and ecological processes, the collective nature of environmental goods and the distributive consequences of environmental protection are unlikely to be met by a framework that emphasises greater unity in decisions. On the contrary, the principle of ecological rationality is more likely to be met within a classical liberal framework that facilitates market-like processes of competitive spontaneous order at multiple levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]