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Version 5 January 2017. Accepted for publication in Journal of Cleaner Production https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.01.027 distributed under CC BY 4.0

Sustainable development is a cross-cutting issue par excellence that necessitates a very high degree of policy coordination. This is especially true considering that the European Union's 2001 Sustainable Development Strategy demands that all European Union (EU) policies actively support the sustainable development of other countries, particularly those in the developing world. In order to fulfil this ambitious obligation, the EU has pledged to consider the impacts that all new policies have within and outside the EU as part of a new impact assessment (IA) regime. This paper aims to evaluate how well the new IA regime has helped address the ‘external’ dimensions of sustainability through the analysis of potential effects of EU policies on non-EU countries. It finds that the IA procedure does not currently function as an effective instrument for the implementation of the Union's commitment to promoting sustainability in the developing world. Other coordination mechanisms need to be considered, given the horizontal and vertical complexity of this challenge. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Policy convergence is an established theme in comparative political analysis. Policy convergence research certainly has the potential to add a fresh perspective to a surprisingly large number of active debates within European Union (EU) studies, such as those concerning Europeanization, globalization, policy transfer and ‘new’ modes of co-ordination. However, it remains a very heterogeneous research field, dominated by American comparativists. With some exceptions, the term does not (at least yet) excite as much interest among scholars of the EU as perhaps it could. This commentary seeks to assess the extent to which the papers in this special issue succeed in fashioning the broad issue of policy convergence into a cumulative and enduring body of work within EU scholarship. It finds that they do a great deal to define key terms and explanatory variables. However, the contributors concede the need to do much more to address the vexed question of causality and to feed their work into the mainstream...

Governance is a term in good currency, but there are still too few detailed empirical analyses of the precise extent to which it has or has not eclipsed government. This article explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of the governance transition by charting the deployment of new policy instruments in eight industrialised states and the European Union. The adoption and implementation of (‘old’ and ‘new’) policy instruments offer a useful analytical touchstone because governance theory argues that regulation is the quintessence of government. Although there are many ‘new’ environmental policy instruments in these nine jurisdictions, this article finds that the change from government to governance is highly differentiated across political jurisdictions, policy sectors and even the main instrument types. Crucially, many of the new policy instruments used require some state involvement (that is, ‘government’), and very few are entirely devoid of state involvement (that is, pure ‘governance’). Far from eclipsing government, governance therefore often complements and, on some occasions, even competes with it, although there are some cases of fusion. Future research should thus explore the many complex and varied ways in which government and governance interact in public policy-making.

Now it is widely accepted that the European Union (EU) constitutes a system of governance, analysts need actively to explore precisely how it may affect the continuing struggle better to coordinate national and European administrations. In its 2001 White Paper on governance, the European Commission interpreted governance to mean less central control and more network-led steering. Its interpretation of such networks is that they are self-organizing. Drawing upon an empirical study of environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU, this article shows that this vision may not adequately fit the multi-actor, multi-level coordination challenges associated with some EU problems. By studying the administrative capacities that the European Commission and three member states have created to achieve better environmental coordination, this article shows significant administrative weaknesses. It concludes that the coordination challenges now troubling the EU require a more thoughtful discussion of network management than the White Paper suggests.

The UK government has identified the land‐use planning system, and development plans in particular, as potentially powerful instruments for integrating national sustainability objectives into strategic decision making at local levels. One method for achieving this is through the use of so‐called ‘sustainability appraisals’, which are an extension of the established system of environmental appraisal used by planners since the early 1990s. A national framework is outlined in Planning Policy Guidance Note 12. Local authorities are now expected to conduct an environmental appraisal of their development plans which covers sustainable development issues. However, little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of current guidance in meeting this aim. By evaluating the implementation of sustainability appraisals nationally, this paper suggests that while government advice to appraise is generally being applied, the actual use of key sustainability principles in practice is rather variable. It then discus...

Many of the most challenging issues confronting decision-makers spill across borders and are wicked in the sense that they have no standard, off the shelf solutions: drug crime, migration, capital ...

This article examines the use of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), particularly market-based instruments (for example, eco-taxes) and voluntary agreements, in the European Union (EU). It focuses on the actor motivation behind the recent increase in the adoption of new and innovative instruments in EU (and member state) environmental policies while also taking account of the external international arena. The article assesses whether new ideas put forward by policy entrepreneurs, such as member governments, EU institutions, expert groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are main motivation behind the EU adoption of NEPIs, or whether market and harmonization pressures are the main driving forces. It concentrates on eco-taxes, voluntary agreements and eco-labels, using the following three theoretical perspectives: (1) policy learning and transfer/ideational; (2) garbage can; and (3) institutional approaches.

Environmental decisions made by individuals, civil society, and the state involve questions of economic efficiency, environmental effectiveness, equity, and political legitimacy. These four criteria are constitutive of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, which has become the dominant rhetorical device of environmental governance. We discuss the tendency for disciplinary research to focus on particular subsets of the four criteria, and argue that such a practice promotes solutions that do not acknowledge the dynamics of scale and the heterogeneity of institutional contexts. We advocate an interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of environmental decisionmaking that seeks to identify legitimate and context-sensitive institutional solutions producing equitable, efficient, and effective outcomes. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by using it to examine decisions concerning contested nature conservation and multiple-use commons in the management of Hickling Broad in Norfolk in the United Kingdom. We conclude that interdisciplinary approaches enable the generalisation and transfer of lessons in a way that respects the specifics and context of the issue at hand.

Sexual dimorphism and male biased sex ratios have been predicted for dioecious plants experiencing the limited conditions for growth and reproduction found in many alpine environments. To test these predictions, the reproductive ecology of two congeneric, co-occurring, dioecious, clonal, species was examined in the subalpine and alpine zones of Kosciuszko National Park, southeastern Australia. Specifically, plant size (vegetative cover of plants in quadrats), floral display (number of flowers per inflorescence, number of inflorescences per quadrat) and sex ratios (proportion of females in quadrats with flowers) were examined in ten populations of Astelia psychrocharis (Asteliaceae) and nine populations of Astelia alpina var. novae-hollandiae (Asteliaceae). Sexual dimorphism did occur, with males having more flowers per inflorescence (106% more flowers for A.alpina males and 12% more for A.psychrocharis males compared to females) and more inflorescences per quadrat than females (78% more inflorescences for A.alpina males and 46% more inflorescences for A.psychrocharis males compared to females). Plant size did not differ between male and female quadrats of either species, nor were there male biased sex ratios. However, plant size was related to flowering status in A.psychrocharis with the 65 quadrats that did not flower having lower vegetative cover than the 175 flowering quadrats indicating that there may be a minimum size/ cover required prior to flowering in this species. For A.alpina, all but two of the 185 quadrats randomly sampled flowered. There was no effect of altitude on plant size and very little effect of altitude on floral display for either species, apart from a slight increase in the number of inflorescences per quadrat with increasing altitude for A.psychrocharis, and slight decrease in number of flowers per inflorescence with increasing altitude for A.alpina females.

In recent years most industrialised countries have adopted 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) voluntary agreements, environmental taxes, tradable permits and eco-labels. This collection examines the current pattern of use over time (that is, 1970-2000) in eight industrialised countries. This introduction defines a NEPI and introduces the two main objectives of the whole collection, which are to: (1) identify where and when NEPIs are being used, and reflect upon the main drivers of (and barriers to) their continuing uptake, especially in Europe; and (2) assess how 'new' they actually are in comparison to the traditional style, structures and content of national environmental policy. The aim here is to assess how far NEPIs are actually replacing or simply supplementing 'old' instruments, namely regulation. By offering a fresh perspective on the comparative politics of NEPIs, this collection provides an important empirical test of whether government is giving way to a system of environmental governance, in which the level of central steering by the state is much reduced.

The popularity of 'New' Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs) has prompted widespread claims that contemporary environmental policy is undergoing a deep seated and long lasting revolution, characterised by a shift from environmental government to environmental governance. This study compares the adoption of NEPIs in the eight case study countries. It reveals that there are common drivers of change, but that the resulting pattern of use is highly differentiated across instrument types and countries. Very few countries are actually innovating in the way they use NEPIs; in most countries, certain types of NEPIs are either not being used or are being used but in a relatively incremental and evolutionary manner. These patterns of change are related to popular theories of comparative politics and public policy. It is concluded that a close empirical analysis of how NEPIs are actually being deployed in different national contexts, suggests that environmental governance is at best supplementing environmental government, not comprehensively supplanting it.

'New Environmental Policy Instruments' (NEPIs) have a vital role to play in the Netherlands, but should not be overemphasised. They remain part of a mix of instruments that retains a considerable role for the traditional command and control instruments. Dutch environmental innovation shows much evidence of gradual, adaptive learning stimulated by changes in governments, philosophies and external pressures, such as the Kyoto Agreement. Some instruments (that is, covenants) fit the Dutch institutional context and style, and its economic context, better than others, such as eco-labels.

Demands for wider use of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), namely market-based instruments (such as eco-taxes and tradable permits), voluntary agreements and informational devices (such as eco-labels and eco-audits) have increased significantly in Germany in recent years. Germany has also been urged to make wider use of market-based instruments by external actors (such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank). However, the uptake of 'new' policy instruments in Germany has remained uneven despite considerable NEPI innovation. German environmental policy has shown a high uptake of VAs and eco-labels. However, it has made only moderate use of eco-taxes although they have increased significantly with the introduction of the ecological tax reform in 1999. Tradable permits have not yet been tested on the national level although some states (Lander) set up pilot projects to gain practical experience ahead of the EU's tradable permit scheme. Overall, NEPIs have been used mainly to supplement traditional regulatory instruments which still dominate German environmental policy. Germany's transformation from a 'high regulatory' state (which makes wide use of traditional regulation and VAs) towards an ecological market economy (which relies primarily on market-based instruments) has therefore been a slow one.

Austria has long been urged to make wider use of market-based instruments by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Despite this and the significant increase in domestic demands in recent years, the uptake of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), namely market-based instruments (such as eco-taxes and tradable permits), voluntary agreements and informational devices (such as eco-labels and eco-audits) has been only moderate. Austria has used some eco-taxes but has refrained from adopting an ecological tax reform. Tradable permits have arrived on the domestic political agenda primarily because of the European Union's efforts to make use of this type of NEPI. Voluntary agreements have been used only very sparingly despite a consensual domestic policy style. Overall, NEPIs have mainly supplemented traditional regulatory instruments and subsides which continue to dominate Austrian environmental policy. Austria is struggling to leave behind a strongly regulatory past. The Austrian policy structures and style as well as its formidable past environmental record have retarded NEPI innovation.

Climate impact assessment needs to take account of two interrelated processes: socio-economic change and climate change. To date, future change in socio-economic systems has not been sufficiently integrated with an analysis of climate change impacts. Participative and synthetic scenario approaches offer a means for dealing with critical issues of indeterminacy, innovation, reflexivity and framing in analysing change in socio-economic systems, paving the way for a coherent way of handling of socio-economic futures in impact assessment. We argue that scenarios represent heuristic tools that encourage social learning in climate impact assessment. The advantages and disadvantages of a scenario-based approach are explored using examples from regional climate impact assessment in the UK.

The governance of climate change is in flux. In the understandable rush to explore what is filling the governance gaps created by gridlock in the international regime, scholars risk under-appreciating the capacity of states to engage in policy innovation at national and sub-national levels. Based on a review of existing concepts and theoretical explanations for (in)action at this level, we make the case for adopting a more holistic approach to understanding policy innovation, covering the source of new policy elements (‘invention’), their wider entry into use (‘diffusion’), and their projected and/or real effects (‘evaluation’). The analytical and methodological challenges that arise from integrating these three perspectives are systematically explored and integrated into a new analytical framework used in the other contributions to this volume to explore more fully the politics of invention, diffusion, and evaluation in specific areas of mitigation and adaptation policy.

The concept of ecosystem services is increasingly being promoted by academics and policy makers as a means to protect ecological systems through more informed decision making. A basic premise of this approach is that strengthening the ecological knowledge base will significantly enhance ecosystem health through more sensitive decision making. However, the existing literature on knowledge utilisation, and many previous attempts to improve decision making through better knowledge integration, suggest that producing ‘more knowledge’ is only ever a necessary but insufficient condition for greater policy success. We begin this paper by reviewing what is already known about the relationship between ecological knowledge development and utilisation, before introducing a set of theme issue papers that examine—for the very first time—how this politically and scientifically salient relationship plays out across a number of vital policy venues such as land-use planning, policy-level impact assessment, and cost–benefit analysis. Following a detailed synthesis of the key findings of all the papers, this paper identifies and explores new research and policy challenges in this important and dynamic area of environmental governance. Keywords: ecosystem services, knowledge utilisation, governance, sustainable development

Academics and practitioners have responded to the gridlock in the international climate-change regime by more actively exploring the ability of individuals and/or groups of states to fill in the associated ‘governance gaps’ by engaging in policy innovation at the level of the nation state, including its regional and local emanations. Here, we draw together the findings of a collection that, for the first time, explores policy innovation at this level from three key perspectives: the source of new policy elements (‘invention’), their wider entry into use (‘diffusion’), and their projected and/or real effects (‘evaluation’). After critically reviewing the findings of the contributions from these perspectives, we explore new directions for definitional, conceptual-theoretical, and empirical work in this field. Finally, we explore how a more systematic analysis of policy innovation dynamics can inform a much fuller understanding of climate policy and governance across different sites and scales.

The weight of scientific evidence suggests that human activities are noticeably influencing the world's climate. However, the effects of global climate change will be unevenly spread, due to local variations in vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Using downscaled projections of future UK climates over the next 50 years, this paper investigates the impacts of, and possible responses to, climate change in one small area in eastern England, selected as a test-bed for sustainable agriculture. It shows that local agricultural systems are vulnerable to changes in the climate. At present, however, these considerations have a limited effect on agricultural operations, which are mainly driven by short-term events and 'non-climate' policies, such as agricultural price support. The capacity of agricultural systems to adapt successfully to climate change will be determined by the ability of producers to integrate climate change into their planning strategies with a view to ultimately ensuring sustainable agricultural practices in the long term.

European political integration has added a new and exciting dimension to the study of national political and administrative systems. However, comparatively little is know about the precise role of national ministries of state in either facilitating or retarding the shift towards joint rule making at the European level. Taking as an example the UK Department of the Environment's (DoE) involvement in the cumulative development of EU environmental policy since 1970, this paper examines the extent to which national environmental departments manage the process of integration or whether they are dragged along by it. It concentrates on the DoE's role in negotiating the 1987 Single European Act. It suggests that integration in the environmental sector since the Act has proceeded significantly further and faster than British negotiators originally expected, though through little conscious effort by the DoE. In fact, the DoE strongly opposed the introduction of majority voting, but was overruled by the core executive. These findings are examined against two theoretical approaches to European integration in order to reach a fuller understanding of what motivates (parts of) the British state to limit national autonomy in the process of developing European environmental rules.

What role do individual member states play in the continuing development of European Union (EU) environmental policy? Are they capable of successful intervention in the process of joint rule making to maintain their preferred national policies? On the basis of a detailed analysis of EU environmental pollution control measures adopted in the period 1972-86, some observers have argued forcefully that the United Kingdom (UK) Government successfully defended its sovereignty by systematically manipulating national and European political arenas in order to maintain its pre-existing policies. However, when other aspects of EU environmental policy are analysed over the full policy cycle, the extent of national control appears much more circumscribed. A comparison of UK Government aims with long-term political outcomes in the sphere of EU biodiversity policy (c.1970-2000) reveals evidence of firm state control in the short-term, but significant unintended consequences in the medium to long-term. These findings rai...

English The majority of European scholars accept that the European Union (EU) operates at several different administrative levels and exhibits some features of ‘governance’. However, they disagree, often fundamentally,about the precise relationships between activities at different levels. This article critically examines the popular claim that the EU has evolved into a system of multi-level governance as opposed to state-led government. The ‘governance turn’ that has swept through European studies in the last 10 years has opened up substantial new avenues of inquiry as analysts have begun comparing the policy dynamics within and between sectors and/or levels of the EU. However, it remains unclear whether multi-level governance is a general feature of the EU or a phenomenon confined to particular sectors and/or levels.

The European Union (EU) is an evolving system of multi-level governance (MLG). For scholars of the EU, a critical question is which level of governance has the most decisive influence on the integration process? Some studies of EU regional policy claim that subnational actors, using channels of interest representation that bypass national officials, interact directly with EU policy-makers generating outcomes that are neither desired nor intended by national executives. This article examines the development of EU biodiversity policy over a thirty-year period (c. 1970-2000) and finds that environmental groups, who were generally marginalized at the national level in Britain, have learnt to use EU opportunities to outflank the government, resulting in policy outcomes that they would be unlikely to secure through national channels of representation. However, the evidence presented suggests that supranational actors were the major cause of these unintended consequences, not environmental groups.

Policy makers are beginning to intensify their search for policies that assist society to adapt to the unfolding impacts of climate change at the local level. This paper forms the second part of two part a examination of the potential for using scenarios in adaptation and vulnerability assessment. Part I explained how climate change and socio-economic scenarios can be integrated to better understand the complex inter-relationships between a changing climate and a dynamically evolving social system. This second part describes how a broadly representative sample of public, private and voluntary organisations in the East Anglian region of the UK responded to the scenarios, and identifies future research priorities. The main findings are that integrated socio-economic and climate scenarios applied `bottom up’ to locally important stakeholders: (1) provide a sophisticated and dynamic mechanism to explore the potential feedbacks between natural and human systems; (2) offer a means to understand the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of different exposure units; (3) promote social learning by encouraging participants to assess the adequacy of their existing climate strategies for longer than their normal planning periods.

The emergence of the principle of subsidiarity in the early 1990s succeeded in raising the question of what level of government should do what in an enlarged Europe. This paper briefly summarizes the origins of the subsidiarity principle and considers the way in which it has been interpreted by the main EU institutions since the Maastricht Treaty moved it into the mainstream of European politics. Then it explores the implications of the subsidiarity debate in the context of the three main challenges facing EU environmental policy in the new millennium, namely improving implementation, encouraging environmental policy integration and preparing for enlargement. While the legal meaning of subsidiarity was greatly clarified by the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty, its substantive, long term impact upon the continuing process of European political integration is still open to question. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

Subsidiarity, the principle which says that action should be taken at the lowest effective level of governance, is a potentially powerful concept around which a debate about the optimal assignment of tasks across different administrative levels of the European Union (EU) could be constructed. Its sudden incorporation into mainstream European discourse in the early 1990s provided an unprecedented opportunity for such a debate to take place. However, for various reasons this opportunity was spurned and subsidiarity has since metamorphosed into a technical process of legislative reform dubbed ‘Better Law-Making’. By analysing recent experience in the water sector through the lens of ‘new’ institutional theory, the author reveals that, far from undermining the framework of EU environmental policy, instead, the reforms have led to the tightening of some existing standards, although less important issues are being devolved to national authorities. It is debatable whether the political outcomes of the reform process to date were fully expected or desired by those states that advocated greater subsidiarity in the first place. There is precious little evidence that European environmental governance has moved much ‘closer’ to European citizens as a result of subsidiarity.

The European Union (EU) has undoubtedly made enormous strides in developing a progressive environmental policy, but many of its own policies actively undermine the pursuit of sustainable development. In the aftermath of the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty, the EU is finally beginning to confront the thorny problem of how to 'green' itself. The vehicle selected to reach this goal is the so-called 'Cardiff process' of review and reporting, which is currently exploring the opportunities to achieve environmental policy integration (EPI) at the European level. However, it is argued that in order to 'green' the EU, member states must also take complementary steps to green themselves by implementing EPI at national and sub-national levels. The progress hitherto made by four of the 'greenest' states of the EU, namely Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, is examined in order to investigate the opportunities for cross-national learning in this politically and ecologically important area of contemporary European environmental policy.

Institutions are the multitude of means for holding society together, for giving it a sense of purpose and for enabling it to adapt. Institutions help to define climate change both as a problem and a context, through such socialised devices as the use of scientific knowledge, culturally defined interpretation of scientific findings, and politically tolerable adaptation strategies. This paper briefly reviews the origins and current status of the ‘new’ institutional theories that have recently developed within the social sciences. The conclusion is that they are based on such contradictory interpretations of human behaviour that, although appealing, a complete synthesis will never be possible. In effect, there is a fundamental institutional ‘failure’ over the interpretation and resolution of climate change. Cultural theory helps to explain why this is the case by throwing light on the inherent contradictions that beset us all when confronted with global warming.

By any measure, European Community (EC) water policy has been very poorly implemented by the Member States, and lacks self-consistency in some key respects and a sound scientific foundation. The conventional wisdom is that policies decided collectively tend towards the lowest common denominator of state preferences. But recent experience in the water sector suggests that directives decided by unanimity are nonetheless extremely difficult to reform once they become embedded in national political systems, even when they create enormous political problems for Member States and are outdated scientifically. Taking as an example the United Kingdom (UK) government’s handling of the directives on bathing and drinking water, this article shows how institutions have gradually hemmed in decision-makers, locking states into a policy trajectory that most now regard as sub-optimal in key respects.

At its founding in 1957, the European Union (EU) had no environmental policy, no environmental bureaucracy, and no environmental laws. When, in 1973, the EU began systematically to address environmental concerns there was little expectation that the environment would develop into one of the largest areas of common activity. Twenty-five years on, the EU has some of the most progressive environmental policies of any state in the world although it is not itself a state. At the same time, the preexisting environmental policies of the member states have undergone a progressive change through their involvement in EU environmental policymaking. In other words, the member states have created an institutional entity to perform certain tasks which has in turn deeply affected the way they themselves perceive and act against environmental problems. This theme issue of Government and Policy offers a retrospective analysis of these developments. The purpose of this introductory essay is to describe the historical evolution of EU environmental policy and to identify the most salient themes.

Implementation lies at the ‘sharp end’ of the European Union (EU) environmental policy process. The success of the EU's policies must ultimately be judged by the impact they have on the ground, but despite many institutional initiatives, poor implementation remains a fact of life in Europe. In this paper the author investigates why the issue of poor implementation was neglected during the first decade of EU environmental policy, outlines the responsibilities and interests of the main actors involved in putting policies into effect, and discusses possible solutions to the well-publicised ‘gap’ between policy goals and outcomes. Implementation deficits will be difficult to eradicate completely because they serve to maintain the delicate ‘balance’ between governmental and supranational elements in the EU.

The study of global environmental problems within International Relations is dominated by the question of regime negotiation and operation. But while regime theorists have generated many important insights, their work is largely problem‐solving in its focus. Taking as an example the implementation of the 1987 Montreal Protocol in the United Kingdom, this article considers the wider and longer‐term political repercussions of international environmental policies at the national and sub‐national government level. While germane to implementation, the national political repercussions of international policies tend to be disregarded by those assessing the effectiveness of international regimes. These empirical observations are examined against Peter Haas's model of epistemic learning, which is suitably adjusted to take into account the importance of national policy networks at the processing and implementation stages of the policy cycle.

attempts to move the discussion on barriers to climate change adaptation forwards, in our view it still does not address a key challenge that has hampered this line of research since its beginnings. In 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC stated that adaptation efforts will encoun ter — and hence need to overcome — different types of limits, constraints or barriers

Scholarly study of the European Community (EC) has concentrated on the macrolevel process of regional integration to the neglect of its ‘internal’ policy processes. A newly emerging literature on EC public policy is beginning to address this imbalance, but it is largely focused on the development of policy outputs culminating in the adoption of policies by the Council of Ministers, rather than the long-term outcomes of policy at the national and subnational levels. This paper develops a multitheoretical framework and applies it to a case study of the implementation of the Directive on bathing water in the United Kingdom and France to reveal the sort of intriguing questions and puzzles which emerge in the ‘postdecisional’ phase of the EC policy process. The study draws comparisons between implementation in the two countries, showing that policy ‘making’ and retuning continued long after the formal point of adoption. As in national systems, policy implementation and the interpretation and evaluation of policy outcomes in the EC are just as much part of the political process as agenda setting and policy framing.

Many will be deeply disappointed that the second Earth Summit apparently produced little other than a statement that nobody in government really cares for the planet and its people. It seems that the rhetoric of the actual Rio meeting dissolved into further depredation of the poor and even greater disparity of income throughout the world. Some will argue that UNGASS came too early, that it was ill-prepared, and that it lacked the charisma of Maurice Strong at the helm. To some extent they are right. Push a dysfunctional system of non-co-operation and it will fail. But the unhappy UNGASS experience tells us more that the institutional arrangements following Rio are frail and unworkable. These arrangements were not thought through in the context of an actual transition to sustainability. They were and still are rooted in the confines of the present. Moreover, they try to emulate a common starting and finishing point to that transition. This is proving to be a fallacy and an object lesson in how not to design international institutions for a more sustainable future. The true lesson to emerge from the following commentary is that Rio never put in place the creative and evolving process of institutional reform that the “Rio process” set out so eloquently by Brundtland among others demanded. Timothy O’Riordan