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Renewable energy (RE) illustrates well the logic of ecological modernisation (EM). This logic has successfully transformed RE from a fringe idea owned by largely environmental actors to a mainstream one embraced by a broader constituency. This mainstream embrace inevitably (re)shapes the renewables enterprise. Not all renewables actors today are driven by environmental goals. Instead, key actors, particularly in corporate or community domains, nurture competing norms and aspirations. How the renewables project is envisaged and the goals it is directed to serve can thus differ considerably. Understanding these differences is important since transformations in the energy domain will not only impact climate protection but shape social futures in significant ways. The analysis proceeds in two interrelated steps: first, empirically – conducting an exploration of some of the main projects and actors in the contemporary Australian RE space; and second, theoretically – considering these empirical developments through an EM lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) concept is increasingly associated with environmental activism in nations with prominent resource extractive industries. Environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) deploy it as a campaigning strategy to contest corporate activity, in particular, the environmental sustainability of existing or planned commercial projects. Drawing on two prominent Australian ENGO campaigns – against Seafish Tasmania’s Abel Tasman vessel and Tassal’s proposed fish farm operations on Tasmania’s east coast – the SLO strategy is assessed in the context of the governance literature, arguing that it constitutes ‘governance via persuasion’, a mode that incorporates appeals to normative values. Australian SLO campaigns are primarily directed at the state, promoting opportunities for ENGOs to shape reviews and revisions to environmental regulation alongside governmental and corporate actors. SLO campaigns are therefore a contemporary expression of environmental strategies seeking regulatory change in contrast to ENGO-led private governance initiatives that often bypass the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Anthropocene raises two interrelated problems for the Australian environment movement. The first concerns the movement’s normative and political relationship to non-human nature: climate change in particular is forcing an urgent reconsideration of how nature is to be understood and managed. The second problem concerns the implications of full recognition of the rights of First Peoples for environmental justice. These issues may lead to crises of identity, legitimacy, and effectiveness for the Australian movement. The normative bases upon which Australian environmentalists may draw in order to ‘protect nature’ in the Anthropocene are discussed. Setting aside the simple emancipatory ambition of preservationist environmentalism and the Australian movement’s earlier Romantic protectionism, a new pragmatic, pluralistic environmental politics – based on precaution, the avoidance of pain and suffering, and protection of the most vulnerable – is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales held reviews of their moratoriums on the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) food crops. The public inquiry form of review selected offered the best strategic pathway to amend these moratoriums to allow commercial release. As such, the reviews represented ‘political technologies’. This proposition is informed by: their formation within a policy context of pro-GM development, which saw ‘stacked’ pro-GM review panels, narrow terms of reference, and outcomes favouring a narrow coalition of agbiotechnology interests; the critical literature on public inquiries; and other evidences that suggest the underlying purpose of the public inquiries was to reach the inescapable conclusion that the moratoriums should be changed. While contributing to the literature on the public inquiry, particularly in relation to science, technology and environmental governance, these findings also invite the suggestion of new deliberative forms of the public inquiry to more adequately address legitimacy and policy effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In April 2010, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the deferral of his flagship climate-change policy, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, after it twice failed to gain the support of the Australian Senate. The decision contributed to the curtailment of Rudd's premiership and confirmed climate change as one of the most toxic issues in Australian politics. Although deficits in policy design and structural obstacles caused by Australia's carbon-intensive economy were major obstacles for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, it could have passed into legislation had more effective political strategies been used to counter political opposition. A policy network framework is used to explore these political obstacles and how alternative political strategies may help to counter political obstacles to and public concern about new climate policies. In conclusion, the wider merits of policy network and political strategy approaches for the analysis of national climate politics are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That climate change mitigation strategies may disproportionately affect rural people and communities is evidenced by the introduction of water mitigation policies in Australia. The significant consequences of water policy for irrigation farming families and communities in Australia's Murray–Darling Basin – the food bowl of Australia – are outlined. This policy emerges from a hierarchical model of governance and has resulted in uneven and perverse outcomes for people in rural areas. Lack of attention to metagovernance and a misplaced trust in the water market has left rural people and communities vulnerable to significant stress and disaffection, impacting on their resilience and adaptability to change. A partnership model of governance is suggested to guide climate change mitigation policies to ensure that the capacity of rural people and communities to adapt to significant change is enhanced rather than eroded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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 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]

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]

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 article focuses on a November 24, 2007 legislative decision from Australia's Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. The decision involved Rudd's signing an instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which his predecessor John Howard had refused to sign. A discussion of what the signing meant to Australians and to Australian politics is presented. The impact the signing may have on global opinion concerning climatic changes is discussed. The unwillingness of the United States to develop policies to slow or prevent climate change is examined.

Assesses the significant gains recorded by the Green Party in the Western Australian state election in 2005. Percentage of vote received by the political party in elections for the Western Australia Legislative Council from 1993 to 2005; Factors that gave the party considerable influence on government policy; Reasons for the party's loss of Legislative Council seats in 2005.

Analyzes the outcomes of an Australian local government's use of public deliberation to inform its review of waste management. Concept of deliberative democracy; Views of theorist John Dryzek regarding the application of deliberative notions of democracy to environmental issues; Outline of the theoretical case for deliberative democracy in producing beneficial outcomes for the environment; Expected outcomes for the linking of democratic structures and deliberative ideal.

Addresses issues related to the regulation of environmental policy instruments in Australia. Impact of economic reform implementation on environmental issues; Structures of the Australian environmental policy; Discussion on environmental policy contents.

Presents information on a symposium on environmental politics in Australia. Options when it comes to µ-foundations of environmental political economy; First task of environmentalists; What the proliferation of academic environmental journals reflects.

Describes the green planning programs of Australia and Canada as a stage in the development of environmental policy. Analysis of the demise of green planning phenomenon; Factors affecting the long-term viability of green planning; Obstacles to sustained and effective green planning.

Examines the developments in participatory environmental governance under the neo-liberal regime of Australia. Explanation that the farmer-based Landcare movement is representative of this tendency towards participatory environmental governance; Analysis on the development and implementation of these participatory programs.

Discusses the character of the green jobs agenda in Australia and the nature of the policy response to environmental employment demands during the Labor government. Environmental employment record of the Australian government from 1982 to 1996; Environmental employment programs; Establishment of the Australian Council on Environmental Employment Opportunities.

The article discusses the climate for environmental politics in Australia from 1983 to 1990. Between 1983 and 1990, there were several disputes between environmentalists and the mining, timber and energy industries over preservation of wilderness areas and rivers, remnant eucalyptus forests and rainforests. During the 1980s, environmental organizations grew in Australia. Two observations help define the period between 1983 and 1990 leading up to the 1993 elections. First, the absence of a national Green Party. Second, the economic context of Australian politics during the period started to reshape the landscape for environmental politics.