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Sustainable development, ecological modernisation, eco-efficiency and the like have reframed material limits as conventional barriers to growth. Even in recent arguments for degrowth, limits recede to the background in favour of self-limitation. To reclaim limits as the grounds for an effective environmental politics. I reconstruct how the case for the limits to growth was reversed into a case for the growth of limits, and how foundational boundaries were increasingly blurred. Arguing that lifestyle politics is unlikely to be effective against the growth machine, I elaborate on the notion of form-of-life. If not understood as a solipsistic self-mastery but as the mutually formative encounter of living entities – provided with their own dispositions yet sharing a common destiny – this notion puts the focus on how freedom and equality are premised on, rather than hampered by, limits. I conclude with four reasons why a radical theory and politics for the environment should make use of the notion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines success of the green parties in Swiss federal elections of October 20, 2019. It reports the Green Party (GPS) won 13.2 percent and the Green Liberal Party (GLP) 7.8 percent of the votes, and two green forces together thus secured more than one fifth of the votes for the National Council, Switzerland's lower house of Parliament. It mentions although neither party was able to achieve representation in the government, their success has shaken the foundations of Swiss party politics and, if repeated, may see them enter government.

The article explores the concept and practice of regenerative culture drawing on our experience as activist researchers within Extinction Rebellion Manchester from August-December 2019. It defines relationship between regenerative culture and a foundation of self-care, people care and planet care. It reports how in 2018 in Great Britain Extinction Rebellion (XR) launched itself as a mass environmental movement aiming to achieve systemic change through non-violent civil disobedience. It mentions need of establishing a citizens assembly to oversee the transition towards climate justice.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

Contrary to established ideas about the European Union's (EU) democratic deficit, a conception of European civil society based on contestation and communication within and across multiple public spheres is good for green politics and ecological democracy in the EU. This article shows that the European Commission's own proposals for restructuring its relationship to civil society organizations follows a trajectory from “passive inclusion” to “active inclusion” of civil society groups. This historical sequence, I argue, is associated with weakening civil society's capacity to serve as a reservoir of democratic innovation in the EU's system of multilevel governance. I aim to show that efforts to green and democratize the EU are better served by a non-integrated European civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most common policy strategies for promoting sustainable development are regulatory and economic. However, there is increasing interest in an alternative or complementary idea, namely, ‘environmental citizenship’. This article seeks to develop a particular interpretation of environmental citizenship. It is argued that a consistent political liberalism must conceive of its citizens as ‘citizens of an environment’. An account of liberal environmental citizenship is proposed, and the rights and duties of the liberal environmental citizen are outlined and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution focuses on the limits of European Union programmes and accession practices on environmental policies and performance in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, we document some of the ways in which state socialist and post-socialist environmental conditions, practices and policies are shaping, and in turn being shaped by, the path of accession and integration. We focus on the diverse and changing patterns of air, water and soil quality in Central and Eastern Europe, the contested nature of new environmental policies, the environmental consequences of economic change, and the sustainability of emerging environmental regimes. The contribution concludes with several questions about the consequences of new state membership for future EU environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution assesses the impact of market liberalisation on the sustainability of the transformation in ten Central and East European countries (CEE10). Although a significant body of literature assesses economic and social consequences of the transformation, there are limited numbers of investigations that examine the impact of liberalisation on the environment. For CEE countries, assessing environmental effects of structural change in the economy, rising personal consumption, rapid transition to market-oriented economies, and dramatically increased liberalisation is critical. Equally important is assessing the outcomes of environmental and other policy and institutional reforms. To assess these changes, a set of sustainability indicators is used to estimate an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and sustainability trends. The EKC concept assumes that environmental pressure rises initially with an increase in income but declines beyond some estimated level or 'turning point'. The question is how market liberalisation has affected this observed relationship. This study demonstrates the progress of the CEE10, relative to other CEE and new independent states (NIS), and how much progress is still needed to secure more sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the diffusion of environmental policy innovations has become a topic of considerable interest. Often, studies of diffusion portray it in positive terms, as a process of 'policy learning' or the spread of environmental 'best practice'. Such portrayals, which tend to ignore the political-ideological roots of environmental policy innovation and diffusion, contribute to the depoliticisation of environmental (and sustainable development) decision-making. In particular, the spread of neo-liberal ideology has provided a basis for environmental policy innovations that, under the guise of 'objectivity', tilt the 'playing field' further to the advantage of dominant interests. Thus, the challenging political, economic and social issues generated by the environmental policy and sustainable development debates, which have the potential to re-politicise economic policy (the 'Washington Consensus'), are side-stepped. As environmental decision-making is devolved to 'the market', local government, experts, and the courts, the environmental 'threat' is defused. It is this effect that makes the New Zealand innovations attractive to the governments of other countries, especially those with an adversarial political system. The article analyses the neo-liberal roots, and effects, of New Zealand's New Zealand environmental innovations to demonstrate the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a key defining feature of sustainable development. Despite the fact that EPI has been the subject of much debate both in academic and policy-making circles, conceptual issues relating to EPI have received relatively little treatment. The conceptual work that has been completed on EPI generally fails to place the concept in an appropriate environmental policy context, and this in turn appears to betray the fact that the concept clearly implies a relatively strong revision of the traditional hierarchy of policy objectives. In this article the authors discuss the origins of the concept and provide conceptual clarification regarding its definition and context. Further, the article derives a simple analytical framework consisting of vertical and horizontal dimensions of EPI, which can serve as a useful point of departure for further empirical work on the implementation of EPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the conceptions of irreversibility in environmental ethics. Details on the experiential conception of irreversibility; Irreversibility as an illusion; Implications of comprehensive conception of irreversibility on environmental politics; Literature on sustainability.

Argues that serious weakness within ecological modernization (EM) theory emerge when it becomes the basis of a policy agenda in Europe. Problems of EM theorization of sustainable development (SD) in Europe; Focus on Ireland's mainstream environmental policies and practices; Core features of EM discourse; Sustainability principle of social cohesion; EM theory and its flaws; Discussion on the ideal model of SD and its key concepts.

Evaluates the impact on national policy of debate about sustainable development in the three Mediterranean countries of Italy, Spain and Greece. Significance of the European Union's Fifth Environmental Action Programme of 1992 in promoting sustainable development; Programs and projects launched by these countries to realize sustainable development.

Analyzes the process of transition and evolution in the Chinese government in response to the international pledge to achieve sustainable development. Development of environmentalism and policy making; Institutional changes inspired by international aid initiatives; Analysis of the dynamics, tensions and political conflicts that have shaped the development and implementation of the environmental agenda.

Part II. Looks at the existing national environmental planning approaches in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Strategic environmental planning and sustainable development; Arguments for strategic environmental planning; Country experiences on environmental policy as strategic and co-operative planning; Empirical characteristics of existing green plans.

Looks at steps being taken within the European Commission towards integrating the environment into other European Union policy sectors. Sustainable development; Outline of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme; European Commission's integration procedures.