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Although the determinants of trust in governments have received significant attention in the literature on political trust, there has been no attention paid to whether environmental concerns affect governmental trust. Yet, if individuals are worried about local and global environmental degradation, they may think that the government has failed in providing them with the best living conditions. Hence, it is plausible to expect local and global environmental concerns and trust in government to be inversely correlated. Using 2005 data from 24 countries, this hypothesis is tested against competing theories of civic participation, interpersonal trust, and economic considerations to explain individual trust in government. Multilevel models that specify the impact of individual- and national-level factors provide evidence that global environmental concerns do actually matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Long-term policy issues are a particularly vexing class of environmental policy issues which merit increasing attention due to the long-time horizons involved, the incongruity with political cycles, and the challenges for collective action. Following the definition of long-term environmental policy challenges, I pose three questions as challenges for future research, namely 1. Are present democracies well suited to cope with long-term policy challenges? 2. Are top-down or bottom-up solutions to long-term environmental policy challenges advisable? 3. Will mitigation and adaptation of environmental challenges suffice? In concluding, the contribution raises the issue of credible commitment for long-term policy issues and potential design options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how to make pro-poor climate change adaptation more effective in the city of Chittagong. Drawing on discussions with residents in informal settlements and interviews with staff from government agencies, NGOs and donors, it shows the lack of connection between the formal institutional structure for disaster preparedness and the groups most at risk from extreme weather disasters and their community level actions. There is no clear definition of roles among local government agencies with regard to climate change adaptation. Although there is a donor-funded programme to reduce poverty and disaster risks, this is not being implemented in the settlements most at risk from landslides. Neither are there any measures underway to address the needs of the residents in these high risk settlements, in part because of the financial weakness of local government. Nor is there much support for this from national government – since national climate change adaptation policy does not consider urban adaptation and strengthening urban government capacity to reduce the vulnerability of the extreme poor as a priority. NGOs undertake programmes for community-based disaster risk reduction but their scale and scope are limited by not being integrated into local government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study shows that some Japanese local governments, at both the prefecture and city levels, have engaged in international cooperation with local governments in developing countries in Asia to improve environmental management and explains their motivations to do so even if international cooperation is not usually considered part of local governments’ mandate, and despite fiscal constraints. Forms of cooperation include training officials from developing countries in Japan, dispatch of Japanese local government expert officials to developing countries, partnering with and providing assistance to international organizations, establishing organizations for international environmental cooperation, and hosting international intercity network programs. This cooperation can be explained by a combination of environment-related factors and degree of local area’s international orientation. Environment-related factors include desire to make a contribution based on local experience and human capital, promotion of international environmental business, response to trans-boundary pollution issues, and conservation of natural assets. Collaboration with the national government is an important facilitating though not determining factor since local governments respond differently to national policies. Other facilitating factors include local governments’ fiscal capacity. The cases in this study can promote consideration of the potential motivations and ways that local governments in industrialized countries can contribute to international environmental development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous research has identified factors affecting local government (LG) adoption of Local Agenda 21 (LA21). The objective of this research is to propose a measurement model and test it in the case of a specific region, the Basque Country. Research results show that the embrace of LA21 by LOs is explained by internal characteristics of LG and factors associated with LG environment, which is fostered, fundamentally, by higher levels of government that can create connected or networking processes. The most relevant external factors are associated with a concept under-emphasised in previous sustainable development literature: cocreation. We propose that, to achieve generalised diffusion of LA21-type tools, we should emphasise cocreation in networks instead of networks in general. The measurement model used in this research could be used in other contexts as a means of confirming or refuting our results and offer politicians a guide for achieving a more generalised and robust diffusion of LA21 processes. This research contributes to LA21 and innovation-adoption literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Labour's efforts to shape development practice to incorporate sustainable precepts and deliver low carbon outcomes are reviewed. A failure to promote integrated environmental policies within government and to subject these to statutory environmental assessment has severely constrained the realisation of sustainable development pathways. Climate change policy initiatives have generated a greater degree of cross-departmental commitment. Yet one of its short-lived initiatives, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, would have struggled to deliver a low carbon economy, because its deliberations were exempt from statutory forms of environmental assessment that quantify the carbon footprints of alternative development scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]