1.

Introduction to
Environmental Policy
Environmental Politics and
Environmental Policy
 Politics (from Greek πολιτικος: «citizen»,
«civilian»)
 Describing different views; different
philosophies; different systems of government.
 Is an academic field of study
 Politics means the activities of the government
or people who try to influence the way a
country is governed
 The term is generally applied to the running
governmental or state affairs.
Environmental Policy - definition
 Policy..........course of action adopted by a
business, government, party, etc. (Concise
Oxford Dictionary)
 saying what they will do in a particular situation:
 As views and programs on a specific subject
 Refers to the commitment of an organization
 Policy is a set of principles and intentions
used to guide decision making (Roberts,
2004)
 Can be applied to each level of decision making:
from the individual to the organisational and
international policy making
Environmental Policy- definition

 Environmental policy:
Set of principles and intentions used to
guide decision making about human
management of environmental capital and
environmental services (Roberts, 2004)
Environmental capital
 Environment provides physiological resources: air,
water and food
 Also resources for global economy: raw materials
(animal, vegetable or mineral in nature).
 Energy (thermal-, bio-, hydro-, wind)
 These resources can be thought of as
environmental capital.
 Anthropocentric
 Relatively easy to measure by using e.g. physical or
monetary units
Environmental services
that environment provides:
 Habitat for commercially important species (fish,
wildlife, etc)
 Air and water purification and ground water
recharge
 An absorber of waste – waste sink
 Flood control (wetlands) and coastal protection
(e.g. mangrove forest)
 Source (e.g.habitat) of resources (timber, food,
wildlife, minerals)
 Recreation and social amenities
 Shelter, safety, aesthetic pleasure, spiritual
sustenance.
 Maintainance of biodiversity (e.g. by pollinating
insects - bees)
 Environmental services

 Each of these can be thought as

environmental service for human beings

 NB! Anthropocentric definition

Example
 A river is environmental
capital (provides water, fish,
cryfish...)
 ...as well as environmental
service provider (sink for
waste water, aesthetic
enjoinment, recreational
services, etc.)
 Successful policy making - multy-layered
(holistic) phenomenon
 e.g. not only the MoE or an environmental manager of
an organisation is able to develop/implement it alone.
 Should be developed and implemented on governmental
(corporate) level
 Ministry of Environment (water quality)
 Ministry of Agriculture (nutrients from agriculture)
 Ministry of Social Affairs (drinking water) –MoE (environmental
conditions to quarantee good quality drinking water)
 Ministry of Finances – financing of environmental projects
 Ministry of Economics – different options for energy production
(nuclear, wind, hydro, fossil, etc.)
Environmental problems – what are they?
That need policy-based solutions.

 We usually think and speak about

environmental problems when:
 the provision of resources and/or
environmental services (e.g. recreation,
pleasure, aesthetic, waste assimilation,
environmental conditions) is insufficient to meet
human needs
 Insufficient either in quantity or in quality
Environmental problems –
what are they?

 “insufficient” and “human needs” - what

are they?
 Subjective inrepretation
 Therefore, existence or non-existence of env.
problems and their importance is also relative
Insufficient services – is it environmental
or human problem?
 Environmental problems are in many cases human
(caused) problems (over-use or unequal ditribution)
 Some are natural origin (earthquakes, floods,
droughts, volcano, snow storm, forest fire in
Australia?)
Vesuvius: AD 79 (~ 2000
died)

•Environmental services
disturbed by eruption?
•What are they?

• Other problems are produced mainly or entirely by human

activity (e.g. pesticides, other man-maid chemicals, plastic
wastes, global warming?)
Environmental problem?

 Beavers build dams

 Humans build dams
 Is there a difference?
 What is it?
 Why one is natural and the Beaver diorama in the
other is non-natural? North American Mammal
Hall
 Assuming that humans are
one species amongst the
others
Landfill site (bad
smell, noise,
pollution, etc.)

Environmental
problem?

Medieval London -
only 10,000-
100,000 residents
 Chamber pots emptied into the streets.
 Heavy rain washed the excrements to the
river.
 Health problem; polluted springs and wells.
 The most commonly consumed beverages
were wine and beer but not water.
Garbage crisis (Naples / Italy)

Photo: Sonic Julez

Environmental problem?
 Proposed landfill site - great
concern to those living within
5 km radius
 Those living 50 km away
may not be concerned as
long as they continue to
receive a cost-effective
waste management service
Thus one person's environmental problem
can be another's environmental solution
NB! Landfilling is the worst option when handling wastes
 Environmental problem?
Use of rainforest (incl. clearcut by using
fire):
 Environmental problem for European
environmentalists?
 Solution of social/economic problems for
local people?

VIIRS/Suomi NPP/Worldview/NASA
 European forests are
clear-cut already to
enlarge the area of
agricultural land

J.O. Kaplan et al. / Quaternary Science

Reviews 28 (2009) 3016–3034
 Forest area in USA
 Why to oppose this
tendency in other
parts of the world?
Environmental problem?
 Differences of opinion about the
environmental problems
 Even if the scientific facts are certain – e.g.
climate change
 Interpretation of these facts and evidences is
always subjective (related to human needs
for environmental services and environmental
capital)
 There is more
concern about the
extinction of rare
orchids than mosses
or fungi.
 Campaigns to save whale but not plankton
 Both are key species
 Anthropocentric approach
 It is easier to care about mental life of
a dog than a flea.
(Eric Greene, American biophysics)
Environmental problem?
 Different human groups interpret information
differently and have different priorities and
value systems.
 and different interests.
 Conflicts arise - in defining env. problems and
in proposing solutions
 Policy tries to represent values of the
majority (i.e. not every single person)
The purpose of environmental policy is to
change human behaviour
 to make people act in a way which
 do not generate environmental problems (for
environmental capital and environmental
services),
 or which generate problems of lesser
significance
Environmental capital -
resources
The term is used to describe:
 Material resources (minerals, agricultural and
forestry products)
 Flow of energy that can be used

 Attributes of environment that contribute

something of value (land, rivers, oceans…)
Resources
 Usefullness and value are key in the
definition
 Culturally determined (different ways of
satisfying resource needs - food, water,
materials, shelter, clothing)
 Different cultures give different values to same
resources, e.g. minerals, forestry products.....
 Value ≠ only economic value but also others
(aesthetic, menthal value, educational, etc.)
Ancient oak tree – is it a resource? What is
the value of the resource?

• Timber
• Aesthetic value
• Menthal value
• Ecosystem value
• Recreational value
• Research and
educational value
Resources
 When oil shale (coal, oil...) is
extracted from the ground -
they have economic value
and they are resources to
produce e.g. energy
 They can be accounted for
(weight or volume)
Resources
 Acompanied material (e.g. limestone, peat)
can be or not be (hidden flow) accounted as
a resource – depending on its value.
 Some species (animal, plants, fungi) can be
accounted as resources.
 Others not.
 Anthropocentric approach
Reserves – part of resources that are
known to be legally, economically and
technically feasible for extraction
Reserves must satisfy four criteria:
 Discovered (could be as probable reserve)
 recoverable using existing technology
 commercially viable
 remaining in the ground

 Proved reserves - to have a reasonable certainty

(normally > 90% confidence) of being recoverable
under existing economic and political conditions,
with existing technology
 Unproved (probable) reserves are based on
geological and/or engineering data but lots of
technical, contractual, or regulatory uncertainties of
being recoverable
 Source: Natural Resource Economics: An Overview
Resources

 Primary resources – extracted directly from

the environment

 Secondary resources (wastes) – obtained

from materials which have already entered
the resource cycle (e.g. recycling)

 Complete life cycle of a resource (from

environmental gradle to its environmental
grave) - Resource cycle
 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Emissions

Resources Raw materials Production Consumption

Concentration. Manufacturing of Use of goods

Extraction from economically
Refining and
the environment useful goods
purification

Disposal of waste materials Possible recovery Designation of the

of secondary goods (or their
Waste resources byproducts) as wastes

Assimilation of
waste materials
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
 Sustainable use of resources

 Renewable resources:
the rate at which natural cycles produce the resource
is of the same order, or faster than, the rate at which
the resource is consumed.

Thus maintaining environmental capital

 Non-renewable resources:
the rate of re-production is much slower than the rate
at which the resource is consumed
Resource Time span since Renewable?
resource was formed
(years)

Limestone 400-480 million No

Coal 300-360 million No
Peat 13,000 - 0 No (Yes?)
Spruce timber 40-100 Yes, providing replanting
allows regeneration

Freshwater 0-up to 1 million Yes (quality). The quantity

usually remains unchanged
World consumption of water
(http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/water_use/ind
ex.stm)

Renewable or non-renewable resource?

Water
 Total resources – unchanging
 Regionally – limited
 “Environmental capital will be
inevitably depleted” ???

 For renewable resources - Balance

between use and regeneration is important
goal

 For mineral resources – global reserves

(proved or unproved) are likely to be a very
small proportion of the total resources that
actually exists
Peak oil
Hubbert peak theory (1956) - named after
American geophysicist Marion King Hubbert

For any given geographical area, the rate of

petrolium production tends to follow a bell-
shaped curve
Based on the assumption that the amount of oil
under the ground is finite

Prediction in 1956 that

U.S. oil production
would peak in about
1970
Malthusianism
 “Human population grows exponentially
whereas the food supply could at most grow
only arithmetically”
Counter arguments to Malthusianism
presented by Julian Simon and Herman
Kahn
The Resourceful Earth (1984)

 Humanity is able to find or to invent

substitutes for resources that were
scarce and in danger of being
exhausted.
 High price for resource will lead to
the development of:
 new technology to produce it or,
 technology to substitute it
Julian Simon The Ultimate Resource
(1996)
 Over the history minerals have been getting
less scarce, rather than more scarce as the
depletion theory implies they should.
 Aluminium was never as expensive as
before 1886 (more expensive than cold)
 Steel used for medieval armor had a
much higher price than any modern
parallel.
 Increasing wealth and technology make
more resources available;
 Supplies may be viewed as economically
indefinite
Proved oil reserves (CIA Factbook)

World oil reserves, January

2014

Doubled from 700 billion barrels in 1980 to 1,400

billion barrels in 2008 (Smith, 2009)
Total world proved oil reserves reached 1700.1 billion barrels at
the end of 2014 sufficient to meet 52.5 years of global production
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_b
y_proven_oil_reserves)
Unconventional reserves larger than
conventional (Alboudwarej et al. 2006)

CBM- Coalbed Methane

Decreased reserves can increase price (if
technology remain unchanged) and decrease
consumption and use of resources will continue.

Increased price resulted exploration and development.

More energy needed for production and more wastes

produced – lower quality material, distant transport

Decreased price
will decrease
investments in new
production capacity

World oil price

1970-2011
Resources

 Resources can be available until one is ready

to pay for it
 Problem: the price does not fully reflect
external costs – damage to the environment

 Consumption is decreasing and reserves will

last for longer
 The European Raw Materials Initiative (2008) established a
list of Critical Raw Materials (CRM)
 Materials with both economic importance and supply risk
 To secure valuable raw materials for the EU economy
 In the 2017 exercise, 27 CRMs were identified (EC, 2018)
Primary global suppliers of critical raw materials, 2010-2014 (EC,
2018)

Movement towards circular economy is needed

Reason for concern (non-renewable resources):

1. Rapid developments of mineral prospecting (e.g. remote

sensing) and extraction can enable the detection of
resources anywhere on the Earth

2. Increased mineral extraction (in less favourable

conditions) can be environmentally damaging and
energy-intensive.

3. More used resources – more wastes. Despite

improvements in material reuse and recycling.

Finally all the material extracted from the environment

and used are returned to the environment as wastes.
Paradox:
 More often renewable, rather than non-
renewable resources (fisheries, forests) are
in danger of becoming scarce
 Usually at local level and associated with
poverty and inequity in distribution

Europe: over half of the

forests dissapeared
Metapopulation (set of subpopulations) within a
region will disappear long before the habitat
patches are destroyed (Turner et al., 2001)
Why is policy necessary?
 Resources are finite (relatively).
 Or becoming scarce – choices have to be made!
 We cannot rely on market
 Markets may generate efficiency (e.g. in resource use,
discovering of resources) but not equity (e.g. when
using common resources, environmental degradation)
 Government intervention (in the form of policy) therefore,
required (e.g. legislation, ressource tax, pollution
charge...)
 To promote social welfare (well-being)
 Goal is to increase total available benefits – to more
people (a bigger pie)
Waste
 Waste is something which the owner no
longer wants at a given place or time and
which has no current or perceived market
value (WHO 1971)

 NB! Different from resources that have

market value
Waste and pollution

 Wastes are material resources – now

deemed to be of no further use
 Flows of energy resulting from human
activities which are not worth using further
(e.g. waste heat from power stations, heated
water)
 Attributes of the environment that are not
valued (e.g. wasteland of past industrial
activity – e.g. polluted soil)
Waste and pollution
 Can be solid, liquid and gaseous.
 Safe treatment and disposal will be highly influenced
by these physical properties
 Gases nad liquids cannot be disposed to a landfill site
(untill reacted with other chemicals to make them
solid)
Waste and pollution
 Some wastes will diffuse (to atmosphere) or
disperse (to waterbody) rapidly
 Others can bioaccumulate
 Wastes can be degradable (e.g. organic
wastes and combustion)
 During these processes other type of wastes
(pollution) are produced
 Some wastes are relatively inert (plastic,
glass)
 Some are hazardous
Waste and pollution
 Environmental service – ability of the
environment to receive wastes
 There may be spatial and/or temporal limits on
the amount of waste that the environment can
assimilate
 Landfill site has a finite spatial capacity
 Temporal limits - the ability of natural sytems to
dilute, diperse and degrade the waste
 In a sparsely populated ecosystem natural
processes recycle wastes (of animals, plants) at
about the same rate they are produced (spatial
and/or temporal limits are not exceeded)
 • Therefore, policies are needed for waste
management

Waste hierarchy – basic policy approach

 First introduced into
European waste policy
in the EU Waste
Framework Directive of
1975.
 In 1989 it was
formalised into a
hierarchy of
management options
in the European
Commission´s stategy
for waste management
Population growth and the
environment

 Little change
over centuries
1900 – 1,7 billion
1950 – 2,5 billion
1990 – 5.3 billion
2004 – 6 billion
2009 – 6.3 billion
2011 – 7 billion
2017 – 7.6 billion
Population growth and the
environment
Major cause for environmental problems?
 More people – higher demand for resources
(energy, food and minerals) and more wastes
 Degradation of fertile land

 Decreased biodiversity
 Urbanisation (is it only problematic?)
 Decreased ability of the environment to receive
wastes (Environmental service)
 …………

 Policies needed to deal with the problems

 Changing pattern of distribution of
population
 Population growth – mainly in some regions
and countries
Where often limited ability to provide
resources
Population growth and the
environment
 hundreds of millions are starving
 Per capita demand for resources and production of
waste varies a lot

25

Tons of CO2 per capita

20
Annual industrial
15
emission of CO2 in
India and USA 10

0
India USA
Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource
(1996)

 Population (and population growth) is

the solution to resource scarcities and
environmental problems
 Since people and markets innovate.
 More people – more innovation
Biodiversity

 Genetic diversity (size of population)

 Species diversity (diversity of populations)
 Ecosystems diversity
Biodiversity
 Nowadays probably up to 10 (30-40) million different
plant, fungi and animal species. Maybe more.
 Less than 2 million described by science (do not
include domestic animals and single-celled
organisms (e.g. bacteria)

https://www.currentresults.com/Environment-Facts/Plants-
Animals/number-species.php
• Probably about 500 million different species
inhabited the Earth during it's history.
• Most of them extinct.
• At least six mass extinction events

Percentage of fossilized marine

animal genera becoming extinct
during the last 500 million years
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct
ion_event

• Incl. Permian–Triassic extinction event

• About 252 million years ago
• up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of
terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct
New species discovered
Total number of species New insect species
Year
descriptions described
2000 17,045 8,241
2001 17,003 7,775
2002 16,990 8,723
2003 17,357 8,844
2004 17,381 9,127
2005 16,424 8,485
2006 17,659 8,994
2007 18,689 9,651
2008 18,531 9,020
2009 19,232 9,738

Wheeler, Q.& Pennak, S., 2012. Retro SOS 2000-2009: A Decade of

Species Discovery in Review
Biodiversity
 Majority is unknown.
 100 to 1,000 species
lost per million per year
(IUCN)
 Mostly due to habitat
destruction and climate
change
 So what?
Species number of higher plants

Biodiversity is concentrated
Density of animal species (Saving
Species/Globaïa 2012)
Biodiversity
 Biodiversity is as
environmental capital
and non-renewable
resource
 The development of
biodiversity through
evolution is very slow
process
 More species → longer
and more sophisticated
food chains → less
vulnerable ecosystems.
Biodiversity
 Lost species = lost information (genetic,
properties)

 Anthropocentric approach
 Nature (species, ecosystems) – are at first values
for human beings (resource, aesthetic, menthal,
shelter).
Why Is There a Need for Environmental Policy?

 Free market economics – no need for special

environmental policy:
 The market is “efficient” – if resources become scarce,
price will go up, consumption decreases, pollution level
decreases, etc.
 Government interference in markets causes
inefficiency
 The market can provide for environmental quality
like it does for other goods
 “Free market environmentalism”
Environmental externalities

 There are “market failures”.

 Difference between market values (for a company)
and social values (for the public)
 Including with respect to the environment –
externalities

 Externalities: positive or negative impacts on society

that occur as a by-product of production and
exchange - without the effect being (fully) reflected
in a price

 External costs
 Positive externalities:
Unpayd-for-benefit
Pastureland:
 can be used for grazing,
infrastructure, housing, etc
(internal benefits).
 Positive externalities:
benefits as beautiful
landscape, wildlife habitat,
floodwater storage, etc.
 Negative externalities: uncompensated
harm to others in society (e.g. pollution)
 Negative externalities (external costs) of
pastureland?

 When selling pastureland the market demand

ignores the external benefits (positive
externalities)
 What about negative externalities?
Negative externality example: Firm X
produces electricity by burning coal
 Firm X pays for costs of coal mining, transport and
building and operating the power plant.
 It receives revenue from electricity (heat) sold
 Externalities: Firm X does not pay (real price) for:
 Air emissions
 SO2
 NOx
 Mercury
 CO2
 Water pollution
 Land degradation
 Noise
 etc.
Externalities
 Externalities are a case where there is
improper or no feedback from consequences
of actions.
 No signal of damages or benefits to others

 When feedbacks don’t exist – people may take

actions that aren’t in society’s best interests

 Externalities should be internalised (through

relevant legislation, economic instruments – e.g.
through implementing policies)
Externalities
 Two neighbors that have wood burning stoves
 Each can install a filter that traps much of the
soot and particulate matter
 Both neighbors would be better off by abating
pollution
Morale
 Each neighbor is individually better off by
polluting (dominant strategy to pollute)
 Prisoner's (Social) Dilemma
 Common case in international policymaking
 Why??

 Need to have some type of policy or

institution to change the incentives of
individuals (internalize the externality)
Environmental degradation is frequently a
result of the “tragedy of commons”

 Actions of a small number of people have little

or no effect on a public (common) resource
(water, air, soil, biota....)
 while the same behavior of a larger group
destroys the resource

 In this group: an incentive not to act is

created because
 any effort by individual to addres the problem
has little value and
 may be their own short-term disadvantage
(e.g. expenses)
Policy - main goals

1. Seeks equality in distribution of wealth;

assumes that every one has the same
preferences
2. Argues that the greatest happiness of the
greatest number should govern our judgment
3. Seeks to guarantee some minimum level of
wealth; Basic needs approach
Scales for environmental policy

 Decision to protect the environment – on different

levels
 Corporate
 Local (e.g. zoning/land use, waste handling)
 National (e.g. air and water pollution)
 International (e.g. climate change)
 Select the best level to address the issue:
 Match the scale of the environmental problem to the
scale of government
Corporate policies and responses:

Move away from “react and treat” policy towards

 policies embracing:
 environmental management systems
 industrial ecology
 ecological design
 cleaner production/pollution prevention
Local Policy
 Many environmental problems have local cause and
small radius of effects
 Long history of local community actions to regulate
members of the community
 Traditional use of common property resources
 Regulation of public nuisances
 Zoning laws
Tabu - an environmental policy of a society
Holy places – lakes, rivers, forests, trees, etc.
 The world´s first urban
sanitation system in the
Indus Valley (2600-1900
BC)
 Homes supplied with water
from wells

 Roman cities: water supply

and sanitation systems
 Cloaca maxima- to the
River Tiber in Rome
Waste handling
 Ca 3000 BC: the Cretan
capital Knossos created
landfill sites
 ca 320 BC, Athens: a law that
required transport of wastes
beyond the city gates (at least
one mile) and a municipal
landfill
• After that in several other Mediterranean cities
• 1297 towns in Britain: a law required householders to
clean the streets in front of their property
• Common waste produced during pre-modern times was
mainly ashes and human biodegradable waste
 National policy
 EP on state level - relatively recent phenomenon
 In London, in 1306, King Edward I pointed the critical
problem - combustion of sea coal
• In 1307 banned coal burning in England -
imposed a penalty of death for burning
coal
• Almost nobody stopped burning coal.
• The penalty was softened over the years.
• Queen Elizabeth – new ban in the 16th
century.
• No effect until a massive coal smog in
London in 1952
 Poor sanitary conditions (medieval
cities and cities in developing world)
 Black death – killed tens of millions
(1347-1351) during cold period. 30-
60% of Europe's population.
 1388: The English Parliament
banned dumping of waste in ditches
and public waterways.
 Wastewater and wastes to the
rivers:
 Epidemics in 1840s-1850s (NB!
cold period)
 Large scale chlorination of water
supplies started around 1900
 In Venice, in the 12th century,
the furnaces for glass
manufacture were responsible for
air pollution.
 They had to be moved away from
the city

• 1863 – the British Alkali Act – the first

pollution control act of the industrial era -
discharge into the air of hydrogen chloride
from soda ash production

• followed by The control of air pollution Act

in 1874
 Several nature conservation acts
adopted in many countries
 Dealing with “classical nature
conservation”
 Protection of species, landmarks
and landscapes
 National parks – Yellowstone 1872
 Natural monuments (landmarks) in
Europe
 In Estonia: First nature reserve:
1910 (Vaika islands)
 First nature conservation act 1935
Development of national scale EP
 Before 1960s: “Economics first”
 Nature:
 has an infinite supply of physical resources for human
consumption,
 endles sink

 Growth is limited only when science and

technology do not make any further advances.
 The earth is not finite, because new technologies
create new resources.

 Technocentric
Development of EP

1960-1970s Pollution Control

 “Reactive” responses to environmental

problems
 “End-of-Pipe” Environmental Policy: filters in
smoke stacks to reduce especially sulphur emissions,
improvements in waste water plants
 Remediating pollution upon its release
 Minimal costs
 Development of EP
 Rachel Carson: Silent spring,
1962
 Banning chemical pollution:
DDT banned in 1965 in some
parts of Europe;
 in 1972 in the United States.
 PCB banned in many countries
(e.g. Japan, USA, Sweden) in the
mid 1970s
 1970s: First Environmental
Legislation
National Policy
 The main wave of US Federal environmental
legislation starts around 1970
 The Big 4:
 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 1969
 Clean Air Act - 1970
 Clean Water Act - 1972
 Endangered Species Act - 1973
 Development of EP
1970s in Europe
 Embryonic state: environmental
policy/regulation
 “Immediate impacts” – visual
problems
 Minimal forward-thinking
 Gave rise to the Pollution
Control paradigm

Ńumber of EU directives in force (Delreux and Happaerts,

2016. Environmental policy and politics in the European
Union)
Development of EP
 Environmental protection was not seen as an
overall task for the government
 but something that could be delegated to the
e.g. ministry of environment
 Environmental policy was treated as a
discrete policy area within its own right
(Weale, 1992)
Development of EP
Series of Events (Disasters)
 Three Mile Island
 Chernobyl
 Exxon Valdez
 Bhopal pesticide plant
and “Landmark Events”

 Emphasized the need for proactive action/

improved regulations
Development of EP
Landmark events: Examples
1) The Limits to Growth idea
 Club of Rome Report by Meadows and
Meadows, 1972
 Systems scientists and computer modelers
warned that there were limits - especially
environmental limits - to how "big" human
civilization and its appetite for resources could
get.
Development of EP
2) UN Conference on Human Environment
Stockholm Conference, June 1972

Put environmental policy on the map

• Humans: destructive force
• Protecting the environment
• Developing countries: environmental degradation
= underdevelopment
Development of EP
3) Montreal Protocol of the Vienna
Convention, 1987
 Landmark event – protection of the stratosphere
(Ozone Layer)
 Phasing out production and consumption of
compounds that deplete ozone in the
stratosphere – CFCs, halons, carbon
tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform
 by 2000 (2005 for methyl chloroform).
Development of EP
4) World Commission on Environment and
Development (UN)
 Published the Brundtland Report in 1987
 Introduced the concept of ‘sustainable
development’ – Rio de Janeiro 1992
 Strategy for social/economic/ environmental best
practice
International Policy
 Many problems are global in scope and there
is a need for international agreements
 We live in a world of nation-states:
enforcement of law is much easier within a
country than between countries
 Few institutions that function at an
international level (e.g. EU, UN)
 Few international environmental agreements
with real teeth