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Summary Exam Material - Reinventing Environmental Planning
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Summary of the course together with summaries of the literature from the course Reinventing Environmental Planning
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Summary Exam Material - Reinventing EnvironmentalPlanning
Summary course:
- Sustainable development: defined and judged differently between academic papers.
Brundtland definition SD: “development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Social/economic developments without degrading the environment. Decouple
economic and social growth from degradation of environment through innovation
and stimulation of novel technologies to reach sustainable development. Step out of
comfort of existing policies (e.g. regulations, permits, law, etc.) holistic and
ambitious (proactive) approaches. Environmentally policies more deeply ingrained in
what we’re doing.
- “The coalition for SD would collapse if it would be defined precisely” (Jordan, 2008).
“A political fudge: sufficiently vague to allow conflicting parties, factions and interests
to adhere to it without losing credibility.” Can be considered as a container concept
that is able to unite and attract conflicting stakeholders in a coalition. It can inspire
people to act even if its definition is not fully known. A more precise definition could
result in more opposition and the coalition falling apart, more specific perspectives
could result in more disagreements among stakeholders.
- Two debates:
- 1. Economic growth and protection and preservation of our environmental
needs are antagonistic we cannot sustain our current way of life, somewhere we
will meet a carrying capacity. Limits to growth. Therefore, decoupling of economic
growth and degradation of the environment is needed.
- 2. Economic growth and technological development will help humans to
outsmart ecological crisis. Poverty is also not sustainable, we need a degree of
welfare to allow for action and economic development may support innovation.
- Ecological modernization: systematic eco-innovation and its diffusion. School of
thought in the social sciences that argues that economy benefits from a move
towards environmentalism. It is an analytical approach as well as a policy strategy
, and environmental discourse. Progressive standards push for innovation. Uses the
expertise of MBI while at the same using the benefits of the coordinative model.
- Added value:
- Transition management: deep systems innovations including societal and political
choices. Being prepared as society to invest a lot and change our behaviour in for
examples energy use. Adapt and cope with the unknown, learn-by-doing, diffusion,
transform (How do you make policies for the unknown future?). Future-oriented.
Translate learning into new rules & regulations. Technical change always occurs with
social change.
- Critical ecopolitics (Warner, 2010): Develop an argument that leads to sustained,
pervasive, reflexive, and open-end changes. Reflexiveness (self-critique) is necessary
for critical ecopolitics of change, but not sufficient for change. A (radical) different
society is needed. Scale of environmental problems are fundamental problems of
modern industrial society.
- Environmental Policy Integration (Lafferty & Hovden, 2003): Environmental policy
integration (EPI) is the process of placing environmental considerations at the heart
of decision-making in other sectoral policies, such as energy and agriculture, rather
than leaving them to be pursued separately through purely environmental policy
instruments.
- VEPI: degree to which each pillar has taken environmental objective on board.
No overarching strategy.
- HEPI: extend to which a government has developed an overarching strategy.
Requires cross-sectoral actions, but coordinated by strategy.
-
,- Adaptive capacity: “potential and capability to change to a more desirable state in
the face of the impacts or risks of climate change”. It is the ability of a system to
moderate and to adjust to global climate change-related damages. Adaptation policy
considers the entitlements, assets, and resources that improve the capacity of this
system to resist, cope, and recover from a given hazard.
- Choice of approach governance strategy (Zuidema, 2016) – chapter 3:
- A degree of fit is needed, no single best way. Approaches have to fit with certain
circumstances. Done in two steps:
- 1. Categorize approaches, we need to know what form of governing leads to
what sort of outcome?
- 2. Link to circumstances; degree of complexity. Adjust the style to the
circumstances encountered
- Different circumstances influence which approach is best (object-
oriented/contingency)
- The perceived complexity of the circumstances encountered is an argument to be
considered and valued by people, in interaction, within a specific context.
Interpretations influence which approach is considered best, some parties can
consider issues as more straightforward than others do (intersubjective-
oriented/post-contingency)
- Contingency: circumstances faced decide our choice. Object-oriented
approach. Contingency as dependent on a degree of complexity. Perception of
circumstances faced is deterministic = object oriented. Circumstances tell me which
approach works best. Relying on an object-oriented approach has clear limitations in
providing arguments for choosing between governance approaches.
- Figure: contingency approach; complexity as a criterion
- Post-contingency: what is considered as more or less complex is also not self-
evident. Contingency as a matter of choice. Involves the interpretation, values and
interests by those responding (matter of choice) non-deterministic = intersubjective
oriented. Complexity is seen as an argument here.
, -
- Figure: intersubjective in a post-contingency approach.
- Approaches of governance strategies:
- Technical rationale (realist): top-down coordinative governance works quite
well. Can be used in situations with limited complexity. Efficient, but a lot of other
options are already off the table then. Realism: objective knowledge, statement is
true if corresponding with observations (factual reality), one best way to do things
(uniform rationality)
- Ecological modernization: more on the realist (technical rationale) tendency.
Does not assume a reality, but a changing reality. Stresses relevance of innovations
and technology and stays within the current socio-economic system. But includes
elements of social conflict and reflexive activities to create new understandings.
Underplays the social behavior, the human side.
- Risks of EM:
- EM thinking does not provide an ethically or politically coherent argument for more
radical change
- Apparent acceleration of all environmental problems challenges the central
argument of EM that industrial societies can be made sustainable with modest
adjustments and corrections
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