Reinventing Environmental Planning summary literature + lectures
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Course
Reinventing Environmental Planning (GEMREENVPL)
Institution
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
Summary of all lectures (1 - 11) including all obligatory literature: Castan Broto (2017), De Boer and Zuidema (2015), Flyvbjerg (2006), Hughes (2005), Jänicke (2008), Jordan (2008), Jordan et al. (), Lafferty and Hovden (2003), Lemos and Agrawal (2006), Meadowcroft (2009), Mol (2016), Warner (201...
Lecture 1
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Environmental planning?
A recent rise
- Rise of the environmental movement
o 19th century (North America, North Europe)
o Painters, poets, writers
- USA
o Yellowstone National Park 1872
o Sierra Club 1892
- Europe
o Nine national parks in Sweden in 1909
But intensifying
- Rise of the environmental movement
o In the 1950s and 1960s it gained momentum
o Examples of many incidents
o Pollution (not depletion or climate) as a trigger
- Rise of environmental policies
- 1970-1985: western world
- 1985-now: China
- 1990-now: developing countries are starting
There were successes:
- Banning of leaded fuels
- Banning of CFC’s
- Banning of certain pesticides (DDT)
- Improvement of air / water in ‘western world’
- Slowing deforestation in the Amazon (somewhat)
But also doubts:
These successes are too isolated and we remain to face inherently unsustainable conditions
One the one hand, prominent issues remain, and we know it:
- Climate change
- Energy
- Biodiversity
- Marine life
- Large scale air and water pollution
- Etc
On the other hand, simple solutions are hard to find. Many issues relate:
- Economy, costs and profits
- Politics, ownership and power
- Technology, knowledge and beliefs
- Fragmentation of power and capacity
, Sense of urgency
↓
Willingness to change
Willingness to act
↓
Efforts
↑
Ability to act
Ability to change
↑
Sense of control
Reinventing?
If current policies are insufficient
We should highlight urgency?
“Deep Ecology versus “Shallow Environmentalism.” We’d all rather be deep, I think. The point is that deep
ecology asks deep questions about the ecocide now taking place everywhere on Earth. Shallow
Environmentalism tends not to question growth economics, human superiority, human needs and desires as
always paramount, nor does it ask why we regard everything as Resources, including each other”
We should improve capacity?
“In view of the complexity and multi-scalar character of many of the most pressing environmental problems,
conventional debates that focused on pure models of governance – where state or market actors play the
leading role – fall short of the capacity needed to address them” (Lemos & Agrawal, 2006)
Or both!
“We don't think a sustainable society need be stagnant, boring, uniform, or rigid. It need not be, and probably
could not be, centrally controlled or authoritarian. It could be a world that has the time, the resources, and the
will to correct its mistakes, to innovate, to preserve the fertility of its planetary ecosystems”
Thus:
If we only depend on regulations and policies, we do not get there
If we only depend on market forces, we do not get there
We need them both
Reinventing environmental planning
Theory:
New ideas and theoretical proposals about effective environmental governance
Practice:
The renewal of environmental governance with new approaches and instruments
Core:
Awareness of consequences: scientific reflection, allowing for normative reflection and debate
We need to be aware whether certain policies work out, and how they work out, and where it is
appropriate. Under what kind of circumstances do certain approaches work?
Objectives
Central aim: “Critically and constructively reflect on environmental policies of the past, present, and future in
different contexts (geographical, economic, institutional)”
,Lecture 2 + Hughes (2005) + Jänicke (2008) +
Warner (2010)
Hughes (2005) - Global Environmental
History: The Long View
Abstract
Looking ahead to the remaining decades of the 21 st century, this essay considers four themes that seem certain
to characterise the course of world environmental history in the long run:
1. Population growth
2. Local vs. global determination of policy
3. Threats to biodiversity
4. The supply of and demand for energy and materials
The conclusion, noting that each of these themes presents a challenge and that they together constitute a crisis
of survival, asks what kinds of changes might constitute a positive response
Jänicke (2008) - Ecological Modernisation:
new perspectives
Abstract
“Ecological modernisation” - understood as systematic eco-innovation and its diffusion - has by far the largest
potential to achieve environmental improvements. In general, the market logic of modernisation and
competition for innovation combined with the market potential of global environmental needs serve as
important driving forces behind ‘ecological modernisation’. In recent times, however, additional factors like
rising energy prices or fears from climate change have favoured the rise of this innovation-based approach to
environmental policy.
The article deals with two special driving forces:
1. First, there is a growing evidence for the importance of ‘smart’ environmental regulation.
2. Secondly, the increasing complex actor constellation of global environmental governance leads to
mounting business risks for polluters and thereby exerts pressure for eco-innovation.
Despite these favourable framework conditions, the strategy of ‘ecological modernisation’ nonetheless faces a
number of inherent limitations. These include the unavailability of marketable technological solutions for
relevant environmental problems like the loss of species, the rebound effect neutralising the incremental
environmental improvements through economic growth (the dilemma of the N-curve) as well as resistance by
‘modernisation losers’. Against this background, structural solutions seem indispensable. Here eco-innovations
should be supported by transition management or ecological structural policy.
Ecological Modernisation: linking ecology and economy
Ecological Modernisation
EM is a technology-based and innovation-oriented approach to environmental policy. It is different from the
purely end-of-pipe approaches in that it encompasses all measures taken to foster eco-innovation and to
support the diffusion of these innovations.
An environmental problem proves to be politically less difficult to resolve if a marketable solution
exists.
A solution to an environmental problem requires an intervention in the established patterns of
production, consumption, or transport, it is likely to meet resistance.
, Modernisation is, in economic terms, the systematic, knowledge-based improvement of production processes
and products.
Two driving forces of Ecological Modernisation
In the long run, the following two influencing factors may reinforce each other:
- The role of ‘smart’ government regulation
- Growing business risks for polluters in the context of multi-level environmental governance
Political modernisation: reinventing government
Environmental innovations have three characteristics:
1. Due to market failure, they need political (or organised societal) support
2. Environmental innovations are an answer to problems that have (or will have in the future) a global
dimension. Therefore, they tend to have global market potential based on global environmental needs
3. The global industrial growth itself creates a demand for environmental innovations since many
natural resources are scarce and the sink capacity of the earth is limited.
Smart regulation
Smart regulation plays an important role in the political competition for environmental innovation and can be
identified as a key driving force behind environmental innovation.
Dimensions of modern environmental governance.
Warner (2010) - Ecological modernisation
theory: towards a critical ecopolitics of
change?
Abstract
The literature on ecological modernisation (EM) is reviewed from a critical political ecology viewpoint. Critical
political ecology is centrally concerned with how change in industrial societies occurs. Does the EM literature
presently offer a theory of ecopolitical change that is both coherent and relevant to the contexts prevailing
today in industrialised countries? Two strands in the EM literature are discussed: the functional and socio-
political accounts of change. From the perspective of critical political ecology, EM thinking does not provide an
ethically or politically coherent argument for more radical change. The possibilities for elaborating a more
nuanced post-EM account of ecopolitical change that incorporates a politics of conflict and an expansion of the
scope of politics itself are evaluated.
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