Green Growth : From Theory to Action, From Practice to Power [1 ed.] 9781443863407, 9781443851428

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Green Growth

Green Growth: From Theory to Action, From Practice to Power

Edited by

Stéphanie Bory and Muriel Cassel-Piccot

Green Growth: From Theory to Action, From Practice to Power, Edited by Stéphanie Bory and Muriel Cassel-Piccot This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Stéphanie Bory, Muriel Cassel-Piccot and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5142-6, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5142-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword .................................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Part I. Green Growth and Literature / Ecocriticism Chapter One ............................................................................................... 13 Blowing Smoke: Theorising a Space from Eco-exceptionalism to Action in Ecocriticism Simon Estok Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29 No Love Lost? American Radical Environmentalists and Sustainable Development: the Example of J. Baird Callicott Jean-Daniel Collomb Part II. Green Growth and Representation / Communication Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 49 Environmental Issues in News and Scientific Discourse Hélène Ledouble and Olivier Gouirand Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 63 Anthropo-scene: The Fictional Treatment of Environmental Issues on British TV Georges Fournier Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 83 From Teaching Environmental Law at University to Practising it in a Firm of Solicitors in England and Wales : Defense of the Interests of the Planet or New Source of Income? Geraldine Gadbin-George

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Part III. Green Growth and Development Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 101 The Green, Green Landscape of Home: Green Initiatives in Yilan, Taiwan Chun Chieh Chi Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 113 Entangled Interests and Unsustainable Developments in Southeast Asian Forests: Anthropological Perspectives on the Stakes and Power Relations between SE Asian States, NGOs, Global Corporations, the Palm Oil Industry and Forest Peoples Ivan Tacey Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 137 Is Economic Growth Sustainable? Michael Edesess Part IV. Green Growth and Energy Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 155 Sustainable Development in Gabonese Forests: From Rhetorics to Concrete Effects Etienne Bourel Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 165 Promoting “Green Electricity” in the European Internal Market: Theory and Practice of European Market Law as regards to Sustainable Development Etienne Durand Part V. Green Growth and Politics Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 185 Consistencies and Contradictions in EU Environment Policy Robert Sherratt Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 207 Climate Change in the UK: Policy and Politics Brendan Prendiville

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Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 239 The Politics of Global Warming in the United States since the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA Ruling (2007) Eliane Liddell Contributors ............................................................................................. 255 Scientific Committee ............................................................................... 259

FOREWORD

Biotech, cleantech, greentech, smartgrids… Le territoire lyonnais est un terreau fertile pour de nombreuses innovations qui relèvent de cette « croissance verte » devenue fameuse depuis quelques années. Sur notre territoire fleurissent les projets technologiques innovants, par exemple autour du génie génétique, de la biologie moléculaire, des véhicules électriques, de la méthanisation des déchets ou de l’éco-conception. Notre nouveau quartier de la Confluence est pour les Lyonnaises et les Lyonnais l’emblème de cette ville du futur, dans laquelle la technologie doit se placer au service du respect de l’environnement. Il témoigne de l’engagement de notre municipalité, auprès d’autres acteurs publics comme privés, au service du développement durable. Mais Lyon est également l’un des foyers historiques où grandit la remise en question d’un modèle social et économique reposant sur la croissance. Toute notre région est régulièrement agitée par différentes luttes contre certains projets jugés inadaptés, voire dangereux. Ici plus qu’ailleurs résonnent les mots « résilience », « sobriété heureuse », « transition énergétique » ou encore « décroissance »… Lyon héberge d’ailleurs le journal du même nom, ainsi qu’une autre revue alternative d’envergure nationale : Silence !, qui partage son local du plateau de la Croix-Rousse avec le siège national de l’ONG « Sortir du nucléaire ». Le nouveau compteur électrique communiquant Linky est déployé ici, à titre expérimental, comme dans trois autres arrondissements lyonnais : plusieurs centaines de foyers en ont refusé l’installation. En descendant cette colline, on traverse un secteur où la mobilisation contre les antennes de téléphonie mobile rassemble régulièrement des collectifs actifs. Si nous traversons ensuite le Rhône pour arriver du côté de la gare de la Part-Dieu, nous voyons les voies de chemin de fer que des opposants ont occupées pour signifier leur refus de la Ligne à Grande Vitesse LyonTurin. Toujours dans le troisième arrondissement, notre tribunal a jugé les militants antinucléaires qui s’étaient introduits illégalement dans la centrale nucléaire du Bugey. À quelques pas du nouveau palais de justice, la Direction Régionale de l’Agriculture de Lyon a été occupée par des faucheurs volontaires d’OGM, lors de leur manifestation nationale contre le maïs Mon 810. Plus au sud, l’Ecole Normale Supérieure devait accueillir le débat national au sujet des nanotechnologies, qui a

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finalement été annulé, en raison des perturbations causées par les opposants les plus virulents. Dans le septième arrondissement toujours, un collectif qui souhaite préserver le stade de Gerland s’oppose à la construction du futur « stade des lumières », avec toutes les infrastructures de transport correspondantes, sur des terres agricoles en périphérie de notre agglomération. Même le quartier des Brotteaux, réputé très feutré, a accueilli en 2009 le deuxième « contregrenelle de l’environnement » organisé par des opposants au « capitalisme vert » venus de toute la France ! Nous sommes donc, entre Rhône et Saône, dans un lieu bien adapté pour mener des débats passionnés et passionnants et faire avancer la connaissance sur ces sujets sensibles, qui dépassent largement le cadre de notre ville et de notre pays. C’est bien ce que nous a proposé l’Université Lyon 3 avec ce colloque international « Croissance verte : de la théorie à la pratique ; du savoir au pouvoir », qui s’est révélé spécialement riche, tant par la qualité des intervenants que par la diversité de leurs travaux. Je souhaiterais mettre en lumière ici rapidement quatre interventions qui ont particulièrement retenu mon attention, car je suis bien convaincue qu’elles donneront envie de découvrir l’ensemble des contributions présentées dans cet ouvrage ; elles permettent en effet de mesurer la largeur du spectre des disciplines concernées par cette thématique de la croissance verte, qu’il s’agisse des champs politique, juridique, économique ou anthropologique. Le travail d’Etienne Bourel sur la gestion forestière durable au Gabon retrace par exemple l’émergence progressive des préoccupations environnementalistes dans l’exploitation forestière, à partir des années 1970. Mais il démontre surtout le mythe de l’entreprise forestière « écoresponsable », mythe que construisent, dans leur communication, les trois entreprises occidentales qui se partagent ce marché si lucratif. Et son article nous montre l’envers des éco-labels distinguant de nombreux bois tropicaux : s’il est indispensable de replanter pour assurer le renouvellement forestier, comme de protéger la flore et la faune, ces actions restent très insuffisantes. Peut-on parler d’attitude « responsable » à propos d’entreprises aux fonctionnements néocoloniaux, activement impliquées dans la corruption publique, exploitant illégalement des travailleurs locaux, au mépris de leur santé et de leur sécurité ? Loin de l’Afrique, le système anglo-saxon, qui nous est bien souvent présenté comme un modèle, ne semble pas non plus constituer un exemple à suivre en matière de développement durable. C’est ce que montre Brendan Prendiville dans son analyse centrée sur la problématique du réchauffement climatique au Royaume-Uni. La prise de conscience de ces

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enjeux a fortement progressé ces dernières années au sein de la population, mais à l’échelle individuelle dominent plutôt fatalisme et sentiment d’impuissance. Et si cette thématique est devenue centrale dans les discours des principaux partis politiques du Royaume-Uni, le passage à l’acte pour traduire cette préoccupation dans la loi et créer des leviers d’action concrète reste extrêmement timide, dans un système économique encore dominé par la recherche du profit à court terme, et un système politique inadapté à la prise en charge de ces nouveaux enjeux. C’est également ce qui ressort de l’analyse de Géraldine George concernant les évolutions du droit de l’environnement au Royaume-Uni. Les formations juridiques concernant les questions environnementales s’y sont énormément développées en quelques années. Ce phénomène s’accompagne d’une hausse des préoccupations environnementales au sein des cabinets juridiques et des études notariales, d’autant plus que ces entreprises y voient des sources d’économies et un gain en matière d’image. Mais les questions environnementales constituent avant tout pour les juristes une nouvelle source de profit : la dégradation des milieux naturels et la complexification des lois nationales et européennes représentent surtout un nouveau marché, qui peut s’avérer très rentable. Au Nord comme au Sud, nous devons écouter les avertissements lancés par Michael Edesess, sur l’importance de distinguer précisément certaines notions clefs, en particulier la croissance économique, la hausse du PIB et le progrès technologique … Son travail nous invite à savoir repérer, interpréter, anticiper et prendre en compte les signaux d’alerte qui manifestent les excès de la croissance économique, mais aussi à envisager que certaines catastrophes liées à notre modèle de développement se révèlent impossibles à prévoir. Comme à chaque fois que nous parlons de croissance, commençons par nous demander ce qui doit croître. Car si le modèle de société que nous développons aujourd’hui sous l’étiquette de la croissance verte ne voit pas progresser la préservation de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles, les droits humains fondamentaux, le droit à la santé et à l’éducation, l’égalité sociale, le partage des connaissances, du pouvoir et des richesses, le bonheur de chacune et chacun, alors il ne s’agira pas d’un progrès véritable, mais hélas, du nouveau visage du mensonge, simplement dissimulé derrière un joli masque vert. Françoise Rivoire, Adjointe au Maire de Lyon en charge du développement durable et de l’économie sociale et solidaire

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On behalf of the municipality’s councillors and myself, I have been delighted to host a one-day event in the Valley of Chamonix Mont-Blanc as part of the symposium entitled Green Growth: from Theory to Practice, from Action to Power. The enlightening encounter between researchers from around the world and practitioners in the field allowed the productive confrontations and exchanges of academic analyses and pragmatic approaches. Specific challenges related to Vallorcine’s location on the Swiss border at an altitude of 1300 metres were discussed notably in relation to the protection of the environment. More precisely because the community with its distinct characteristics has embarked on different pilot projects, the themes debated focused on the impact of global warming on glaciers, the management of water as a precious commodity, the upkeep of forests, and wood as a clean renewable source of energy. My wish is that the fruitful sharing of such perspectives across public and academic sectors become the rule. Claude Piccot Mayor of Vallorcine France

INTRODUCTION

As part of a recent initiative undertaken by Jean Moulin University (Lyon 3) to identify five areas of research deserving priority treatment, the Institute for Transcultural and Transtextual Studies (IETT) organised a multidisciplinary conference on the theme of globalisation, the environment and the challenges of technology from 15 to 17 September 2011. Green Growth: from Theory to Action, from Practice to Power sought to elucidate problems raised by these issues and to provide a forum for critical reflection in the two domains of theory and practice, on the one hand, and action and power, on the other. With the continuing globalisation of technology, debate over environmental issues has become pervasive, shaping thought and action in all sectors of the economy and levels of society. From films such as Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth (2006) or Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home (2009), to shifts in the political landscape, as seen in the increasing number of seats won by Green Parties in European, regional and local elections or the Copenhagen, Cancùn and Durban Climate Change Conferences summits (2009, 2010, 2011) and the Earth Summits in Stockholm and Rio (1972, 1992, 2012), or even more controversial events like the East-Anglia University scandal and Claude Allègre’s writings, questions of environmental policy have moved to the forefront of every public forum. The Green Growth Conference in Lyon brought together academics, socio-economic actors and politicians in order to facilitate exchange and reflection on both ecology as a field of study and environmentalism as a movement. The approach was pluralistic, addressing cultural, social, legal, economic and political issues in a common platform. The first part of this book explores the concept of Green Growth from a theoretical perspective. Both researchers Simon Estok and Jean-Daniel Collomb look at the tensions between theory and practice. The first paper deals with ecocriticism defined by Simon Estok in an article published in 2005 as “any theory that is committed to effecting change by analysing the function–thematic, artistic, social, historical, ideological, theoretical, or otherwise–of the natural environment, or aspects of it, represented in documents (literary or other) that contribute to material practices in

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Introduction

material worlds”1 (Estok, 16-17). In Blowing Smoke: Theorising a Space from Eco-Exceptionalism to Action in Ecocriticism, Simon Estok first reviews the relations between ecocriticism and activism; he then considers praxis in our present time of crises, and studies how it translates “from page to world”; he goes on analysing the tensions between the claims of realism and the contempt for theory within ecocriticism and eventually demonstrates how they are detrimental to ecoactivism. He finally concludes by denouncing the negative impact of institutionalisation on radicalism and eco-exceptionalism. In No Love Lost? American Radical Environmentalists and Sustainable Development: the Example of J. Baird Callicot, Jean-Daniel Collomb focuses on environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott. After reiterating the definition of sustainable development as given in the 1997 Brundtland Report and the origin of environmentalism in the United States, Jean-Daniel Collomb assesses the rejection of sustainable development by radical environmentalism, such as the Deep Ecology movement and ecologist George Sessions. In this context, he examines the concepts of economic growth, materialism and anthropocentrism. He proceeds with J. Baird Callicott’s attempt to revisit the notions and definitions of sustainable development and economics and the influence of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic on Callicott. The latter considers that ecosystem health should prevail over material development and that technological innovation should allow men to adapt their activities to reach the state of health. Jean-Daniel Collomb finally wonders whether Callicot’s vision of ecological sustainability stands any chance of being implemented in an American society deeply committed to consumer culture and facing the non-Western world anxious to adopt the mainstream Western development model. Along with the development and application of scientific theories and inventions, the expansion of eco-critical studies, which address how humans relate to the environment in literature and philosophy and how green growth can translate (or not) from words into actions, has had a social and cultural impact on the everyday lives of citizens. At a time when the world has become “a global village” (Marshall McLuhan), in the age of information technology, men and women have been informed that the very survival of the human species and of the civilisations that they have created is at stake. This situation raises a certain number of questions 1

Estok, Simon. Shakespeare and Ecocriticism: an Analysis of ‘Home’ and ‘Power’ in King Lear, AUMLA, 103.

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that pertain to issues of communication and representation. How has public awareness been affected by media coverage of experts’ findings and wake-up calls? Which visual and verbal discourses have been used? How have they affected and influenced society? Which social interaction have they produced? Which responses to climate change, pollution and the shortage of resources have been brought? Have they induced new social models and new rules? Part II therefore focuses on environmental communication from the perspectives of linguistics, television messages and law education. Hélène Ledouble and Olivier Gouirand aim to study how the meaning of the word “hybrid”, which is originally a scientific term, has been modified through time by its regular use in the press related to environmental issues. Their article, entitled Environmental Issues in News and Scientific Discourse, Diachronic Approach to the Notion of Hybridity, is based on the authoritative publications of the European Environment Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency between 1995 and 2011 and on the newspaper subsection of the Corpus of Contemporary American English from 1990 to 2011. After defining the term “hybrid”, they focus on the linguistic operations expressing the notion. The findings of their quantitative and qualitative analyses point to the ambiguity of the term, its level of specialisation, changes in its meaning, and the notion of green-washing. If Hélène Ledouble and Olivier Gouirand’s paper focuses on verbal language, Georges Fournier’s Anthropo-scene, the Fictional Treatment of Environmental Issues on British TV concentrates on audio-visual communication. After stressing the role of television in the United Kingdom, especially when compared to the United States, Georges Fournier reviews the various types of programmes dealing with ecological issues since the 1970s. He then tackles the problems raised on the one hand by censorship, when the authorities fear disastrous effects on the population, and on the other hand by the principle of impartiality in broadcasting, which guarantees that sensitive issues such as the environment are dealt with evenly. He then goes on showing how, in television environmental films, both fiction and documentary codes, fictional and evidential modes, are inevitably intertwined. His argument leads him to study how fictional representations of ecological issues— notably the IF series—, which are closely linked to the tradition of disaster films, are meant to encourage emotional and intellectual involvement and to raise the population’s awareness. In his last part, the author discusses his observations and interpretations in a wider social and political context.

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Introduction

In her article From Teaching Environmental Law at University to Practising it in a Firm of Solicitors in England and Wales : Defense of the Interests of the Planet or New Source of Income? Geraldine GadbinGeorge examines how current and future lawyers, especially solicitors, in England and Wales get involved in environmental law, as a result of wellknown worldwide organisations and legal principles, and considers their motivations. She first analyses how environmental law is connected to other disciplines, such as science, religion, and obviously business, before describing the development of this legal branch at the British and European levels, both to protect the environment and to fight the elements damaging nature. Geraldine Gadbin-George goes on studying the teaching of environmental law through the examples of some universities that have chosen to offer either trans-disciplinary or specialised diplomas. She eventually argues that the environment has become a new business for law firms not only willing to be present on this developing niche market, but also anxious to be seen by their clients as environmentally-friendly. Not only has scientific thinking brought about new social practices, but it has also had consequences on the marketplace including production dynamics (agribusiness, energy, marketing), and ethical corporate policies (fair trade and business ethics). What are the links between theoretical knowledge and economic power? How do the players in the various industrial and service sectors adapt to this new order? How do they react to such notions as no-growth or sharing economy? In an attempt to partly answer these questions, Part III tackles Green Growth and development, first in different developing countries such as Taiwan and Malaysia, then in a more theoretical approach thanks to Professor Edesess’s article on economics. Professor Chi from National Dong-Hwa University has studied a community living in central Taïwan and in his paper entitled The Green, Green Lanscape of Home attempts to show that green initiatives and sustainable development are possible in a developing country. He indeed reports on concrete alternative programmes led by local authorities that have resisted classical industrialisation and its impact on the environment. Until the 1980s Yilan County in north-east Taiwan was an isolated, sparsely populated region, where economic activities remained limited and the rate of growth slower than elsewhere. At the end of the decade, the county was offered attractive investment proposals, which would bring jobs and wealth. But the county government headed by a non-aligned mayor rejected the offer arguing that they wanted neither to endanger the health of the local population nor to bring misfortune to their descendants.

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Chun Chieh Chi explains why and how people from Yilan County resisted the pressure from big companies. He then discusses how the county has produced a variety of green alternatives to the setting up of a coal plant and of a petrochemical company. He analyses the power struggle between on the one hand the population, local government, NGOs, and associations and on the other hand central government and potential industrial polluters. However, the conclusion tends to paint a mixed picture: although Yilan County has been operating successful revitalisation schemes and as a result can be seen as a green window for other counties, it still has major challenges to respond to such as changes in land use patterns and communication routes. While Chun-Chieh Chi’s paper provides the reader with a rather optimistic vision, raising hopes that economic development can be achieved through Green Growth and without the intervention of major polluting industries, Ivan Tacey, an anthropologist with a deep interest in Southeast Asian, gives us a more pessimistic account. In Transforming Forests into Oil Palm Plantations: the Impacts of Landscape Representations and Global Entanglements on Orang Asli Forest People in Peninsula Malaysia, he starts by explaining why oil palm is the mosttraded oil seed crop in the world in the 21st century and how this industry has reconfigured environments. His study focuses on a particular forestdwelling minority indigenous group of the region, the Batek, whose living conditions and way of life are described in detail. In order to analyse how “‘entanglements’ of actors, representations, discourses and power have (re)created Malaysian landscapes”, he examines how deforestation has hit the tribe and explores the precise consequences it has had on their lives in general (residence, diet, knowledge, conception of the land). Adopting a historical approach, he notably insists on the various problems raised by land, rights and ethnicity. Finally, he points to the dangers caused by logging not only to the environment but also to the Batek people as ecological and scientific representations of forest have rendered them invisible. In Is Economic Growth Sustainable?, Professor Edesess finally studies the fundamental divide existing between mainstream economists and most environmentalists as to whether economic growth can continue forever. His article demonstrates that it is possible for three reasons: first, technological advances could enable growth to continue indefinitely, next the standard measure of the size of the economy—GDP—is defined in such a way that it enables economic growth to continue forever, and last economic growth can be construed as analogous to sustainable evolutionary processes of natural ecosystems.

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Part IV deals with the difficulty to reconcile theory and practice in the energy sector, a key market in 21st century societies, first in forestry, then in green electricity production. In Sustainable Development in Gabonese Forests: from Rhetorics to Concrete Effects, Etienne Bourel examines the gap between the rhetorics defended by forest businesses, especially their will to create a new form of forest management taking into account sustainable development, and their concrete actions in Gabon. After mentioning the 2001 Gabon Forest Code adopted in the context of the Earth Summits in Rio and Johannesburg, the author analyses the different actors involved in this new “forest governance”, most of them being concentrated in the capital. They are thus out of touch with local activities and rules, which entails Etienne Bourel to focus on three major ecocertified companies, left alone to implement the principles defined in this governance. He studies their websites, highlighting the discrepancy between the pictures and mottos used on the Internet and the companies’ actual activities, which he refers to as “the myth of eco-friendly companies”. Etienne Bourel finally points out the human, financial and technical obstacles faced by small contractors to abide by the law and to retain their workers. He concludes by asserting that imperialism still prevails. In the second article, Promoting ‘Green Electricity’ in the European Internal Market, Etienne Durand considers the conditions of the complex reconciliation between the promotion of green energy, an unprofitable sector, and the core principles of the European internal markets, especially the ban on state aids, by dividing his study into two parts. He first examines what he calls “the top down approach”: the erasing of the internal market, which regards electricity as “merchandise”, despite its intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics, while admitting though its “specialness”. The author analyses the tools used by European Member States to promote green electricity, judging whether they respect the ban on state aids as well as competition rules. Etienne Durand then studies the “bottom up approach”: the use of market law as a way to promote renewable energies. He asserts the necessity to redefine electricity and its production in order to clearly separate the two concepts. Indeed, only the latter should be supported by Member States. He concludes by calling for the recognition of green energy production as a universal environmental service, as already ruled by the European Court of Human Rights and stated by some European directives. If free market ecology is really a viable option, then Green Growth can only take place with the help of public institutions and the State. But how

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would sustainable development fit into this new "eco-economic" order (to borrow an expression from Luc Ferry’s New Ecological Order)? How does it serve political power? To what extent is the green cause instrumental in promoting specific interests? Clearly the ideological, political, geopolitical, urban, legal, and philosophical stakes (green vote, partisanship, north/south divide, migrations, urban policies, legal protection and judicial protection) could not be higher. Part V thus tackles Green Growth and politics, first in Europe, then in the United Kingdom and finally in the United States. As an expert in European affairs, Robert Sherratt aims to assess the role of the European Union as today’s world leader in global environmental governance. In Consistencies and Contradictions in EU Environment Policy, he shows how enacting the most ambitious green policies is a complex objective, the coherence of which can be equivocal. Tracing the origins of European environment policy back to the 1970s, Robert Sherratt first points to its weaknesses, which lie in reconciling opposite forces: green policies and economic growth, regulations and competitiveness, public opinion and industrial lobbies, farming communities and ecologists, the diverging interests of the various member states, and finally the different stands and approaches of the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, and the European Commission. Furthermore he highlights the Union’s difficulty in dealing with green issues with respect to its ambiguous positions as a representative body, a sui generis structure, a legitimate negotiating partner, and a rule enforcer. Despite these major constraints, the author evaluates the green achievements of the European Union, insisting on its role as a powerful progressive player in the field of climate change and the reader is provided with a detailed analysis of the programmes and agreements that have been ratified. The reasons for the major advances that have been made are then explained and their impact on the Union’s credibility, legitimacy, and image at both national and global levels is explored. However being a leader in environment policy is a complex task, which sometimes leads to contractions because of multiple expectations, overambitious targets, and perverse side effects as in the case of biofuels and fisheries. Robert Sherratt concludes on the delicate balancing act of ensuring the protection of the environment in times of crisis. If the European Union is an international leader in green politics at the global level, one of its members, the UK also stands out for its position on the issue. In Climate Change in the UK. Policy and Politics, Brendan Prendiville focuses on climate change as a social and political problem, by first reviewing the state of climate change in Britain and the public’s

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reaction to the shifts in weather patterns, what he calls “Climate knowledge and climate awareness”. He deems it necessary to briefly remind readers of the changes in the British climate over the last decades, dealing with warming, sea levels, rainfall and wildlife’s adaptation to these changes. Even if Britain has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions, especially when compared to many other European countries, Brendan Prendiville underlines the fact that the situation is not so bright. Indeed the overall decline in GHG emissions conceals a rise in the transport sector and is due to accounting methodology rather than any national effort to curb them. His survey reveals an increased awareness on climate change in public opinion, as illustrated by the trend towards cutting domestic energy use and adopting greener modes of transport. Secondly, he studies the climate change policies of successive governments since 1997 and the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, with a view to assessing the obstacles to the formulation and implementation of this policy. Brendan Prendiville focuses on the early Blair administration, with the creation of the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the increasing use of eco-taxes, and the Brown government, following the publication of the Stern report in 2006 and the Conservative new leader’s interests for the environment. He ends with analysing the start of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, “the greenest government ever” in David Cameron’s own words. Brendan Prendiville finally considers the politics of climate change with particular emphasis on the question of leadership. He highlights how much climate change policy needs a longterm vision, thus very decisive leadership, to overrule the reluctance of the British Treasury to support public investment and regulation, which, in his opinion, neither Blair nor Cameron have been able to embody. The last article, The Politics of Global Warming in the United States since the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA ruling (2007), by Eliane Liddell, first exposes the American paradox since the US, a country prone to extreme weather events, has always been in the lead concerning climate science and sounding the alarm, whereas national climate legislation is almost non-existent. In her article, she reviews the chain of events starting from the ruling of the Supreme Court in 2007, Massachusetts v. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), considered a landmark decision, until the present state of disarray in order to study whether the American judicial branch could push Congress to address climate change. Eliane Liddell thus presents in detail the 2007 decision which incidentally reinforced the role of the states in combating global warming. The arguments introduced in the Opinion of the Court were based on neutral scientific evidence and the break away from the usual

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moral complacency. She then considers the election of Barack Obama in 2008 as a turning-point since the latter seemed willing to introduce climate change regulation. He yet had to face the strong opposition of the business community and the cap-and-trade climate bill adopted in 2009 by the House of Representatives was never voted in the Senate. Two years later, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives decided to halt the EPA programme regulating industrial air emissions, which President Obama threatened to veto. EPA’s role was eventually reaffirmed in American Electric Power v. Connecticut. Eliane Liddell finally focuses on possible solutions to such a deadlock, including the bottom-up approach, i.e. local and state actions, the use by the president of his authority in the media to force Congress into action, or, last but not least, the power and influence of the judicial branch with appointed-for-life independent federal judges, as well as civil rights action. She concludes by comparing the fight against climate change to the struggle for civil rights, a long battle initiated by a now famous Supreme Court ruling. The last day of the conference was devoted to meeting glaciologists, politicians, and civil society actors and the encounter led to fruitful discussions and debates. As organisers of the symposium and editors of this book, we want to thank all the people who contributed to the event and publication. Because much interest was generated and many questions were raised, a follow-up programme will be carried out. Stéphanie BORY Muriel CASSEL-PICCOT

PART I. GREEN GROWTH AND LITERATURE / ECOCRITICISM

CHAPTER ONE BLOWING SMOKE: THEORIZING A SPACE FROM ECOEXCEPTIONALISM TO ACTION IN ECOCRITICISM SIMON C. ESTOK ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ASLE-KOREA INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OFFICER DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY, SEOUL

The boom ecocriticism has enjoyed since its inception in the mid1990s, like all other booms, is unsustainable in its current mode. One of the things that need to happen is a change in the way that academics think in relation to the world upon which they comment. One does not want to be a nay-sayer, a pessimist, or a cynic, and, indeed, ecocriticism has done remarkable and good work; at the same time, however, if this good work is to continue, ecocritics will need to address the personal as well as the political, will need to assess how our individual involvement within the profession contributes to the very things under discussion, will need to look, for instance, at the sexism that underpins so much of our work, will need to act on the unsustainable practices of inter-continental flights (and all of the justifications we use for these flights: “it is important to connect with people face-to-face,” “it is important to deliver our ideas as broadly as possible,” “Skype meetings and web-conferencing aren’t the same as the real thing,” and so on), and will need to be far more conscientious. In short, for those of us working within the environmental humanities, we will need to stop kidding ourselves about our exemptions. We will need to stop practicing eco-exceptionalism. And we will need to recognize that the cards are stacked heavily against us in this task.

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When Timothy Morton argues in PMLA (March 2010) that “Much American ecocriticism is a vector for various masculinity memes, including rugged individualism, a phallic authoritarian sublime, and an allergy to femininity in all its forms (as sheer appearance, as the signifier, as display)” (Morton 2010, 274), it seems shocking. After all, ecocriticism has its roots in the soils of ecofeminism. These are struggles fought and won. Ecofeminism has come and gone. We’ve been there, bought that tee-shirt, and finished with it. None of us want to hear that we haven’t. The sober reality, however, is indeed shocking, and, as Greta Gaard has recently pointed out in “Ecofeminism Revisited,” ecofeminist (and indeed feminist) positions are at risk of erasure now. Even progressive publications self-consciously aware of the necessity for feminist, activist, anti-racist, and anti-essentialist positions are increasingly in danger, if Jodey Castricano’s “Introduction” to An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World: Animal Subjects is any indication. Here we find the right hand not seeing what the left is doing, one paragraph talking unproblematically about “calling into question the boundaries that divide the animal kingdom from humanity” (Castricano 2008, 1-2), and the very next claiming to support “critiques of racism, sexism(s) and classism” (2). That support seems dubious with the notion of an “animal kingdom” patterning the writer’s perceptions. Kingdom?!! What will it take to break the hold that sexism has, a hold that restricts our imagination and perceptions? And what are the effects of gendering nature in this way? And if sexism implies a certain ethical position about women, what ethical position does gendering nature imply? And what does that position say about space? What does sexism imply about the social production of space? A patriarchy has everything to gain from keeping intact sexist ontologies that determine the production of space. There is money involved, and in these difficult times, no one wants to lose money; yet, changing any system is going to cost. The changes we need in environmental ethics are also going to cost, and the resistance is, in this sense, not (or should not be) surprising. It is fierce resistance from moneyed positions, and it is a pattern of resistance with which we are all very familiar—think about the tobacco industry. The environmentalist movement shares many things with the antismoking movement. It is hindered by mammoth companies (most notably oil companies, meat production companies, and agriculture companies) that benefit from unsustainable lifestyles. Hired researchers blow smoke in our eyes about the causes of climate change and environmental degradation being outside of our influence, no less than tobacco companies have blown smoke in people’s eyes about how smoking was not the cause of cancer,

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was not harmful, and was actually beneficial in many ways (“Watch your nerves . . . let up—light a Camel,” a cigarette advertisement ran in the 1930s), having spent years and years and billions of dollars in the process. In North America, fifty percent of the men and thirty-three percent of the women smoked in the year that I was born; eventually, however, people did finally get it that tobacco was lethal. It took various kinds of legislation against smoking, which many people saw as an infringement on personal liberty. It took appeals to emotion, to reason, and to financial sensibility. It took a broad-based change in ethics. It took sacrifices. It took years. And when the tobacco industry was thriving, no one would have thought it possible or ethically defensible to bring these behemoths down. Many people would have lost work, and, anyway, there was little felt need for shutting down these businesses. We flatter ourselves as academics on our abilities to produce and dispense knowledge, as if this were enough. Knowledge, in itself, however, simply isn’t enough to cause change. The average smoker is testament to this. If those behemoths that seemed so unassailable have been overwhelmed to some degree, then it was through an enormous amount of effort, not simply through the dissemination of knowledge. If knowledge were enough to cause change, then we’d have problems explaining the average air passenger, or driver of a car, or meat eater— indeed, my presence at the conference that spawned the collection of which this essay is a part. The question is simple: what will it take to cause change? The answer is disturbing. As with movements against tobacco industries, it will take various kinds of legislation against things that we like doing, which many people will see as an infringement on personal liberty. It will take appeals to emotion, to reason, and to financial sensibility. It will take a broad-based change in ethics. It will take sacrifices. It will take years. We may not have as many years as we need, yet there is good reason to continue to hope. Deep ethical rumblings under ecocritical soils are afoot. Some of these rumblings have been in the area of material ecocriticism and theories about corporeality. Stacy Alaimo recently commented (citing in the process Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III) that “If the predominant understanding of environmental ethics has been that of a circle that has expanded in such a way as to grant ‘moral consideration to animals, to plants, to [nonhuman] species, even to ecosystems and the Earth’ [Light and Rolston 7], trans-corporeality denies the human subject the sovereign, central position” (Alaimo 2010, 16). We can take this to the next logical step and argue that if capacities for agency prove not to be the sole

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privilege of the cogito, then, changing our relationships with the material world is probably a good idea. Yet, we have never really seen it in our best interests to rock the boat, to change our environmental ethics, since these have served us so well1—except, of course, when we consider that our environmental ethics are toxic, acidic, and very nasty, that those environmental ethics have burned a giant hole in the boat we are wanting not to rock, and that we’re going down fast. We take agency outside of ourselves as threats. It is precisely these nonhuman agentic forces that determine so very much of our environmental ethics: the felt or imagined material effects of these forces, the felt or imagined material threats, the felt or imagined challenges to our existence (and forget the obverse side, for a moment: the good, the sustenance, the pleasure, and so on that the material world offers), the felt dangers of material agencies beyond us simply don’t fit into any friendly epistemological familial mesh we may design, and history speaks to this: we have a history of what Freud called “the will to mastery, or the will to power” (Freud 1920, 418), a history of hostility to agentic forces outside of ourselves, variously articulated as a will to live, as a pleasure principle, as ecophobia. In order to talk meaningfully about material ecocriticisms, at this point, we obviously need to say a few words about ecophobia and what it is (which I will do shortly below). Indeed, as the CFP Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann for Material Ecocriticism (Iovino and Oppermann 2011) put it: In regard to a highly technologized posthuman world, this [material approaches to ecocriticism] also implies rediscussing the boundaries between human and more than human world. Ecocriticism, in such a context, can also enable us to formulate effective responses to the vexing question of ecophobia in all its forms: the irrational fear of the natural world and its entities, and groundless hatred for the unpredictable climactic and natural patterns around us (for instance, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, flooding, hurricanes), as well as anxiety produced by doomsday scenarios.

There it is: ecophobia. Indeed—and I couldn’t have put it better myself—theorizing ecophobia seems both as a precondition and forebear 1

Similarly, sexism basically benefits men—small wonder, then, that feminism did not begin with men, since men clearly did not see it in their best interests to stop being exploitative. Indeed, those who benefit most from any oppressive and exploitative system are uninclined to rock the boat.

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of serious “material ecocriticism.” But what exactly is ecophobia: how can we define it? Ecocriticism needs a very broad scope for the term ecophobia. Clinical psychology uses the same term to designate an irrational fear of home; in ecocriticism, the term is independent of and in no way derived from the manner in which it is used in psychology and psychiatry. Broadly speaking, we may define ecophobia as an irrational and groundless fear or hatred of the natural world, as present and subtle in our daily lives and literature as homophobia and racism and sexism. It plays out in many spheres; it sustains the personal hygiene and cosmetics industries (which cite nature’s “flaws” and “blemishes” as objects of their work); it supports city sanitation boards that issue fines seeking to keep out “pests” and “vermin” associated in municipal mentalities with long grass; it keeps beauticians and barbers in business; it is behind landscaped gardens and trimmed poodles in women’s handbags on the Seoul subway system; it is about power and control; it is what makes looting and plundering of animal and nonanimal resources possible. Self-starvation and selfmutilation imply ecophobia no less than lynching implies racism. If ecocriticism is committed to making connections, then it is committed to recognizing that control of the natural environment, understood as a Godgiven right in Western culture, implies ecophobia, just as the use of African slaves implies racism, as rape implies misogyny, as “fag-bashing” implies homophobia, and as animal exploitation implies speciesism. Theorizing ecophobia does not mean offering a new perspective, one that ecocritics have somehow missed; of course, ecocritics have long theorized on matters of anthropocentrism. While the contempt and fear we call ecophobia does not represent the sole trait that characterizes our relationship with the natural world, it is as yet a remarkably unattended one. Its opposite would, to some extent, be the biophilia Edward O. Wilson defines as “the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms” (Wilson 1993, 31). Certainly Scott Slovic is accurate to note that “ecocriticism is actually motivated by biophilia” (Personal correspondence, “Re: LIKELY SPAM” 16 September 2008). Admittedly, biophilia indeed seems to be the motivation but not the object of ecocritical inquiry. The object of such inquiry certainly must centrally include ecophobia and how it patterns our relationship with nature. We can clearly see that ecophobia is winning out over biophilia. The “rapid disappearance” (Wilson 1993, 40) of species of which Wilson speaks so eloquently and persuasively has a cause: it is ecophobia, surely, not biophilia. Theorizing ecophobia does not dismiss but rather builds on that history, offering a vocabulary that is new, a vocabulary for conceptualizing

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something we do (and have been doing for a long time) and for which we haven’t had appropriate descriptive or theoretical words. Ecophobia is, among other things, the fear of material agencies outside of ourselves within the natural world. Indeed, these very agencies are often the imagined site and source of tragedy. If material agencies (human and nonhuman) outside of the suffering individual are the source of tragedy, and if tragedy then presumes a revulsion for uncontrolled and uncontrollable agencies, for agencies that disrupt orders presumed inviolable, and for anything that advocates against humanism, then addressing human exceptionalism is vitally necessary. Within literary studies, the results are unusual and unexpected. One of the things that become very clear is that anxieties about human puniness and mortality inhere in the genre of tragedy. Such is certainly a position with which Terry Eagleton would seem to agree: “Perhaps the form satisfies our desire for immortality, leading us to a sense of being indestructible as long as this magnificent poetry pulses on,” Eagleton suggests in his comments on Shakespeare’s King Lear (Eagleton 2003, 26). This anxiety about natural cycles and contempt for its constituent parts (death being one of them) resonates deeply in tragedy; Stephen Greenblatt, however, might respond: “But nothing—from our own species to the planet on which we live to the sun that lights our days—lasts forever. Only atoms are immortal” (Greenblatt 2011, 6)2. It is these atoms that have recently caught the eye of ecocritics. The current theorizing in quantum physics marks a radical—indeed, paradigmatic—break, in some ways, from previous notions about the material world, how we relate with it, and how it relates with our bodies. A comparable event was in the early modern period with anatomies. The revolutionary break with the pre-modern, the ancient, and the classical— initiated by Andreas Vesalius—is a pivotal re-defining in Europe with relationships toward the body, among people, and with nature at large. It is a pivotal move toward the Enlightenment with a collapsing of certainties in the old hierarchies that organized previous ways of thinking, a collapse that heralded enormous new regimes of control over Nature. The image that the period inherited of nature, noted environmental historian Carolyn 2

If longings for immortality are rejections of the body and the agential realities of the material processes of life, no less than anorexia nervosa is a rejection of the body and its material agencies and needs, then it is entirely fitting to see this all for what it is: ecophobia. No one would balk at calling the denial of women the right to vote sexism or the denial of LGBT people the right to teach in elementary schools homophobia, so recognizing the rejection of the body as ecophobic is hardly provocative.

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Merchant observes, “was that of a disorderly and chaotic realm to be subdued and controlled” (Merchant 1990, 127), and with the advent of science, it became mandatory to re-write the hierarchies in a different discourse and through a different paradigm, to extend control, deepen exploitation, and normalize power relations.3 At the same time that we have a real drive in science to seeing how systems work, we also have an equally strong pull toward anatomies and anatomization, and what is particularly noteworthy at this juncture is that between anatomies and atoms (and the attendant theories of each), there is at least one point of intersection: a focus on the body4. While pain is obviously the essence of embodiment,5 scant attention has been focused within ecocritical circles on theorizing the placement and displacement of pain as constitutive of our ontological and material boundaries and realities (and the processes sustaining them). Judith Butler proposed in 1993 “a return to the notion of matter, not as site or surface, but as a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter” (Butler 1993, 9, emphasis added). Assuming that Butler is not talking in vague abstractions about matter but is concerned about how matter relates with humanity, then part of this process of materialization must involve discussions of pain. Fear of pain determines how we organize materials, both conceptually and physically. Fear of pain makes us value materials differentially. Fear of (or at least the desire to avoid) pain unseats us from our privileged place: we avoid pain no less than do nonhuman animals. We tend to forget—would like to forget—this bond. We tend to forget—would like to forget—many inconvenient truths. We tend to believe—would like to believe—that the ontological realities outside of us are somehow not personal, that we are somehow not part of and not in discourse with them. We tend to forget—would like to forget— that our conjugal relationships with toxic lifestyles and practices are here, among us, the readers and the contributors to this collection. Our 3 One of the developments, of course, was classical Newtonian physics. Agency in quantum physics and agency in classical physics are two very different things. 4 The word “atom” (a—not, tomos—cutting) does not come from “anatomy” (ana—up + tomos—cutting), though they share a common parent (tomos— cutting). 5 There is little perhaps more central to our own process of (or at least imagined participation in) materialization than experiences of pain, experiences that bestow visibility and structure on the force and status of corporeal facts (see Scarry 1985, 27 & 62). At the same time, there is nothing more threatening to this materialization than death.

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participation in toxic lifestyles, our enmeshment with matters of death, pain, and suffering, is something that we would like to have ethical exception from, this, what I have called toxicity amnesia and ecoexceptionalism, and we do a pretty good job of falling into both. We do a pretty good job of falling into a sense of toxicity amnesia and ecoexceptionalism because we’ve created regimes of displacement that allow us distance from matter. Perhaps we have become so blinded by the enormity of what we do, the theft without compensation, the wholesale robbery on an enormous scale, the aggravated violence and torture, the colossal profit we take from the world,6 that we have simply lost perspective on our capacities. Cormac McCarthy’s Anton Chigurh comes to mind. Psychopath or not, it seems that he has it right in saying that: The prospect of outsized profits leads people to exaggerate their own capacities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not. (McCarthy 2007, 253)

They are we, and we’ve become stupid. We over-estimate our abilities, as David Ehrenfeld so poignantly explains: Now, when the suspicion of limits has become certainty, the great bulk of educated people still believe that there is no trap we cannot puzzle our way out of as surely and noisily as we blundered into it. Visions of utopia still jostle one another in the tainted air, and every fresh disaster is met with fresh plans of power and still more power. (12)

We have become stupid. It is no exaggeration for Pete Postlethwaite to say that we are living in the Age of Stupid. Within the environmental humanities, ecocriticism has always fancied itself “activist,” but what this means has remained problematical. From Lawrence Buell claiming that ecocriticism must work “from commitments deeper than professionalism” (Buell 2005, 97) to Michael Cohen insisting that it “must be engaged . . . [and] needs to inform personal and political actions” (Cohen 2004, 7); from David Mazel seeking “empirical research” to prove that ecocritical pedagogy produces “more thoughtful and effective 6

I write intentionally mimicking Conrad’s description of colonial racism because seeing and theorizing connections (such as we find between racism and ecophobia, or between homophobia and ecophobia, or between misogyny and ecophobia) is a vast business. Ecophobia is a big thing. Ecophobia is a spectrum condition. No less are sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, and speciesism. We all stand somewhere in these spectra, and it is good if we see where we stand. Then we can act.

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environmentalists” (Mazel 2008, 42) to David Orton seeing the need “to have some direct relevancy,” praxis has been front-and-center of ecocritical concerns. In this sense, ecocriticism has set itself up for a fall, promising something it has not yet delivered: an ability to cause material change in the world, to move from theory to practice. One of the problems, clearly, must be in defining what it is that practice actually means. Does what we are doing—say, as ecocritics or environmentally concerned scholars—mean that in principle we shun unnecessary flights, and, if so, what is necessary? Does it mean that we shun meat, or driving, or plastic, and what does that mean or not mean? “I began with the desire to speak with the dead.” Thus spoke Stephen Greenblatt in the opening moves of what was to initiate New Historicism (Greenblatt 1980, 1). I begin with a slightly different set of concerns: I begin with a desire to speak with the living and all that this implies. Ecocritics are by no means in agreement on the matter of activism. Greg Garrard’s recent posting of his non-peer reviewed “The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory” for 2009 speaks directly to what he calls ecocriticism’s “hectoring about ‘activism.’” He is responding in part to an article that calls for expanding the conceptual basis of ecocriticism to include discussion of ecophobia, an article which sought to theorize possibilities for activist engagement by offering the term “ecophobia” as a starting point—as feminist theory has a term to describe hatred of women, as postcolonial theory has a term to describe hatred of racial difference, as queer theory has a term to describe hatred of sexual minorities . . . nothing radical here. Indeed, such a term for the contempt and subsequent ethical positions toward the natural environment were, by 2009, long overdue. From theorizing about ecophobia, it is plausible to look at non-monolithic ways of proceeding toward action from theory, to look at what vistas even something so simple as a terminology might enable. Recent border defying work takes down the walls and borders that have ossified between ecocriticism and ecofeminism, and it is borderdefying work that both investigates and challenges the knee-jerk reactions to the very mention of “ecofeminism” that often characterize ecocriticism. My guess is that the “belligerent attitude towards critical theory” about which John Parham has so eloquently spoken will not serve us well in the long-run. One of the problems ecocriticism is facing is, in fact, its own success. Ecocriticism is making history in many senses, but it is troublingly appropriating its histories in its writing of itself. Ecocritical histories that ignore the feminist roots of the movement, as we have seen, not only produce dishonest scholarship but also produce substantially compromised

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and diminished capacities for ecocriticism. The affective ethics in the feminist environmental humanities is in some ways incompatible with what goes on when ecocriticism goes mainstream. So eager have we been to consolidate the field that we have not noticed how much of its history we have been erasing. To be blunt, we have already begun to see the omissions, misrepresentations, gendered amnesia, hysterical resistance to theory, and dull torpor of intellectual deterioration and retreat that comes at times to characterize our field when it ignores the theory and practice of feminism. To be blunt, we have already begun to see the threats of violent resistance (a threatening 2009 article in ISLE by wolf scholar Kip Robisch is a good case in point) that have appeared in response to theorizing about connections among environmental domination, homophobia, sexism, and heterosexism. To be blunt, we have already seen the initial stream of promise and hope that bore ecocriticism so high and fast run low and dry. Even so, good and sometimes theoretically sophisticated work is being done (indeed, much). Ecocritical theory ideally conceptualizes a form of ideological critique that is alive both to historicist and presentist concerns (which is important for praxis). Traditionally, ecocriticism has spurned theory. Many ecocritical scholars have been very clear indeed about their disdain for theory, their desire to “get on with it,” scholars who see “making contact” (book titles such as Coming into Contact: Explorations in Ecocritical Theory and Practice reflect this desire for contact) as vital, who see an urgency of the here and now (The Fifth Biennial Conference of ASLE— the 2003 conference entitled "the solid earth! the actual world!"—springs to mind) and a “resurgence of the real” (the phrase “resurgence of the real” comes from the title of Charlene Spretnak’s 1999 book) scholars who wish to avoid “wrangling over what it means” (Buell 2005, 3) to do ecocriticism, who fantasize about “escaping from the esoteric abstractness that afflicts current theorizing about literature” (Kroeber 1994, 1), and who want to remain free from the "post-structuralist nihilism" (236) Glen Love fears. John Tallmadge and the late Henry Harrington very succinctly warn about theory that goes “spinning off into obscurantism or idiosyncrasy" (xv), while Lawrence Buell worries about what he terms "mesmerization by literary theory" (Buell 1995, 111). This disdain for theory seemed to come to a head with Kip Robisch’s attack on an article about ecophobia three years ago, an article that really had an effect opposite to its clearly stated desire. Instead of driving eco-scholars away from theory, it pushed them toward it—and this, I think, is a good thing. The reason it is a good thing is that there are many things that are simply not visible without the theory. Theory has a way sometimes of making things apparent.

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Moreover, although there has been a conflict developing among ecocritics, theorizing ecophobia may very well in fact lead to confluent theorizing and thus toward the kinds of methodological and structural definition some ecocritics seek. Much of the very good theoretical work that has been done in the field began not in theory but with poetry. In the provocatively entitled 2009 book Can Poetry Save the Earth, John Felstiner talks about the “urgent hope” that characterizes much of what has come to be known as “nature poetry.” The imagined or perceived proximity and access of poetry both to the senses and to the real is among the main bases of the thrust behind the new ecological sensibility within the literary humanities that has come to be known as ecocriticism. While it is dubious whether or not we can compelling argue that poetry can save the earth, but it does seem safe to proceed on the assumption that, as Bill McKibben comments in a review on the backflap, while “It may not save the earth . . . it will surely help.” Yet, if it all began with poetry in ecocriticism, we have certainly moved well beyond it now in the kinds of theory that we see. 2010 was a phenomenal year for ecocriticism, in some senses. It was the year that ISLE, the flagship journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), ran a special issue on ecocriticism and theory (though the division itself is problematical, reinforcing the idea that there is ecocriticism on the one hand and theory on the other—it is a false dichotomy). It was a lovely gesture, especially after so many years of mainstream ecocritical resistance to theory—even so, gestures do not save trees. It was 2010 that also saw the publication of books such as Stacy Alaimo’s Bodily Natures, David Abram’s Becoming Animal, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost’s New Materialisms, and Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter, each in their own way testifying to the growing importance of seeing interconnections among the material bodies of our world. Indeed, as Oppermann and Iovino put it in the Material Ecocriticism CFP, “the material dealing with inhabitation on Earth, in its plural entanglements of bodies and natures, has become increasingly important in ecocritical studies.” This is a key question not only of ecocriticism but indeed of all theory: indeed, how do we translate theory into practice? It is an especially vexing question for literary theorists. University of Central Florida professor Patrick Murphy, who has written many books on ecocritical theory, has commented that “Those of us engaged in teaching and critiquing literature who intend to encourage social transformation need to provide models and sources that seem flexibly realizable by many, rather than by only a few of

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our students” (Murphy 2009, 19). The question is . . . how? Ecocritics have been struggling with this for fifteen years now. And in all that time, we’ve offered a variety of evasive and exceptionalist answers, arguing for our need to attend conferences and about the “trickle-down” approach, and so on. If 2010 was a phenomenal year for taking ecocriticism closer to praxis, then what makes it more so is the special issue the journal Configurations ran on ecocriticism and science, a special issue shows that the dialogue between the humanities and the sciences (a key concern of people such as W. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, and many others) is much more imminent than we think. If, as Richard Kerridge so eloquently puts it, the present crises we face are “the preoccupation that is the starting-point” (Kerridge 2011, 208) of what we do as ecocritics, then this dialogue between the humanities and the science is vital. It becomes very significant in light of Scott Slovic and Terre Satterfield’s What’s Nature Worth? – Narrative Expressions of Environmental Values, a book that looks at the relationship between how literature might affect policy and decisions governments make about the natural world. One of its central purposes “is to find a way to bring the concept of ‘narrative expressions of value’ into the realm of stakeholder discussions of value and policy” (Slovic and Satterfield 2004, 2-3). A collection of interviews with twelve prominent environmental writers, this book investigates the relationship between moral conviction and emotional attachment on the one hand and market pricing on the other. This book identifies both the strengths and weaknesses of narrative as a vehicle for the expression of value. For example, as Satterfield comments in the interview with Terry Tempest Williams, “ambiguity isn’t a very comfortable premise” for the research world, and “decision makers want to know clearly, and with some stability, what people think” (Satterfield 2004, 71), yet there is wisdom and effectiveness, as both editors note, in “presenting technical information in narrative form” (Slovic and Satterfield 2004, 22). This is, perhaps, the primary contradiction of narrative. It works because, as William Kittredge explains during his interview, it “helps readers [and listeners] to internalize values, making them their own, emotionally, as necessary to life rather than simply interesting or distracting, as platforms from which to act” (25). It does not, however, seem to make much of a difference in the world of people like Bush, and we cannot really quantify what narrative does in terms of how value translates into policy. President Clinton brandishing a copy of Testimony with the announcement that “This made a difference” (62) is certainly an exception. Most narrative does not work quite so directly, and

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many writers and story-tellers who are serious about making a difference probably cannot help but feeling some of the “eco-despair” Scott Slovic mentions in his Foreword to The Greening of Literary Scholarship and to wonder as Alison Hawthorne Deming does in What’s Nature Worth?, “what good is a poem or an essay when nature is dying and we are to blame?” (Hawthorne Deming 2004, 117). My guess, and it is a wildly optimistic one, is that Alison Hawthorne Deming is correct in pointing out that: Legislation, information, and instruction cannot effect change at [the] emotional level—though they can play a significant role. Art is necessary because it gives us a new way of thinking and speaking, shows us what we are and what we have been blind to, and gives us new knowledge and forms in which to see ourselves. (122)

Perhaps a few final words on the need for us to continue doing some of what we do are in order here. Nature writer David Quammen wrote an email to Scott Slovic in 1998, a part of which read as follows: . . . a writer who wants to influence how humans interact with landscape and nature should strive to reach as large an audience as possible and NOT preach to the converted. That means, for me, flavoring my work with entertainment-value, wrapping my convictions subversively within packages that might amuse and engage a large unconverted audience, and placing my work whenever possible in publications that reach the great unwashed. (Quammen qtd in Slovic, 2002, viii)

We need to continue our work, not with the naïve assumption that “spreading the word” justifies our flights here, as though the unmeasurable good we can potentially do from such travel exempts us from the clearly measurable bad that we do do. We need to be honest about how we participate. Unsustainable living is unsustainable, and whether it is fashionable (as the spate of films and best-selling books on climate change and environmental crisis seems to suggest it is) or whether it is unfashionable (fashion changes), we cannot let up. Fighting the businesses that benefit from unsustainable practices is a long and hard one. In spite of this, as with tobacco, eventually people are finally getting it that unsustainable living is lethal. The promise of the spate of films and bestselling books on climate change and environmental crisis that have appeared over the past several years has been and is being betrayed and clouded—and what we can do about it, and how we can blow the smoke away begins here, now.

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References Abram, David. 2010. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Pantheon. Print. Alaimo, Stacy. 2010. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana U P. Print. Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke. Print. Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Print. —. 2005. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Oxford: Blackwell. Print. Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York and London: Routledge. Print. Castricano, Jodey. 2008. “Introduction: Animal Subjects in a Posthuman World”. Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World. Ed. Jodey Castricano. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier UP: 1-32. Print. Cohen, Michael. January 2004. “Blues in the Green: Ecocriticism Under Critique”. Environmental History 9.1: 9-36. Print. Coole, Diana and Samatha Frost, Eds. 2010. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham and London, Duke UP. Print. Eagleton, Terry. 2003. Sweet Violence: the Idea of the Tragic. Oxford: Blackwell. Print. Ehrenfeld, David. 1978. The Arrogance of Humanism. OUP: Oxford and New York. Print. Felstiner, John. 2010. Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems. New Haven, CT: Yale UP. Print. Freud, Sigmund. 1920. “The Economic Problem of Masochism”. On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis. The Pelican Freud Library, Volume 11. London: Penguin: 409-26. Print. Gaard, Greta. Summer 2011. “Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism”. Feminist Formations 23. 2: 26–53. Print. Garrard, Greg. 2011. “Ecocriticism”. The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 19: 46-82. Print. Greenblatt, Stephen. 1980. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P. Print. —. 2011. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York and London: Norton. Print.

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Iovino, Serenella and Serpil Oppermann. June 15, 2011. “CFP: Material Ecocriticism.” Email to the author from Oppermann. Np. E-mail. Kerridge, Richard. 2011. “An Ecocritic’s Macbeth”. Ecocritical Shakespeare. Eds. Lynne Bruckner and Dan Brayton. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 193-210. Print. Kroeber, Karl. 1994. Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind. New York: Columbia UP. Print. Love, Glen A. 1996. “Revaluing Nature: Toward an Ecological Criticism.” The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Eds. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens and London: U of Georgia P: 225-40. Print. Mazel, David, 2008. “Ecocriticism as Praxis.” Teaching North American Environmental Literature Edited by Laird Christensen, Mark C. Long and Fred Waage. New York: MLA: 37-43. Print. McCarthy, Cormac. 2007. No Country for Old Men. New York: Vintage. Print. Merchant, Carolyn. 1990. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. New York: HarperCollins. Print. Morton, Timothy. March 2010. “Queer Ecology.” PMLA 125.2: 1-19. Print. Murphy, Patrick. 2009. Ecocritical Explorations in Literary and Cultural Studies: Fences, Boundaries, and Fields. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. Print. Orton, David. “Disconnect: Environmental Theory and Activism”. The Green Web November 2005. 28 December 2007. Web. Parham, John. Spring 2008. “The Poverty of Ecocritical Theory: E. P. Thompson and the British Perspective”. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics—Special Issue: Earthographies: Ecocriticism and Culture 64: 25–36. Print. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP. Print. Slovic, Scott. 2002. “Foreword”. The Greening of Literary Scholarship. Ed. Stephen Rosendale. Iowa City: U of Iowa Press: vii–xi. Print. —. September 16, 2008. “Re: LIKELY SPAM I’m Not Sure If You Are Receiving”. Email to the author. Email. Slovic, Scott and Terre Satterfield. 2004. What’s Nature Worth?— Narrative Expressions of Environmental Values. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Print. Spretnak, Charlene. 1999. The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World. New York: Routledge. Print.

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Tallmadge, John and Henry Harrington. 2000. “Introduction”. Reading Under the Sign of Nature: New Essays in Ecocriticism. Eds. John Tallmadge and Henry Harrington. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P: ix-xv. Print. The Age of Stupid. Dir. Franny Armstrong. Spanner Films (Dogwoof Pictures), 2009. Wilson, Edward O. 1993. “Biophilia and the Conservation Ethic.” The Biophilia Hypothesis. Ed. Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson. Washington, DC: Island Press. 31–41. Print.

CHAPTER TWO NO LOVE LOST? AMERICAN RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE EXAMPLE OF J. BAIRD CALLICOTT JEAN-DANIEL COLLOMB ASSISTANT PROFESSOR JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 UNIVERSITY

In 1987, when the Brundtland report popularised the concept of sustainable development, it was hailed by some observers as a potential solution to the environmental crisis the world had to grapple with. Sustainable development can be defined as an attempt to reconcile the economic growth which underpins the Western way of life, most markedly the American way of life, with the environmental concerns brought about by economic development. Sustainable development has now been cast by many decision-makers, scientists and environmentalists as the only reasonable way out of the global environmental crisis. Most radical environmentalists beg to differ. More often than not they claim that sustainable development and the very idea of green growth are nothing but dead ends. As a matter of fact they have had a tendency to reject the very notion of economic growth out of hand, calling for the advent of a new paradigm. In France, Italy, and elsewhere, the proponents of degrowth, décroissance, or decrescita are a case in point. In the United States, radical environmentalists are also highly critical of economic growth per se, whether green or not. Instead they usually put a premium on wilderness preservation and restoration, and have very little time for green growth, which they see as a trick to maintain the techno-industrial status quo. The radical environmentalists’ quarrel with economic growth goes a long way towards accounting for their lack of influence on the general public and, most importantly, on the decision-making process. Put simply, their

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radical stance has ruled them out of politics and the mainstream. This, however, is not the whole story. Indeed some radical environmentalists in the United States have tried to come to terms with the notion of sustainable development. Professor J. Baird Callicott is one of them. Callicott is a professor of philosophy at the University of North Texas. He features among those who pioneered environmental ethics in the 1970s. He has been a steadfast advocate and populariser of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic for several decades. Callicott’s understanding of sustainable development should give us pause, for it appears to be highly unconventional—so much so that it bears little resemblance to the meaning usually ascribed to sustainable development in the news media and in political circles. Callicott argues that the proponents of sustainable development should set out to “think up strategies that are compatible with ecosystem health and that are strictly limited by ecological exigencies” (Callicott 1998, 340). In Callicott’s scheme of things, ecological sustainability, not economic growth, is the bottom line. The health of the land comes first, and human economic activities only second. In other words the latter should be allowed to expand only when the former is preserved and maintained. All in all it seems fair to state that Callicott’s is a radical contribution to the debate over sustainable development, and one well worth discussing. Yet, although he makes a highly convincing case, one may wonder what the actual potential of his idea is. If history is any guide, the chances for success of radical environmentalism in the field of policy-making are flimsy to say the least. Just how realistic is Callicott’s radical proposal? Does his version of sustainable development stand a chance of carrying weight with decision-makers and, most importantly, with the general population? Or is he doomed to remain a voice in the wilderness? The aim of this article is to assess the political potential of radical environmentalism—or the lack thereof.

Radical Environmentalism’s Quarrel with Sustainable Development First and foremost, it is worth defining the meaning of radical environmentalism. In the United States, environmentalism, in one form or another, has existed since the second half of the 19th century. It stems from a concern with nature and a desire to protect it. Environmentalism has been underpinned by various, and sometimes contradictory, motives. The first national parks, for instance, were created with a view to enhancing the identity and cultural heritage of the American republic (Runte 1987,

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11-32). They also came to be valued for the romantic beauty of their landscapes (Huth 1990, 96-97). By contrast, when Gifford Pinchot spearheaded the creation and development of the first national forests (which at first were called forest reserves) in the early 20th century, his goal was to curb the wasteful habits so rife on the Western frontier and replace them with an enlightened form of utilitarianism. Ultimately the forests of the American West were to be turned into tree farms (Pinchot 1987, 31). In the second half of the 20th century, especially from the early 1970s onwards, many Americans committed themselves to environmentalism in order to stave off pollution and preserve human health (Gottlieb 1993, 117-204). Meanwhile, the likes of David Brower, former executive director of the Sierra Club, the most prominent environmental organisation, and co-founder of Friends of the Earth, devoted much of their energy to wilderness preservation. That American environmentalism is a multifarious movement can hardly be denied. Radical environmentalism differs from the rest of the movement in that it marks a departure from prevalent and widely accepted standards of conduct and dominant beliefs in the modern West about man’s place in nature. The radical environmentalists are prone to take issue with what Christopher Lasch once dubbed “the culture of narcissism”, namely the urge felt by modern man—of whom homo americanus is a remarkable exemplar, although by no means an isolated one—to control nature completely in order to reshape it and bend it to human desires through the use of science and technology (Lasch 1991, 244). They are liable to discard what may be called, for lack of a better phrase, Judaeo-Christian dualism and are keen to emphasise man’s ontological bond with nature, often castigating the anthropocentric tendencies displayed by homo americanus—arguably a radical view in a culture which places man apart from and above nature. While to many mainstream environmentalists the health of the land matters primarily insofar as it serves human purposes, it emerges as an end in itself in the radical environmentalist scheme of things. The so-called radicals, in other words, propound an ecocentric agenda to the effect that human welfare ought to be heeded only when consistent with the health of biotic communities on which humans depend. It is the sustainability of ecosystems as a whole, and not that of human communities alone, that radical environmentalists strain to preserve. The rejection of anthropocentrism is the litmus test of radical environmentalism. This decentring of perspective, which is a by-product of ecocentrism, forms the basis of radical environmentalism. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that rejecting sustainable development has been commonplace among contemporary radical

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environmentalists. Chief among the critics of sustainable development have been the so-called Deep Ecologists. In an article published in The Trumpeter in 2006, American Deep Ecologist George Sessions equates sustainable development with “business as usual policies” (Sessions 2006, 129). Two decades earlier, when the Deep Ecology movement was being introduced in the United States, Sessions had called for a radical reorientation of Western culture—away from the Western dedication to economic growth and technological progress (Sessions 1984, 29-30). To him, not only is sustainable development too little too late, it also falls short of the cultural transformation American society ought to go through in order to avert ecological disaster. Michael Tobias, one of Sessions’s fellow Deep Ecologists, is also highly critical of the search for material progress and has very little time for the technological society. Tobias goes so far as to suggest that the example the modern West should endeavour to emulate is that of the primitive hunters-gatherers (Tobias 1984, 10-14). In a book published in the 1980s with a view to popularising Deep Ecology in the United States, Bill Devall and George Sessions took a clear stand against economic progress in any form whatsoever: “The ultimate value judgement upon which the technological society rests—progress conceived as the further development and expansion of the artificial environment necessarily at the expense of the natural world—must be looked upon from the ecological perspective as unequivocal regress.” (Devall and Sessions 1985, 48). Unsurprisingly the notion of green growth does not loom large in Deep Ecological literature. As a matter of fact Devall and Sessions assert that the search for economic development goes a long way to account for the global ecological crisis. In their view, humans would be well-advised to displace the supremacy of economic growth and replace it by such norms as self-realisation and biocentric1 equality (66). In addition to environmental philosophers, radical activists have also had a tendency to take issue with economic development as such. In the early 1980s Dave Foreman co-founded Earth First!, a radical environmental group whose tactics and raison d’être marked a radical departure from mainstream environmental organisations such as the Sierra Club or the Wilderness Society. Earth First!ers would have none of the compromises so typical of environmental politics. They did not hesitate to resort to ecological sabotage—which they dubbed ecotage—in order to ensure wilderness protection. In the Earth First! Journal of the 1980s 1

Today Deep Ecologists no longer use the word biocentric. They prefer the word ecocentric which they see as more inclusive because it describes ecosystems more broadly.

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economic development in any form came in for much criticism. Indeed the members of Earth First! took an anti-development stance as a matter of principle (Davis 1991, 91). In their minds ecosystem health carried more weight than narrowly defined human needs. Indeed, in his memoirs, Dave Foreman gives priority to the health of the land over economic development: “[…] some things are more important than jobs; Earth’s remaining biological diversity is among them.” (Foreman 1991, 133). The articles contained in the Earth First! Journal and the ideas set forth in Foreman’s writings leave very little room for the idea of green growth. Much of their energy is devoted to barring economic development. They are mainly concerned with wilderness preservation and restoration, not with the attempt to make economic growth and human activities work within ecological constraints. Interestingly, wilderness, to be understood as wild nature untouched by human action, has remained the idée fixe of many radical activists to this day. In 2003, Dave Foreman and others founded the Rewilding Institute whose main purpose is to further wildlands conservation in the United States. Their website features an article on sustainable development written by David Orton and entitled “Sustainable Development: Expanded Environmental Destruction”. Orton faults sustainable development for being anthropocentric, meaning that its overriding objective is not the preservation of the health of whole ecosystems but of human economic welfare. Orton argues that sustainable development is nothing more than a trick to maintain the techno-industrial status quo and that it does not go to the roots of the ecological problems at hand. He concludes his article by stating: We should not support sustainable development. This concept provides the ideological cover or legitimization for greatly expanded economic growth; hence expanded or accelerated environmental destruction. […] sustainable development is all about sustaining development. (Orton 2007, 12)

And he adds: “Ecological sustainability, not economic growth, has to become the goal of society.” (15). Orton’s statement seems to sum up the dominant perception of sustainable development among radical environmentalists. There are thus many reasons why the commonly accepted definition of sustainable development and the frame of mind which underpins radical environmentalism do not go together well. More often than not, radical environmentalists strongly disapprove of what they perceive as the contemporary obsession with growth and materialism. Put simply they see the search for economic growth as part of the problem. Making growth environmentally-friendly would do nothing, they argue, to solve the

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ecological crisis. In his book on sustainable development Simon Dresner states that “the identification of sustainable development with the growth agenda has made radical environmentalists deeply suspicious of it.” (Dresner 2007, 65). That is because many radicals have equated growth with environmental destruction. Greening the economy may help postpone the challenges ahead but, as far as they can see, the writing is still on the wall. To make matters even worse, for all their claims to the contrary, most environmental radicals appear only moderately interested in social issues. Their view is that environmental concerns (i.e. the health of whole ecosystems) should override purely human needs. Such a frame of mind is at loggerheads with the assumption that sustainable development is above all a device to serve human interests in a sustainable way. If, as Simon Dresner puts it, “sustainable development is a meeting point for environmentalists and developers” (64), it is all too evident that most radical environmentalists are not prepared to meet economic developers half-way. As is often the case with radical environmentalists, it all comes down to the issue of anthropocentrism. There is no denying that mainstream sustainable development rhetoric is couched in unabashedly anthropocentric terms. Sustainable development was conceptualised with a view to helping humans continue to make the most of natural resources in the long run. In no way did it originate with a concern for ecosystems in and for themselves. In the Brundtland report, for instance, sustainable development is defined as development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, 43). The intrinsic value of ecosystems is never mentioned. Instead, the welfare of human communities is at the top of the sustainable agenda and ecosystem preservation is merely incidental to it. In marked contrast to the Earth First! Journal, the Brundtland report is wholly focused on human welfare. Since anthropocentrism has always been the bête noire of radical environmentalists, it is no wonder that they should have almost consistently castigated sustainable development as presented in the Bruntdland report. The rub is that, in the context of modern societies wholly dependent upon economic growth, technological progress, and wholesale exploitation of natural resources, the likes of Dave Foreman or George Sessions are doomed to remain political nonentities. Environmentalism has indisputably led to the rise of ecological awareness in the United States. But at a time when the United States has become addicted to growth and material consumption on an extremely large scale, the radicals are urging their fellow Americans not just to mend their

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environmentally harmful ways but to turn their backs on growth. That is why they are bound to remain on the margins of American politics, unless Callicott’s original ethical approach in a world faced with a global major economic crisis wins more attention.

J. Baird Callicott’s Sustainable Development J. Baird Callicott’s attempt to revisit and reshape the notion of sustainable development makes him a highly original voice among American environmental radicals. First of all there is no question that J.B. Callicott qualifies as one. For example he sets highly ambitious goals for environmental ethics: “[…] nothing less than a sweeping philosophical overhaul—not just of ethics, but of the whole Western world view—is mandated” (Callicott 1989, 3). Piecemeal measures and mere adaptation to the techno-industrial order will not do. A rejection of anthropocentrism is called for. No doubt Callicott is one of the most compelling advocates of ecocentrism in the United States. His thinking is radical in that it calls into question the very foundations of the mainstream perception of nature in the modern West. Yet unlike most contemporary environmental radicals, he does not opt out of the debate over economic development. Nor does he seek to shun the issue of sustainable development by rejecting it out of hand. Interestingly Callicott distances himself from many of his fellow environmental radicals who are almost exclusively committed to wilderness preservation. He believes that so long as radical environmentalists are merely content with deriding the techno-industrial order and pushing for more wilderness areas, they will be in no position to make a difference: “[…] given a global human population approaching 6 billion persons, the greatest part of the best land will be put to economic use whether we conservationists like it or not” (Callicott 1998, 340). What with dramatic population increases and rapid economic growth, focusing solely on wilderness preservation can only be, Callicott argues, “a losing proposition” (345). The key, therefore, is to deal with areas inhabited and significantly modified by humans. This is not to suggest that sustainable development ought to be accepted at any cost, quite the contrary. Callicott asserts that several meanings, some of them antithetical, can be ascribed to the idea of sustainability. Hence the need to devise a form of sustainable development consistent with an ecocentric agenda. For instance Callicott disapproves of resource management as laid out by Gifford Pinchot and the Forest Service in the early 20th century and continued thereafter. Pinchot’s early conservationist effort can be singled out as a blueprint for today’s

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mainstream sustainable development but Callicott faults it for being purely anthropocentric, narrowly defining economic goals, and bestowing no intrinsic value on nature (Callicott and Mumford 1997, 34). Callicott also takes issue with sustainable development as defined in the Brundtland report because it “includes no reference to environmental quality, biological integrity, ecosystem health, or biodiversity” (35). His lack of support for mainstream sustainable development prompted him to come up with his own idiosyncratic version thereof: “[…] initiation of human economic activity that is limited by ecological exigencies; economic activity that does not seriously compromise ecological integrity; and, ideally, economic activity that positively enhances ecosystem health” (Callicott 1998, 355). The science of ecology and the notion of ecological sustainability lie at the heart of Callicott’s understanding of sustainable development. In effect, Callicott sets out to redefine the ambit of economics, arguing that so long as it remains a self-sufficient and independent field, economics will be part of the problem. Callicott suggests, instead, that economics be informed by noneconomic values such as those set forth in environmental ethics. He wants to make sure that economic policies are shaped by the science of ecology. Ecology, in other words, should provide the framework of economics and help establish standards of economic and industrial conduct. In Callicott’s scheme of things nature is no longer reshaped by human economic activities. It is nature which dictates the terms of economic policy: “The human economy is a subset of the economy of nature” (Callicott 2010, 62). Such a statement bears the hallmark of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold endeavoured to come up with a new brand of ethics along ecocentric lines. Leopold did his utmost to convince his contemporaries that far from being apart from and above nature, humans were fully integrated within and dependent on it. Leopold was eager to prove that humans were part and parcel of a land community in which all living beings were related to one another. Accordingly humans ought to extend ethics beyond humankind so as to encompass whole ecosystems: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold 1966, 262). With Leopold the bottom line is no longer just the profit margin: “A system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning” (251). Banking

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on Leopold’s thinking Callicott seeks to put economics in the broader context of ecosystem health. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that unlike the majority of environmental radicals Callicott is prepared to live with the idea that human activities will inevitably modify ecosystems. To him it is not a troubling thought since he subscribes to the Darwinian notion that man is part of nature and partakes of the evolutionary processes. That is why he takes it for granted that humans will have an impact on the world around. What really matters is to curb the negative effects of human action on nature. In order to achieve this purpose, Callicott argues, it is of the utmost importance that ecosystem health be established as the cornerstone and guiding principle of economic development (Callicott and Mumford 1997, 37). As Callicott sees it, it is down to environmental ethics to control economic policy. That the end of his economic thinking is ecosystem health rather than material development for human communities goes a long way towards explaining why Callicott chooses to distance himself from the mainstream definition of sustainable development. On the one hand the Brundtland report is an effort to sustain high levels of economic growth indefinitely by attuning economic activity to environmental needs whilst on the other hand Callicott’s proposal consists in maintaining ecosystem health indefinitely by subjecting economic activities to environmental needs. Where the former is primarily concerned with human welfare, the latter regards land health as a prerequisite for human welfare. Put simply Callicott’s version of sustainable development is a byproduct of ecocentrism whereas sustainable development as defined by the Brundtland report is merely the continuation of anthropocentrism by other means. In order to fully grasp the meaning and implications of Callicott’s thinking, it is worth probing into his conception of the role of technology. In that regard Callicott distinguishes himself from his fellow radicals as he does not take a fundamentally negative approach to technology. As a matter of fact technological innovation, such as solar panels, will be, he asserts, instrumental in overcoming the ecological crisis at hand. For instance, in an article published in 1992, Callicott expresses his faith in appropriate technology: “Today, something called ‘appropriate technology’ —a technology that is environmentally benign—is emerging on the horizon” (Callicott 1992, 20). Yet on further examination Callicott’s view of technology amounts to a reversal of Francis Bacon’s project which urged humans to bend nature to their desires through the use of science and technology. In the Baconian scheme of things, which was instrumental in bringing about the scientific and industrial revolutions that have shaped

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the modern West, science is regarded as the ultimate source of power. Put simply technology provides human communities with tools to modify nature at will. Man, in other words, is set to become master of the Creation. Nothing could be further from Callicott’s frame of mind. In his view the function of technology is not to reshape nature to suit human purposes, but in fact to transform human activities in order to adapt them to ecosystem health. Again nature comes first. In that respect it is fair to characterise Callicott as an anti-Prometheus of sorts because he does not see human destiny as a quest to assume control of natural processes for the benefit of humans: “[…] sustainable development consists in devising artificial ecosystems (human economies) that are modelled on and symbiotically adapted to the economy of nature (the global ecosystem, the living biosphere). The macroeconomy of nature is the model for sustainable human economic microcosms” (Callicott 2010, 62-63). The patterns of human activity ought to be shaped by natural processes, not the other way around. Such a guiding principle would require, arguably, a dramatic shift in Western culture. So the question arises: does Callicott’s blueprint for ecological sustainability stand any chance of being implemented in a world where Baconian science has ruled supreme for centuries?

The Prospects for Callicott’s Ecological Sustainability Callicott’s attempt at going beyond the perennial opposition between utilitarian conservation and wilderness preservation does not sit well with some of his fellow environmental radicals. In 2006, for instance, Deep Ecologist George Sessions reproached him with endorsing the sustainable development agenda, without dwelling upon the idiosyncrasies of Callicott’s proposal (Sessions 2006, 135-136). In a similar vein French philosopher Serge Latouche has recently accused environmentalists who try to tackle the issue of sustainable development of failing to think “outside the growth box” (Latouche 2007, 13-14). Latouche’s view is that the only tenable solution in the long run is to do away with our dedication to economic growth and shift towards a new paradigm. Yet Callicott, who is no environmental Jeremiah, seems unimpressed by those who argue that the health of the land is incompatible with any form of economic development. One may even argue that he shows some optimism: Suppose an intuitive wholesale appetite for the now-emerging postmodern solar-electronic genres of technology does develop. Obviously that would be a plus for ecosystem health. A global transition to appropriate technology is the only way we can maintain a mass consumer culture and a

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functioning, healthy biosphere—the only way we can achieve a sustainable society. Just as important, in my opinion, is the bootstrapping effect of such technologies. They will communicate the postmodern, holistic, systemic, dynamic concept of nature that includes us smart monkeys as creative, interactive components of it. That will lead to further technological breakthroughs in the same motif and esprit and, ultimately, to corresponding changes in politics, economics, agriculture, medicine, and other primary aspects of civilization. (Callicott 1992, 22)

Callicott refuses to lapse into the kind of doom and gloom rhetoric that sometimes characterises radical environmental rhetoric. Technology, if construed in a way that is not harmful to ecosystem health, should not be regarded as a threat but rather as an opportunity. Moreover there is no doubt that Callicott is genuinely willing to make a difference in the world by publicising his ecocentric ideas and he firmly believes that it will be possible to achieve his purpose in the long run. Yet there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that ecological sustainability as he sees it stands very little chance of being implemented in the foreseeable future. Although environmental concerns are now undeniably part of the political agenda, the sort of ecocentric ideas advocated by Callicott remains marginal and largely unknown not only to the general public but also to elected officials and members of the business community. In other words Callicott and his fellow ecocentric thinkers have failed to make an impression on the majority of American people. Ecosystems are still valued instrumentally only—if at all—by most economic stakeholders in most cases. No doubt some moves have been made to remedy some of the worst evils of “business as usual”. Some attempts are being made at greening the economy—waste sorting being a case in point—and schooling the public on environmental issues. The fact remains, however, that environmentally speaking the overall picture remains bleak and even seems to be deteriorating. Welfare ranching is still a permanent feature of the American West. Coalmining is alive and well in half the states of the Union. Suburban sprawl has not receded—quite the opposite. Consumerism remains a national sport of sorts in the United States. Callicott himself appears to be well aware of the negative trends at work in the United States and elsewhere: “The repercussions of our global economic activity is more dire than even I imagined in the late 1980s” (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). To make matters worse Callicott has little faith in the ability of the American people to go through the motions that are necessary to remedy current environmental ills: “The glories, if I can put it that way, of the American century, the 20th century, are now an impediment to the transition of the American public into the 21st century

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because it was so good, so many people are nostalgic for the Reagan era, and the 1980s and the 1990s when things were going great and there was blue sky” (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). Callicott argues with irony that the American public have become so engrossed in and so committed to consumer culture that they are largely unable to come to terms with the new environmental deal which lies in store in the future: “[…] we’re desperately clinging to what’s worked over the past century, we’re not looking forward, we’re not embracing the challenges and opportunities that the 21st century possesses. But we live in a global world so there are many other countries and people that are embracing these changes” (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). Callicott’s remarks about the inability of American society to grapple with the environmental disaster at hand are reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s reflections upon the notion of catastrophe: Even when they are informed about what is going on, people do not believe what they know. There is every reason to believe that we cannot expand indefinitely, whether in space or time, our current development model. Yet calling into question what we have learnt to see as part and parcel of progress would have such enormous repercussions that we will not believe what we know to be true. (Dupuy 2004, 144, my translation)

It seems all too evident that Callicott’s repeated calls for change since the late 1980s have remained largely unanswered. Moreover ecocentric notions such as ecological sustainability and the intrinsic value of ecosystems are very unlikely to move to the centre of public discussion any time soon. Callicott has faith that “the world’s people” can take a different approach from that of the American public (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011) but this remains to be seen. As a matter of fact, far from receding, the mainstream Western development model—energy-hungry, resource-intensive, endlessly expanding, anthropocentric—has won over large areas of the non-Western world over the last few decades, especially in Asia. Interestingly, when trying to provide an illustration of what ecological sustainability really is Callicott sometimes highlights the attitudes and habits of non-Western, pre-modern human communities. For example he refers approvingly to the Kayapó Indians’ ways of handling the land in the Amazon rainforests (Callicott 1998, 356-357), or to the Menominee Tribal Enterprises in Wisconsin (Callicott and Mumford 1997, 37-38). As early as 1989 Callicott had argued that native American communities could provide the United States with examples to emulate in its quest to nurture a land ethic: “Their example […] represents hope. It also represents a role model […]

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which we can relate to and emulate” (Callicott 1989, 219). It should be noted that Callicott does not intend to suggest that American society can and should turn itself into a collection of tribal communities on some sort of a native American pattern. More modestly he points out that his fellow Americans would do well to draw some inspiration from pre-modern ways of using the land that still exist today. From an environmental perspective Callicott’s praise of non-modern wisdom may well be valid but, as things stand, it also appears to be a losing proposition. As Scottish historian Niall Ferguson has recently shown in a book entitled Civilization: The West and the Rest, the process of globalization has witnessed the adoption by non-Western people of many ideas, patterns, and habits which had previously been the preserve of the West. Consumerism is a case in point as Western dress codes—or the lack thereof—are now ubiquitous around the world. Western science and technology seem to have carried the day as evidenced by the domination of Western medicine and the university system. Large-scale industrial revolutions have occurred outside the West, China being the most spectacular example but by no means the only one. While they do retain some fundamental traits which help distinguish them from the United States and Western Europe, Ferguson argues, these countries are on their way to embracing the very habits that have consistently inflicted considerable damage to ecosystems since the industrial revolutions in Western Europe and North America (Ferguson 2011). Not only has the concept of ecological sustainability not made much headway so far in a country like the United States, the very development model which Callicott believes is at the root of the problem is also now being adopted successfully by a growing number of countries outside the West. While Western Europe and the United States may still be suffering from the aftershock of the economic recession, overall the world economy continues to grow at a fast pace. While he does not seek to deny that such trends are at work around the globe, Callicott thinks that Western ways of doing things will be “domesticated and naturalized” by the societies which have taken them on board. He also believes that the process described by Niall Ferguson may only be a transitory phase before more environmentally benign patterns take centre stage as a result of resource shortages and the like (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). Yet judging from the industrial take-off in many parts of the world over the last few decades, the burden of proof rests upon Callicott, not Ferguson. Indeed if Callicott’s call for more attention to non-modern ways were to be heard it would amount to nothing less than a reversal of one of the main trends in globalisation as it currently unfolds.

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What is more, human overpopulation tends to compound the damage wrought by industrial development. Large-scale population growth has been one of the most staggering developments of the 20th century. The world population was approximately 1.5 billion in 1900, 2.5 billion by 1950 and it has now exceeded the 6.5 billion threshold. It is set to stabilise at around 9 billion by the middle of the 21st century (Leridon 2009, 15-27). From an environmental perspective this upward trend is a disaster. In addition, more and more non-Western people aspire to become Westernstyle consumers, which is bound to increase their negative impact on ecosystems. Dave Foreman firmly believes that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on the planet. He has recently published a book entirely devoted to overpopulation entitled Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife in which he writes: “Whatever your cause as a conservationist or environmentalist, it is a lost cause, without freezing and then lowering population. Welcome to the real world” (Foreman 2011, 149). The problem is that the population issue, the so-called population bomb, does not loom very large in Callicott’s reflections on sustainable development. And yet his blueprint for an environmentally benign brand of economic development is very unlikely to come to fruition in a world where more and more people are prepared to work very hard to get the Western deal which he thinks lies at the heart of the problem. When confronted with the population issue Callicott is quick to acknowledge that it has become the “forbidden issue” in environmental circles. He characterises it as “a subject like sex in the Victorian era”, “the elephant in the room […] which no one is mentioning” (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). The reason why it is so difficult for most environmentalists to even broach this topic is that it has long been associated with eugenics, racism, and sexism (Beck and Kolankiewicz 2000, 123-156). Callicott suggests that the best way to go about tackling population growth is by providing educational opportunities for women in developing countries where birth rates remain high (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). Be that as it may, if the world population stabilises by mid-century, as most demographers expect it to (Leridon 2009), whether Callicott’s ecological sustainability could be implemented in a world with 9 billion inhabitants is at best a moot point. As is often the case in environmental discussion population emerges as an unspoken stumbling block. J.B. Callicott’s blueprint for an ecologically sustainable future is no exception. Overall, J.B. Callicott deserves much praise for his challenging and stimulating attempt at overcoming the binary opposition between utilitarian resource management as laid out in the Brundtland report and

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the one-sided obsession of many of his fellow environmental radicals with wilderness preservation. In the end Callicott finds himself in the awkward position of the pragmatic radical willing to grapple with the world as it is while trying to bring about radical change. The risk is that he may be simply ignored by the mainstream and vilified by fellow environmental radicals for compromising. For now it is very unlikely that Callicott will be heard by his contemporaries. Most people, whether they live in the West or not, will not come to terms with our environmental predicament of their own accord. This, however, may not be the whole story because the current trends in globalization are set to precipitate environmental reality checkpoints such as resource shortages, environmental catastrophes, and economic meltdowns in the course of the 21st century. If we reach a point when “business as usual” becomes genuinely untenable, human communities will have to work out new ways of dealing with the land. Then Callicott’s version of sustainable development may come in handy. Callicott himself remains confident that radical change will eventually come by although he is well aware that it will not be easy. As he puts it: “I don’t think I’ll see it in my lifetime as I imagined that I might in 1989” (Collomb interview with Callicott 2011). Still he remains convinced that somehow change will be foisted on the American people and the world by environmental circumstances. In the meantime Callicott’s remains a minority voice.

References Beck, Roy, and Leon Kolankiewicz. 2000. “The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating US Population Stabilization (1970-1998): A First Draft in History.” Journal of Policy History 12(1): 123-156. Callicott, J. Baird. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. —. 1992. “La nature est morte, vive la nature!” The Hastings Center Report 22(5): 16-23. Callicott, J. Baird, and Karen Mumford. 1997. “Ecological Sustainability for Conservation Biology.” Conservation Biology 11(1): 32-40. Callicott, J. Baird. 1998. “The Wilderness Idea Revisited: The Sustainable Development Alternative.” In The Great New Wilderness Debate, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, 337-66. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.

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—. 2010. “5 Questions.” In Sustainability Ethics, edited by Ryne Raffaelle et al., 57-70. Copenhagen: Automatic Press/VIP. Collomb, Jean-Daniel. Interview with J. Baird Callicott, July 21, 2011. Davis, J., ed. 1991. The Earth First! Reader: Ten Years of Radical Environmentalism. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books. Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. 1985. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Layton: Gibbs M. Smith Inc. Dresner, Simon. 2007. The Principles of Sustainability. London: Earthscan. Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. 2004. Pour un catastrophisme éclairé: quand l’impossible est certain. Paris: Seuil. Ferguson, Niall. 2011. Civilization: The West and the Rest. London: Allen Lane. Foreman, Dave. 1991. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. —. 2011. Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. Durango: Raven’s Eye Press. Gottlieb, Robert. 1993. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington DC: Island Press. Huth, Hans. 1990. Nature and the Americans. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Lasch, Christopher. 1991. The Culture of Narcissism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Latouche, Serge. 2007. Petit Traité de la décroissance sereine. Paris: Mille et une nuits. Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Ballantine Books. Leridon, Henri. 2009. De la croissance zéro au développement durable. Paris: Collège de France/Fayard. Orton, David. 2007. “Sustainable Development: Expanded Environmental Destruction.” The Rewilding Institute, Web Bulletin 16. Accessed March 23, 2013. http://rewilding.org/rewildit/sustainable-development expanded-environmental-destruction/ Pinchot, Gifford. 1987. Breaking New Ground. Washington DC: Island Press. Runte, Alfred. 1987. National Parks: The American Experience. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press. Sessions, George. 1984. “Ecological Consciousness and Paradigm Change.” In Deep Ecology, edited by Michael Tobias, 28-44. San Diego: Avant Books.

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—. 2006. “Wildness, Cyborgs, and Our Ecological Future: Reassessing the Deep Ecology Movement.” The Trumpeter 22(2):121-182. Tobias, Michael. 1984. “Humanity and Radical Will: Reflections from the Island of Life.” In Deep Ecology, edited by Michael Tobias, 2-27. San Diego: Avant Books. World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART II. GREEN GROWTH AND REPRESENTATION / COMMUNICATION

CHAPTER THREE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN NEWS AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE HELENE LEDOUBLE ET OLIVIER GOUIRAND ASSISTANT PROFESSORS SUD TOULON VAR UNIVERSITY

Introduction The recent attention environmental matters have received on the part of the general public has led to some blurring regarding the uses of terms related to the Environment. Indeed, the corresponding discourse varieties now rely not only on the former stabilized scientific referents (as found in Eurodicautom 1975, GEMET 1999, IATE 2007), but also on a more heterogeneous vocabulary stemming from the societal debate about ecology. With a view to clarifying this hypothesis and encompass the use of environmental terms better, our proposal is to characterize a set of core terms used in both the scientific and general discourse1. In this study, we

1 As part of our broader research project, a compilation of glossaries (see list below) issued by international or governmental bodies, universities and organizations specializing in the Environment has shown that there is little agreement on a set of commonly accepted terms describing the main notions of the field : European Environment Agency Multilingual Environmental Glossary. 2010. Copenhagen : EEA General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET). 2004. Copenhagen: EEA. Glossary: Ecology. 2009. Berkeley: University of California Museum of Paleontology. Glossaries. 2009. Washington: US Environmental Protection Agency.

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are focusing on the term hybrid. Our objective is to analyze how the meaning of an originally scientific term is modified by its more regular use in the press related to environmental issues. This contrastive analysis is based on two corpora. The scientific corpus is composed of all the documents published by two international institutions, The European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Since both agencies deal with environmental issues using scientific evidence either gathered from reliable sources or produced by in-house scientists, these documents are deemed to be authoritative, according to the criteria set out by Newmark (Newmark 1982, 375). Before developing the analysis of the term hybrid in context, we will now present the content of these corpora in more detail.

Corpus Scientific corpus The European Environment Agency (EEA) was established in 1995 by and for the European Union. It publishes extensive reports related to global environmental policies (environmental quality, work on OECD indicators, comparative EU norms, etc.) The EEA currently has 32 member countries. We have selected all the reports published by the EEA between 1995 and 2011 containing the word hybrid, the corpus comprising 6,500,000 words. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the American official institution in charge of environmental issues. It was created in 1970. EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) conducts an integrated program of scientific research and development on the sources, transport and fate processes, monitoring, control and assessment of risks and effect of environmental pollutants (EPA/640/K-93/001 April 1993). We have

Glossary of Environmental Terms. 2009. Washington: State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs, US State Department. Glossary of Environmental Terms. 2000. Kobe (Japan): The Global Development Research Center. Glossary of Environmental Terms. 2005. New York: Natural Resources Defense Council. Glossary of Terms. 2008. Richmond (VA): Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

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selected all the reports published between 1995 and 2011 containing the word hybrid. The corpus has 28,000,000 words.

News corpus The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) was used for the analysis of news information. The COCA extends over 20 years, from 1990 to 2011 and comprises 425 million words. It can be broken down into sub-corpora from different fields (fiction, magazines, newspapers, academic, spoken, etc.) and thus constitutes an interesting sample of written and oral resources, representative of the American English language. For this study, we chose to work on the “Newspaper” subsection of the COCA. Our corpus is made up of KWIC queries along with their immediate collocations. After defining the notion of hybridity, we will expose the underlying linguistic operations which account for the formal and semantic variety tied to the word hybrid.

Context of the analysis Definition of hybrid Hybrid comes from hybrida/ibrida (XVI-XVIIth century), defined in Latin as the offspring of a tame sow and wild boar (Collins Dictionary). A Greek origin has also been mentioned in the literature (Gaffiot 1934: 759) but it however remains uncertain (Greek: hubris), meaning disrespect or insult to the Gods. It may also have been used as a synonym for violence or offense/outrage; the notion of abnormality is present in some definitions: “that belongs to no particular type, genus or style; that is strangely composed of various elements” (Dictionnaire Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé 2001, our translation). It is currently used by the general public as “something heterogeneous in origin or composition” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). In Biology, it is defined as “the offspring of two plants or animals of different species or varieties, such as a mule” (Oxford Dictionary). In that respect, the meaning of this term is often related to the notion of a mixedblood individual, crossbred and possibly impure. It seems to function either broadly as a fixture used for composition, or narrowly as a genetic explanatory tool. However, current developments in technology have led to the inclusion of a subcategory of vehicles in the

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latter, “a vehicle that is powered by an internal-combustion engine and another source of power such as a battery” (Collins Dictionary). Thus, its “dual” status of operator and term calls for a specific analysis of the operations involved in its current usage.

Linguistic operations expressing "hybridity" We share Victorri's approach (Victorri 1998, 17), by which dynamic construction of meaning is carried out by associating each lexical unit with a core meaning, able to take on other values according to co-textual elements and to their structure (our translation). Based upon this assertion, we now present the different linguistic operations conveying the notion of hybridity. According to the structure and word order, the meaning varies: 1-

Adj+N structure

a)

Hybrid Porsche Cayenne

Hybrid gives a sub-classification for the Porsche Cayenne range of cars. The meaning depends on differential properties inherited from the adjective (hybrid), i.e. “a car or other vehicle that combines an internalcombustion engine with one or more electric motors powered by battery” (Random House Dictionary). b)

Electric hybrid

Electric is a sub-classification of the notion of hybrid car. Intermediate steps in the lexicalization process (see infra) of hybrid can be seen in compounds such as hybrid-fuel Bentley. In the examples above the referent is the same (a vehicle) but the meaning depends on word order, viz. Porsche Cayenne hybrid refers to the hyperonym “hybrid car” whereas hybrid Porsche Cayenne refers to the hyperonym “Porsche Cayenne”. 2-

NíN structure

a) b)

Glenn Dale hybrid Toyota hybrid

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In the first example, Glenn Dale refers to a subcategory of azaleas with specific characteristics. In both cases, the noun hybrid gives access to the referent (respectively a type of flower and a type of car). Differential properties are inherited from the first noun which here functions as an adjective. 3-

N of N and N / N-N N structure

a) b)

hybrid of science and art corn-eastern gamagrass hybrid

Hybrid is a mere operator here, only specifying the combination of two elements. Indeed, its meaning is indicated by the relation between the two nouns (the first noun in the first sequence and the third noun in the second sequence is the operator). Occasionally, the structure can do away with the second noun, the referent of which is to be found embedded in the co-text or even left implicit: a) an interesting hybrid of the information disclosure label is the battery labeling programme b) we recommend that EPA explore the possibility of hybrid between a regional lump-sum allocation system 4-

Conflation referring to a new extra-linguistic entity

a) b)

pluot , a “hybrid” between a plum and an apricot vook, a “hybrid” between a video and a book

5-

Conflation not referring to a new extra-linguistic entity.

Chondola : a hybrid using both a high-speed detachable chairlift and an enclosed gondola (the features of each device are retained, alternatively placed in the line). It is a pure play on words. For this analysis, we will only focus on the first three types of structures.

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Quantitative analysis In a first stage, the occurrences of hybrid were compiled either into relative frequencies (words per million) or absolute frequencies for COCA (since the total word count in the subsection search is not available) over a fifteen-year period starting in 1995, when the EEA was created. As can be seen from the graph below, the overall trend is clearly pointing upwards for all three corpora, with peaks around 2002-2003 and 2005-2006, that were respectively identified as the emergence of “engineered” hybrids through animal and plant genetics as well as car technology, particularly the Toyota Prius2.

2 At that time there was also a rejection phenomenon of this notion due to the confusion with GMO produce.

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When broken down into semantic categories by manual classification as seen in this second graph, the picture is more complex: it still holds true for vehicles, which act as a driving force behind the surges mentioned above. However, other categories like non-automotive technology, plants or animals are roller coasters. Interestingly, the combinatory use of hybrid as an operator between two terms remains by and large an independent component, which confirms its dual nature outlined in the definition.

However informative these figures may appear for the analysis of general trends, a fine-grained investigation of the contexts is needed to assess the validity of the categories.

Qualitative approach Analysis of the News corpus Numerous semantic categories have emerged from the analysis of this corpus. The term hybrid is used in the following sectors: ARTS, BIOLOGY, SPORTS, TECHNOLOGY, AUTOMOBILE, SOCIETY, LAW, etc. Below is a distribution of these categories over three different time periods, sampled as follows: o NEWS1 : 1993-1995 o NEWS2 : 2001-2002 o NEWS3 : 2007-2009

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Total ARTS AUTOMOTIVE/VEHICLE BANKING BIOLOGY COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION ECONOMICS/Business ENERGY LAW LANGUAGE POLITICAL SCIENCE SOCIETY SPORTS TECHNOLOGY THEOLOGY/RELIGION

NEWS 1 60 10 3 6 17 1 4

2 4 4 4 3 1

% 16,7 5,0 10,0 28,3 0,0 1,7 6,7 0,0 0,0 3,3 6,7 6,7 6,7 5,0 1,7

NEWS 2 167 11 102 1 15 1

3 3 3 4 4 7 1

% 6,6 61,1 0,6 9,0 0,6 0,0 0,0 1,8 1,8 0,0 1,8 2,4 2,4 4,2 0,6

NEWS 3 268 29 154

%

20

5 4 4 11 11 10

The percentage for “automotive” and “biology” highlights the dissimilar evolution of the use of hybrid within the Automobile vs. the Biology sector. Over a 16-year period, journalists have proportionally communicated more about hybrid cars and less about hybrid plants or animals. A hypothetical reason for this evolution is the confusion created around the meaning of this term. Indeed, the term tends to be going through a lexicalization process, hybrid progressively being used as a metonymical form of a “hybrid vehicle”. This lexicalization is also found in the scientific corpus, i.e. EPA (2007): - The median unadjusted fuel economy of all the gasoline vehicles in that class would be determined, and then compared against the hybrid's fuel economy” Analysis of the scientific corpus The following semantic categories have emerged from the analysis of the scientific corpus: PLANTS, ANIMAL, AUTOMOBILE, TECHNOLOGY. As the scientific documents are in the domain of the Environment only, other semantic categories are not present:

10,8 57,5 0,0 7,5 0,0 0,0 0,0 1,9 1,5 0,0 1,5 4,1 4,1 3,7 0,0

17

6.8

0

0

0

0

4

0.6

PLANT

in % of total

ANIMAL

in % of total

VEHICLE

in % of total

TECHNOLOGY

in % of total

1995

0.1

1

0.06

1

4

1

0

0

1996

0.8

5

0

0

4

1

1.2

3

1997

4.1

25

0.06

1

0

0

0.8

2

1998

4.5

27

0.4

7

4

1

0

0

1999

3

18

0.6

11

0

0

2.4

6

2000

0.8

5

0.6

11

32

8

15.8

39

2001

1.6

10

0.3

5

16

4

41.7

103

2002

0.8

5

5.2

87

0

0

1.2

3

2003

1

6

2.8

47

12

3

3.2

8

2004

Environmental Issues in News and Scientific Discourse

21.9

132

22.6

376

8

2

8.9

22

2005

8.1

49

39.5

658

0

0

2

5

2006

11.6

70

9.9

166

4

1

2.8

7

2007

10.3

62

4.8

80

12

3

0.8

2

2008

10

60

5.2

89

0

0

3.2

8

2009

57

20.4

123

7.7

128

4

1

8.9

22

2010

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Apart from an important surge in 2001-2002 in the Biology sector, the use of hybrid has been up and down over the last 15 years (below 12% of all occurrences). In the automobile sector, since the 2005-2006 peak (introduction of mainstream hybrid engines), the term has been in use but not as significantly as in the technology sector for which hybrid represents between 8.1 % and 20.4% of its uses. From a more general perspective, an increase in its frequency for all categories appears in 2010. Three categories only are common to both corpora, namely BIOLOGY (PLANT/ ANIMAL), VEHICLE and TECHNOLOGY and we will now concentrate on the evolution of the meaning of the term hybrid within these categories. Contrastive meaning analysis Original meaning of the term hybrid The term hybrid refers to “something heterogeneous in origin or composition”, and is commonly used for the combination of two elements: Meaning Use of hybrid as "a combination of 2 elements from different origin"

News corpus : x Hybrid maple: Grows to 40 feet with 35-foot spread. This hybrid between a red and a silver maple provides reliable fall color in Bay Area climates x the production of hybrid tea varieties

Use of hybrid as the "abnormal" combination of elements

x

unnatural gardeners who grow old-fashioned English hybrid roses x It was a big fish, so big I just figured it was a hybrid (a stocked, sterile cross between a white bass and a striped bass)

Scientific corpus : x TDHB - Assumes that hybrid diesel-electric buses will replace current conventional diesel buses x […] a pyrimidine, that connects the complementary strands of DNA or of hybrid molecules joining DNA and RNA. When hybridization with rare species produces fertile offspring, the genetic identity of the parents can be lost when the offspring of a hybrid backcrosses to the parents.

As the term hybrid is not always explicit, the two (or more) different species or varieties involved in the combination are usually specified. Note: the term is also used as a combination of three or four elements. For instance, we find:

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State agencies often use a hybrid of two or more of the lean methods for their air permitting events" As opposed to scientific discourse, in the news corpus journalists repeatedly add subjective remarks on the hybrid phenomenon (i.e. unnatural gardeners who grow old-fashioned English hybrid roses). Changes in meaning The negative connotation originally associated to “hybrid” is progressively changing. In many cases, the combination is not presented as atypical, but perfectly acceptable: The red Sweet Delight is a hybrid, sugar-enhanced corn It can even take on a positive connotation: Hybrid grasses are popular because they promote a smooth roll and require less maintenance Hybridity can also indicate a form of “strength”, both in the scientific and news corpus: NEWS a 19th century social radical […] believed that crossing “pure" strains would produce superior "hybrid” offspring, as often occurs in animal and plant breeding.

SCIENTIFIC the goal of the exchange is to crosspollinate 2 organizations who have similar structure and function in the hope/expectation of inducing "hybrid vigor".

The EPA uses the term “hybrid vigor”. This collocation is defined as the tendency of a cross-bred individual to show qualities superior to those of both parents. Also called heterosis (Oxford) Indeed, in the biology sector, hybrid plants (naturally or artificially created) are often known to be more resistant. In both corpora, we even find hybridity as a reference item: NEWS The current "benchmark" for the longest-lasting implants appears to be a hybrid variety, the panel said.

SCIENTIFIC if the automotive X Prize is to be judged as a success ten years from now, it will have to do for ultra-high efficiency cars what the Prius did for the hybrid

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As shown in these two examples, the notion of hybridity in both corpora can even become the standard for biologists to create implants or car makers to define new cars. A double issue related to “biological” hybrids however needs to be considered. Indeed, some of these hybrids, be they natural or artificial, are likely to suffer from disability or even infertility, thus leading to a potential extinction by “natural selection”. Moreover, these new species are not considered within the traditional species taxonomy (by Linnaeus). An American law for animal protection of 1973 (Endangered Species Act) gives each species a name and a gender, thus giving them a legal status. Hybrids are not represented in this system. The absence of hybrids from such classification systems leads to a lack of protection of these species on the long-term.

Conclusion Semantically, the term hybrid remains ambiguous. In its lexicalized use as a metonymy for “hybrid car” (both in news and scientific discourse), it refers to a vehicle powered by fuel and electricity. Its synonyms in this context are diesel-electric, fuel-electric, etc. In the biology sector, no lexicalized form involving hybrid has yet appeared. Some terms are used as synonyms, transgenic, transgene, intercross, interbreed (interbred), involving two or more biological species. However, the notion of synonymy of this peculiar term is questionable. Indeed, in many cases, we are dealing with what Durieux (2001: 264) calls “pseudo-synonyms”, which she identifies as potential synonyms in some sentences but not others. The tipping point would vary according to the level of specialization of the term. Our analysis which has focused on the integration of specialized terms to general language tends to substantiate this assertion. It has indeed outlined several changes in the meaning of the term and therefore its difficult or impossible substitution in some contexts. Conversely, the important use of this term in the press has in turn had an impact on specialized discourse; scientists now seem to keep away from using this term extensively due to its unclear or potentially ambiguous “core meaning”. If we look at the notion of hybridity within the more general Conference topic of Green Growth, we need to meditate on some issues behind this quantitative and qualitative analysis: does a hybrid Porsche Cayenne really qualify for acceptable emission goals for which hybrids were designed in the first place? Does it depict a real change in society? A

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parallel study of legal and technical aspects underlying the notion of hybridity could reveal whether hybridity is a valid extra-linguistic reality or simply an alibi for a non-green growth.

References Durieux, C. 2001. Carte sémantique de pseudo-synonymes : cas de complexe et compliqué. L’éloge de la différence : la voix de l’autre. Beyrouth : AUPELF-UREF, pp. 263-274. Newmark, Peter. 1982. The Translation of Authoritative Statements: a Discussion. In Meta: Journal des Traducteurs / Meta: Translators' Journal, vol. 27, n°4, p. 375. Ploux S. et Victorri B. 1998. Construction d’espaces sémantiques à l’aide de dictionnaires de synonymes, Traitement automatique des langues, 39, n°1, pp.161-182. Victorri, B. 1998. La construction dynamique du sens, un défi pour l’intelligence artificielle. In Actes de la conférence RFIA’98 (Reconnaissance de formes et intelligence artificielle), ClermontFerrand, vol. 2, pp.15-29.

Sources of corpora Davies, M. 2009. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Provo (UT) : Brigham Young University. Available online : . Liste des 20 000 mots les plus fréquents disponible sur commande en ligne : http://wordfrequency.info/ US Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov, (accessed on September 10, 2011). EuropeanEnvironment Agency http://www.eea.europa.eu, (accessed on September 10, 2011).

Reference dictionaries Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2003. CDROM, Version 3.0. Springfield (MA): Merriam-Webster. Oxford English Dictionary. 2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Random House Dictionary. New York: Random House. Collins English Dictionary. 2009. London: Harper Collins. Gaffiot, Felix. 1934. Dictionnaire latin-français. Paris: Hachette Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé. Nancy: CNRS, ATILF, 2001

CHAPTER FOUR ANTHROPO-SCENE: THE FICTIONAL TREATMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ON BRITISH TV GEORGES FOURNIER ASSISTANT PROFESSOR JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 UNIVERSITY

Introduction The British media, particularly television, have played an important role in stimulating interest in environmental issues which began hitting the headlines from the 1970s onwards. With the development of colour television, environmentalism gained appeal among producers: they offered compelling visual images that could be relied upon to produce empathy among viewers. One of the most memorable examples was afforded by the first TV coverage of the brutal clubbing to death of seal pups in Canada in the 1970s. It had a phenomenal impact that resulted in huge public outrage and eventually led to the banning of the importation of seal products into America and into the European Community. Gradually, green topics spread to all TV programmes from documentaries, to soap operas and even quizzes. Past literature on media and environment made an important distinction between, on the one hand, fact-based television and, on the other hand, fictional programmes on green issues. While the former was associated with political content and commitment, the latter was associated with escapism and entertainment, supposedly conducive to neutrality or even apathy towards the environment. Recently, reality television, with its choice of high profile celebrities, has been accused of trivialising the

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environmental debate by using it as a decoy to attract a large audience1. Such is not the case with politically committed fiction films commissioned for television with the intention of using it as a highly political instrument conducive to increasing viewer awareness. As far as the representation of green issues is concerned, a turning point in Western environmental imaging was the 1969 beaming of NASA photos of “planet Earth” from the moon’s surface. These pictures vividly dramatised all our earthly matters and since then the Earth has been perceived as something to which we belong but which remains distinct from us. In a way, the changes these pictures have brought—the desacralisation of the image of our planet—have provided support to political efforts to change the world, to try and protect it. The sense they have aroused in viewers of their own insignificance has been coupled with a feeling of separateness and of something “out there”. No doubt that the notion of “think global act local” was largely fostered by these very feelings of immensity and powerlessness suggested by this kind of representation. This motto perfectly encapsulates the ultimate credo of environmentalists which is to have access to global information, to be aware of what is going on in the world, but to act at a local level. Connecting opposites—what is global and what is local—is the very thing television is best at doing. The adjustment between what the green movements call for and what television can deliver seems too close to be a mere coincidence. Could it be that our current environmental awareness has come about through communication media? A study of how environmentalism has been addressed by television should afford a first answer to this question. A second part will be devoted 1

“In early September 2007, after a major advertising campaign, Channel 4 launched a new reality show where 11 participants were taken to live on an artificially constructed rubbish dump near a landfill site in Croydon. [...] Dumped resembled Channel 4’s ground-breaking reality TV success, Big Brother, in the technique of placing a large number of mainly young participants in an artificially created environment, and shows such as I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in its theme of survival in an extreme environment. The programme was billed as an “eco-challenge”, which involved the participants in building a camp for themselves and making money from salvaged waste. There were regular visits by an “ecodesign expert”, Rob Holdway, and sustainable gardener, Steve Jones. Holdway played the role of expert presenter and provided much of the ecological content of the programme through his commentaries on national statistics relating to waste and energy use. Through this programme and the related web page devoted to green issues, Channel 4 entered the ecoreality field, albeit two years later than BBC2.” Gareth Palmer, Exposing Lifestyle Television, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, 182-3.

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to an analysis of how, since the late 20th century, the treatment of this subject has generated phobocratic discourses that have lately been applied to societal problems. Only then will a critical analysis of the fictional representations of environmental issues on British television be conducted.

Televisual Representations While, in the USA, Hollywood has had a monopoly over the filmic treatment of environmental issues—blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow and Avatar being the most recent examples—in Great Britain it is through television that the environmental message has been most effectively communicated. This situation is accounted for by the preference that was given to television over cinema in Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War. Very early in the history of the British media, television won favour with the political authorities which supported it at the expense of cinema. The famous British documentary tradition was then taken over by television and translated into filmic journalism and what is commonly called docudrama, that is to say the fictional treatment of topical issues with a documentary touch2.

A Historical Survey of the Representations of Green Issues on Television Up until the 1970s, the fictional treatment of green issues was associated with science fiction, with utopian productions. At the time, there was also the widespread assumption among controllers and regulators that stories about the future were fit for children only. The 1970s gave way to more sobering realities and programme concerns gradually turned towards domestic and political issues. Man’s influence on the planet gradually became a principal preoccupation of controllers and commissioners. Between 1970 and 1972, the BBC broadcast the Doomwatch series which followed the efforts of a government department 2

Many British filmmakers were trained at the BBC or at Granada—a production company working for ITV—by documentarists who belonged to the British documentary tradition and who, after the Second World War, opted for television. Among the pioneers were Ken Loach, Peter Watkins, Ken Russell, and more recently Paul Greengrass and Michael Winterbottom, to name just a few. These companies were excellent training ground for children of middle-class backgrounds, who largely benefitted from massive further education, and who were interested in topics related to social and political issues whether poverty, homelessness or the impact of a nuclear war on the planet.

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to safeguard environmental and public safety from scientific, military and corporate negligence. As a creation resulting from the collaboration of the Doctor Who3 script editor and environmentalists, “the series responded to growing scientific concerns over pollution, resource depletion and environmental mismanagement” (Seed 2005, 295). In many of the episodes, a plague, reminiscent of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man4, an ecological catastrophe, a natural disaster or an atomic war would leave a small group of survivors ready to reinvent the old world. Each of these programmes owes a lot to the popular image of the “last man” in Romantic writing and poetry, a projection of the solitary individual into a series of landscapes reflecting personal and social isolation, as well as loss. Already in the 1960s, the threat of apocalypse was a significant element in the development of environmentalism and it was regularly mentioned in British popular science fiction for the young. However, by the 1980s and because of the economic recession, it became more difficult for TV science fiction to be taken seriously: its productions could not compete with the technical advances in digital effects which cinema was already able to afford.

Censorship on Sensitive Issues As a politically sensitive issue, environment has often been the object of censorship. The most famous case is afforded by The War Game (1965), by Peter Watkins, whose topic is the consequences of a nuclear holocaust on the planet and on its inhabitants. The ban resulted from the authorities' apprehension about its impact on the population and the public morale. Their fears concerning the influence of filmic representations on the collective unconscious proved right and the following year the BBC’s authorities were taken by surprise by the broadcasting of Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach, the influence of which far exceeded the broadcasting of the film itself5.

3

BBC’s longest-running science-fiction series: almost 800 episodes (1963-89 ; 2005-present). 4 First published in 1826, The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel by Mary Shelley. It takes place in a time scientifically advanced and scientists have managed to provide abundant food and to create labour-saving machines along with revolutionary forms of transportation. Yet they fail to prevent a plague from destroying most of the population. 5 Ken Loach’s film helped promote the passing of a law on housing and the scrapping of prosecutions for women who had aborted.

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A month before transmission, [producer] Garnett6 was describing Cathy Come Home to Gerald Savory, Head of Plays and Drama as “a love story” (BBC memo, 26 October 1966). Garnett says today: “I only let them [the executives] see it after the Radio Times deadline. If it was going to be banned, I wanted it to be a public banning.” (Garnett 1999, 80) As a result, the authorities became fully aware of the influence television could have on the population which led them to be more careful about programming. Ever since, controllers have been very wary of taking television lightly, considering the devastating impact it can have on the population.

The Principle of Impartiality Whenever television treads on journalistic ground the notion of due impartiality crops up. Polemics are raised and viewers want to be confident that the broadcasters' choices are not the result of political or financial pressures but rather of enlightened editorial decision making. Sensitive issues should be reported even-handedly and with objectivity. Being seen as the mouthpiece for any organisation, even for one like Friends of the Earth, might be damaging for the broadcaster. It is interesting to note that, in the UK, broadcasters are required to observe the “due impartiality” rule, in other words they are expected to cover evenhandedly those issues that are generally accepted as being legitimate areas of public debate. This rule is a major bone of contention between broadcasters and environmentalists, the latter considering that, in view of the guidelines laid down by international agreements7, due impartiality should not be enforced and a neutral attitude towards sustainability can only legitimise views that the interests of future generations are not at risk. This point has long been one of the broadcasters’ shortcomings and in 2007, the Institute for Public Policy Research8 released a report concerning the UK media’s coverage of climate change, concluding that the discourse across all media outlets, including broadcasters, newspapers and websites, was “confusing, contradictory and chaotic” (Blewitt 2008, 288). The blame is to be placed on the scientific community and over the 6

Tony Garnett was a film producer who specialised in TV programmes. Http://spring-urban-management.blogspot.com/2011/01/major-internationalagreements-on.html, accessed on June 12th, 2011. 8 The IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) is one of the UK’s leading thinktanks working in the fields of social reform and environmental sustainability. , accessed on July 23rd 2011. 7

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past decades broadcasters have done their best to act even-handedly in their treatment of sensitive issues. Conversely, scientists have failed to deliver a clear and coherent message concerning the weather changes, which has resulted in controversies about the enduring nature of these changes and about the role of man's interference in the delicate balance of life on Earth. These controversies have led to stories claiming that global warming is a myth. The main debate about impartiality was raised by C4’s broadcasting of The Great Global Warming Swindle9 in March 2007, a skilfully edited documentary which disputes the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity asserted that man-made global warming is “a lie” and “the biggest scam of modern times”10. This was not the first time that C4 was taking an unconventional stand and, in 1990 already, it had aired The Greenhouse Conspiracy11, a documentary film criticising the theory of global warming and debunking the scare. Its title was explicit about the existence of global machinations meant to promote false claims on climate change. Ofcom, the TV regulator at the time, rejected the complaints of unfair treatment from scientists belonging to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change12 and asserted that the programme did not intentionally mislead viewers. The interesting point Ofcom put forward to support C4 was that the broadcaster was not requested to comply with a requirement for “due accuracy”, an unusual position, considering that what is expected of a film widely promoted as a testimony of the current state of the planet is its accuracy. The same row

9

A documentary film by Martin Durkin broadcast by Channel 4 on March 8th, 2007. 10 Global Warming: ‘The biggest scam of modern times.’ , website accessed on June 29th, 2011. 11 A TV documentary film broadcast by Channel 4 on August 12th 1990, as part of the Equinox series. 12 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. The UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.’ , website accessed on June 17th, 2011.

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erupted after the broadcasting of The Climate Wars13 by the BBC in 2008 for the same reasons and once again Ofcom's response was identical. Ofcom’s answer was very frustrating for many an environmentalist: their position was that fringe views should not be presented as mainstream and that TV should not give them equal weight. From their point of view, climate change was not a matter for debate. Prompted by all the criticisms, Channel 4 decided to broadcast Al Gore’s documentary14 An Inconvenient Truth15, in an effort to demonstrate their impartiality. However, Al Gore's documentary was broadcast right in the midst of another controversy about the fact that TV should not provide an unchallenged platform for the views of environmentalists such as Lovelock, the scientist who developed the Gaia theory16 of the Earth as a living organism. The controversy was triggered by the publicity given at the time by the media to James Lovelock’s book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. Regarding An Inconvenient Truth, one should also keep in mind that the documentary nature of Al Gore’s film was challenged by many17 who considered that it was sheer

13 In The Climate War, award-winning journalist and climate activist Eric Pooley takes us behind the scenes and into the minds of the most important players in the struggle to cap global warming pollution—an American civil war in which trillions of dollars and the fate of the planet are at stake. To write this book, Pooley, the former managing editor of Fortune and chief political correspondent for Time, spent three years embedded with an extraordinary cast of characters on all sides of the fight. http://www.ericpooley.com/, Eric Pooley’s website, accessed on June 28th 2011. 14 An Inconvenient Truth was broadcast on Channel 4 in April 2009. http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=351, accessed on June 12th, 2011. 15 An Inconvenient Truth, a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim. 16 The Gaia theory postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the chemical and physical environment. 17 The school board of Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle, has removed a ban preventing schools from showing the Oscar-nominated documentary An Inconvenient Truth narrated by former Vice President Al Gore, although some restrictions still apply. The ban was introduced after a parent complained that he did not want his daughter to watch the “propagandist” video during her science class. Under the new restrictions the film may be shown only with written permission from the school’s head teacher and only when it is balanced by alternative views approved by the head teacher and superintendent. Index on Censorship, February 2007, 203.

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propaganda18 mentioning, in support of their stance, that it was banned from many US schools19. These examples show that environmental issues are not easy topics for broadcasters, which partly accounts for the fact that fewer programmes, especially films, are made about them and that broadcasters prefer to cash in on environmental audits when they are asked to show their ethical goodwill.

Fiction to Document the World Films made by environmental activists throw light on how these committed groups “represent” or “document” changes. Yet, evidential forms20 are far from being merely “factual” or formally unmediated as suggested by Al Gore’s film. The interplay between the symbolic, the emotional and the esoteric is inevitable. Believing that there is a huge divide between fictional and evidential modes would mean ignoring the fact that even journalism works on a ritualistic basis and consequently springs from a spectacular and entertaining approach. Both factual and entertaining constructions play on repetitions and on differences, combining realism and melodrama. Even serious news, let alone tabloid and infotainment, recycle spectacular images21. In turn, entertainment 18

School screenings of Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth will now have to be accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers which set out balancing arguments, a judge has ruled. The High Court decision may have an impact on the government’s plan to screen the movie in every secondary school in Britain. Gore Hits Choppy Waters, Cinema Business, n°38, October 2007, 4. 19 See also the case entitled Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills about the controversy fostered by the use of Al Gore’s film in British schools. 20 “[The evidential mode] is the mode of minimal directorial intervention in respect of pro-filmic events. It is the mode of “fly-on-the-wall” . […] It is used widely in current-affairs documentaries.” John Corner, The Art of the Record. A Critical Introduction to Documentary, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, 12. 21 The news reporting of environmental topics heavily relies on elements of threat and risk. The representations that are offered of them draw on common iconography as circulated by movies and this is a recurring motif, even in times of crisis, that witnesses act out expected behaviours. This point was substantially documented during the Vietnam war when GIs would act out conventional gestures and attitudes from war movies whenever they would see newsreel cameramen approach. The cameras then photographed them doing this and so the viewer at home saw what he thought was a personal code of behaviour (i.e. one dictated by the demands of the situation), though it was in fact derived from a fictional code.

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rarely misses an opportunity to claim some kind of realism even in “melodramatised” genres. Both modes are inextricably intertwined.

Prophecies or Hypotheses? According to Alisa Lebow, modern times are characterised by prequels which can take the forms of pre-emptive wars and pre-shrunk jeans (Lebow, 2008). So why should there not be pre-enactments in the field of documentary? Why should filmmakers wait for something to happen when it can be prophesied on film? Orson Welles himself showed the way with the radio broadcast The War of the Worlds by Herbert George Wells. Regarding films, Peter Watkins broke new ground in the mid 1960s with his pre-enactment of a limited thermo-nuclear attack on Kent entitled The War Game (1965) which, incidentally, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1966, an award which demonstrates how difficult it is to draw a line between fiction and documentary. There is actually a stylistic tendency in scientific fiction films to evolve towards docudrama, that is, to combine the signal codes of documentary and those of fiction while making distinct and explicit factual claims. Moreover, in recent years, especially in the UK, there has been a spate of pre-enactments on environmental issues which loosely fall into the categories of science and politics, leading to a form of government by fear or phobocracy22.

Theoretical Approaches to Anticipatory Representations The choice of a genre with a documentary value to convey messages on environment originates in the close association between factual films and enlightenment, between discourses on rationalism and science. The one thing most theorists apparently agree upon is that the documentary represents, imagines, conjures, that which has already occurred. What very few have considered is how to interpret the documentary’s fanciful incursions into the future, otherwise named fictional documentaries23. One could suggest that these films are simply mockumentaries, thus dismissing the entire line of questioning: even though they may have their 22 Marie-Josée Mondzain defines the word phobocracy as : “L’industrie du spectacle terrifiant utilisée à des fins stratégiques pour légitimer les polices et les guerres.”, Marie José Mondzain, La Peur des images, Saint-Étienne, mars 2004. 23 Notable exceptions are Paul Ward’s excellent article “The Future of Documentary?: Conditional Tense Documentary and the Historical Record” and, to a lesser extent, Mark J.P. Wolf’s article “Subjunctive Documentary. Computer Imaging and Simulation”.

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merits, they are ultimately fakes operating in the sphere of fantasy; they are not to be taken seriously as documentaries but rather as pure fiction films. Intellectually, it is far more useful, however, and far more challenging to wonder what it means for films whose aim is to document our world, to speak in the future tense, to consider what they might have to say about the realm of the “not yet occurred”? Historians themselves agree on the need for their discipline to explore the future. Eric Hobsbawm once gave a lecture called “Looking Forward: History and the Future”24 in which he promoted the need for historians to make predictions, to prophesy, to explore the future: Historians [...] can and ought to bring into disrepute the even more dangerous exercises in futurology which thinks out the unthinkable as an alternative to thinking out the thinkable. They can keep the statistical extrapolators in check. They can actually say something about what is likely to happen and even more about what isn’t. They won’t be listened to much – that is of the essence of history. But just possibly they might be listened to a bit more if they actually spent more time in assessing and improving their capacity to say something about the future. (Hobsbawm 2011, 50)

From Eric Hobsbawm’s point of view, the only prerequisite was for historians to base their work on rigorous reasoning. In his estimation, predictions need not necessarily come true; they merely have to point to probabilities. Hypothetical documentaries—so called “pre-enactments”— respect these same principles. Likewise, psychoanalysis is a scientific field that might prove useful in understanding the need to document the developments of environmental issues. Psychoanalysis is undeniably the science that tries to make sense of the forces that underpin the urge to pre-enact. Re-enactment can be associated with the repetition compulsion25, but so can pre-enactment which is a form of repetition set in the future. Pre-enactments hinge on reenactments. They tread familiar traumatic ground and The War Game clearly plays on the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other fiction films mobilize familiar fears of natural disasters, while at the same time preparing the ground for future events. Pre-enactment is also driven by the desire to ward off a fatal outcome, the film being then a cautionary tale. 24 Paper delivered at the London School of Economics as the first David Glass Memorial Lecture, and published by the LSE and in the New Left Review in February 1981. 25 See Steve Rushton, “Playing Dead” in Experience, Memory, Re-Enactment, Rotterdam: Piet Zwart Institute, 2005: 85-98.

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Because of the heightened realism of the techniques used, these films do not merely hypothesize but appear to prophesize, not saying that “this could happen”, but rather that “this will happen”. These hypothetical tales add up to an inverted version of Santayana’s motto26: those who are not able to envision the tragedies of the future are condemned to having to live them. Not all filmmakers object to being seen as prophets and, as the producer of Smallpox 2002, Simon Chinn, explained: We began production on Smallpox 2002 in February 2001. ‘This is not science fiction’, had been our mantra, ‘this could happen’. This film is not about a distant future, it’s about tomorrow. Suddenly, seven months later, bioterrorism became a reality and Smallpox 2002 achieved the impact it had never sought.27

The same phenomenon had occurred with The China Syndrome which pre-enacted the Three Mile Island explosion. The film was released on March 16th, 1979, twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. In the film, cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) voices the physicists’ prophecy according to which the China Syndrome would render “an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable” (Graetz 2011, 63). Twelve days later, the prediction was on everybody’s mind and for a while the people in and around Harrisburg feared the worst.

The Phobocratic Recipe Because of its iconic power, television thrives on environmental fear: television uses doom-saying and sensationalism to generate attention and addiction. Television programming amplifies environmental concern through an “alarmist” mechanism which is regularly reactivated by horrifying news coverage. The fictional representations of environmental issues are very much indebted to the tradition of the disaster movie, the cinema of catastrophe. For many years, the fictional representations of environment relied heavily 26

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it.” A caveat from George Santayana, a Spanish American philosopher, a pragmatist, who at the age of 48 left his position at Harvard to go to Europe never to return. 27 The Anthrax terrorist attacks of September 2002 in the USA with anthrax spores found in street mail boxes (no casualty). , accessed on April 26th, 2007.

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upon the dramatisation of catastrophes. The BBC was the first to break new ground with The War Game in 1966—incidentally banned from British TV screens until 1985—and then Threads which was broadcast in 1984. A thorough analysis of the topic requires the inclusion of a third production: The Day After. Even though it is a US film made for TV, its influence largely outweighed its broadcasting in Britain in 1983. Both Threads and The Day After situate their nuclear nightmare within conventional dramatic narratives: the effects of a nuclear disaster on a population portrayed by professional actors. By contrast, in The War Game, Peter Watkins used non-professionals, together with hand-held natural lighting and sound in order to be as close as possible to the probable effects of a nuclear attack on mainland Britain, as if the audience were witnessing the events in an authentic documentary or in news coverage. Threads envisages what might happen if a nuclear attack struck Sheffield. The story hinges on the metaphor of the web, the civil society being a web in the sense of its interdependence but also of its fragility: if one strand breaks the rest may fray as well. By the end of the drama, British society is shown to have reverted to an archaic state of society only thirteen years after the dropping of the bomb, the web having been almost completely torn to shreds. Ironically, these fiction films on the havoc a nuclear catastrophe could wreak on the environment were actually prompted by political rather than by environmental concern. The programming decisions which led to the broadcasting of Threads in 1984 and to the 1985 lifting of the ban on The War Game—Peter Waktin’s 1965 film—answered a reaction to a renewed increase of tension in the Cold War during the early 1980s. The backdrop to the story was the increasingly heated Cold War rhetoric, the presence of American cruise missiles on British soil, and Mrs Thatcher outdoing the White House when she spoke about the Evil Empire and the need to modernize nuclear weapons. As a result, the mid-1980s witnessed the production of many films on the nuclear threat. One of the main films to be broadcast at the time was Edge of Darkness (1985) which plots the mysterious death of a female activist. Her father, a local police inspector, starts investigating into his daughter’s death and gradually discovers the murky truth about the British nuclear weapons policy of the 1980s.

The IF Series As previously observed, television promotes environmentalism through the use of alarmist messages. The question is whether mediainspired alarm is likely to be converted into social action. Television

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endeavours to promote the conversion of viewers into environmentally aware citizens through what, in media studies, is called injections of environmentally-based programmes. In an effort to combine its political remit and the need to attract a large audience, in 2004, the BBC came up with a series, called IF. Based on futuristic scenarios, its purpose was to increase the British population’s awareness on environmental issues and to get citizens to be part of a global effort to avoid apocalyptic situations. The IF series rests on a combination of hypothetical situations and scientific findings. The films interweave the stories of the main characters and how their lives became affected by global issues such as the depletion of resources, scientific progress and the absence of a global policy for the recycling of sensitive waste.

The Shock and Awe Factor The scenarios of these fiction films are often set in a futuristic environment in which the most tragic elements combine in a highly plausible way. The stylistic form of this type of fiction is reminiscent of video clips and it is based on fast-moving images, on the succession of close ups and long shots, and on unconventional angles so as to create an eerie atmosphere, something both strange and frightening. Fast-editing allows for the impression of speed and of an ineluctable descent into a fatal destiny. The result is high-octane, dynamic aesthetics. This type of representation is intricately tied to the world of advertising, of marketing; it borrows from the techniques used by public relations professionals when they communicate information about science and technology. These films are usually set in a high-tech environment where state-of-the-art engineering is combined with virtual and distant control technologies which are reminiscent of the Orwellian fictional world of 1984. This type of fiction relies heavily on facts and factual elements to get its message across; the suspension of disbelief28 is orchestrated by the intrusion of specialists who, by interfering in the narrative and explaining the situation from a scientific point of view, turn the documentary into a talking-head show29. Both entertainment and factual forms entwine and alternate at regular intervals allowing for the combination of melodrama and realism. The use of a hybridised form incorporating factual and spectacular 28 Term coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and which refers to the reader’s acceptance of a certain degree of implausibility in the narrative. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 1817. 29 “Talking head” refers to interview footage, where only the person's head and shoulders are visible. This technique is mainly used in documentary interviews.

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elements helps viewers understand the situation and foresee a fatal outcome for the population. Nevertheless, television is not cinema and this type of fiction cannot compete with US eco-blockbusters and high budget productions like The Day After Tomorrow and Avatar. Television cannot afford the time, technology and skilled labour needed for complex digital effects. Standing halfway between fiction and documentary, the purpose of this type of production is not to use metaphors to try and speak about environmental hazards but on the contrary to be very explicit about the threats to our world through the use of techniques of shock and awe. The objective is to overwhelm viewers with shocking and awe-inspiring images that will easily be imprinted on their minds. These representations are given a scientific added value thanks to scientists who can either act out fictional roles or step into the narrative as experts who comment upon the situation. The combination of melodramatic and scientific elements, of a fictional form endowed with a documentary import is meant to encourage the emotional and intellectual involvement of a large family audience which is likely to watch television as a shared experience. It is usually a UK centred programme meant to increase anguish about how survival can be sustained over the long term, thus engaging the viewer’s empathy.

A Critical Approach of the IF Series Most of the episodes of the IF series elicit both a feeling of guilt and a sense of fatalism among viewers, this combination being supposedly meant to pave the way for changes in behaviours. A cursory look at the titles is sufficient to understand the intention of the creators of these programmes: to raise the population's environmental awareness 30. At first, this series seems very promising for advocates of publicservice broadcasting since it fulfils the requirements imposed on television to entertain, to inform but also to take part in the education of the population. Individual destinies become part of a global evolution which viewers can help reverse or aggravate. Environmentally friendly patterns of behaviour are defined and viewers are expected to follow them: they are advised to reduce their consumption of petrol and take part in car pooling schemes; they can help preserve nonrenewable resources and be active in the recycling of household waste. An increase in their awareness on these

30 ‘IF... the Toxic Timebomb Goes Off’, ‘IF... the Lights Go Out’, ‘IF...the Oil Runs Out’, to quote just a few.

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issues should help them become more politically committed and place them in a better position to understand the political issues at stake. The IF series can be considered as appointment television31 since it is broadcast at regular intervals in prime time slots: for these reasons the programmes have transgenerational appeal and the potential to stimulate debate within the family. It is not only investigative journalism but also expert journalism: debates stand at the core of a form of programme that is always followed by talks with specialists who put forward contradictory views according to the principle of due impartiality which applies to the treatment of current events. However, despite these first impressions, the IF… series is not a progressive type of programme but rather a very reactionary one. The first reason is that it works on the principle of guilt and it instils in viewers the feeling that whatever the topic, be it power consumption, recycling or fair trade, they must feel concerned and stand committed. Viewers must pay the price of the high carbon lifestyle they inherited and to which they are perpetually shackled by the consumerism so effectively fuelled by advertising. The same viewers are alternatively consumers coaxed into purchasing high carbon products and the citizens of an endangered planet on their way to becoming strong proponents of economic degrowth. Unlike a regular fiction film, this type of programme requires active participation: viewers are expected to be committed and to adjust their daily lifestyle to the principles advocated in the programme. Its highly emotional overtones make it impossible for viewers to remain indifferent: the future of the planet and the well-being of its inhabitants depend on the responsibility of each and every one and behaviour incompatible with the environmental code is condemned as unethical, that is, morally reprehensible. Whenever it comes to environmental issues, the strategy according to which “there is no alternative” becomes a leitmotiv that is hammered by the participants of the debate that follows the broadcasting of the film. Politicians prize this type of programme, which gives them the opportunity to revamp their image at little cost. The louder the forewarning of imminent catastrophe the less chance there is of the political class being indicted for lack of foresight. The population is warned and the warnings mean the transfer of responsibility from politicians to citizens, politicians abdicating responsibility for the duties they were elected to perform and relinquishing their rights regarding issues on which they can have considerable impact. Likewise, the consequences of environmental change 31

A type of television made of programmes people set aside time to watch.

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is global, as is the responsibility, but viewers are told that the remedies are local, as if the population could undo, on their own, the effects of decades of national and international policies that have encouraged consumption at the expense of environmental protection. Finally, this type of series is conducive to a fatalistic approach to the management of public affairs recently made more egregious with the prospect of a financial crash which the public has come to view as ineluctable. The binary opposition between finance and environment resurfaces: when a financial crisis is not hogging the headlines, attention is focused on environment and vice versa. Both are unmistakably treated in the fatalistic mode. The result is that gradually people have been led to believe that even financial crises are inevitable, that poverty and unemployment are the intolerable but inescapable side effects of capitalism. This is humanity going through a process of regression in which individuals are left to fend for themselves as in the worst and most catastrophic scenarios.

Conclusion When dealing with the treatment of current issues, the power of fiction should never be underestimated, especially when the political message is conveyed by mass media, and in particular by television. Science fiction films about the environment, like documentaries, are to be taken as being about our world. They are not escapist fantasies but psychological journeys and docudramas often represent the most relevant type of information available to a wide audience. The coverage of green issues is a challenge to many journalists. From their point of view, it is a difficult subject to cover since environmental changes happen more slowly. Moreover, the scientific disciplines that study them are often complex and subtle. Because of their tragic dimension, only dramatic events with an immediate impact, such as oil spills, can grab the headlines and be easily translated into fictional material. The complexity and slow-moving nature of the sustainability issue means that this subject must be addressed in all genres of programming, not just news and documentaries. It must not be reduced to a dry, highly scientific topic, too complex to involve the man in the street whose future is to be decided by scientists and politicians. Because of their effectiveness, the informative and pedagogical dimensions of the fictional representations of green issues cannot be dispensed with by TV channels, even though some programmes, like the BBC’s IF… series, may be

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criticised because of the misuse the commissioners made of the genre in their attempt to rival the ratings of their competitors. In democracies, politics means the power for people to decide. Raising the citizens’ awareness on such topics can be achieved through empathy, by getting people to apprehend issues through their consequences. Therefore, fiction, in its own way, can help people make informed decisions and so enrich the political debate with a view to increasing the chances of meeting environmental targets such as a reduction of CO2 emissions.

References Altheide, David L. and Robert P. 1991. Snow. Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era. London: RSM Press. Anders, Hansen. Environment, Media and Communication. 2010. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Rushton, Steve. “Playing Dead.” 2005. In Experience, Memory, ReEnactment, edited by Bangma Anke, Steve Rushton and Florian Wust, 85-98. Rotterdam: Piet, Zwart Institute. Blewitt, John. 2008. Understanding Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan. Chilton, Paul. 1982. “Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Culture and Propaganda.” In Nukespeak: The Media and the Bomb, edited by Aubrey Crispin, 94-112. London: Comedia Publishing Group. Corner, John. 1996. The Art of the Record. A Critical Introduction to Documentary. Manchester: Manchester University Press. De Burgh, Hugo. 2000. Investigative Journalism. Context and Practice. London: Routledge. Garnett, Tony. 1999. The New Theatre Quarterly, Volume XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Girlin, Todd. 1994. Inside Prime Time. London: Routledge. Graetz, Michael J. 2011. The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Henderson, Lesley. 2007. Social Issues in Television Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 2011. On History. London: Orion. Hochmann, Jhan. 1988. Green Cultural Studies: Nature in Film, Novel and Theory. Moscow ID: University of Idaho Press. Jancovich, Mark and James Lyons. 2003. Quality Popular Television. London: British Film Institute.

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Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NUY. Lebow, Alisa. 2008. “Pre-enactment in the Hypothetical Documentary.” Paper presented at Visible Evidence XV: The International Documentary Studies Conference, University of Lincoln, August 4–8. Loey, David. 2003. Global Environmental Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. Wilmington, DE: Rowman & Littlefield. Miège, Bernard. 1986. Le JT : mise en scène de l‘actualité à la télévision. Paris: INA. Mondzain, Marie-Josée. 2004. “La Peur des images.” Paper presented at the Némo Festival, Saint-Étienne, March 9-14. Morley, David and Charlotte Brundson. 1999. The Nationwide Television Studies. London: Routledge. Morley, David. 1980. The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding. London: British Film Institute. Neuzil, Mark and Russell E. Train. 2008. The Environment and the Press: from Adventure Writing to Advocacy. Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press. Norris, Pippa, Kern, Montague and Marion R. Just. 2003. Framing Terrorism. London: Routledge. Palmer, Gareth. 2008. Exposing Lifestyle Television. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Russell, Bertrand. 1994. Fact and Fiction, London: Routledge. Seed, David. 2008. A Companion to Science Fiction. Oxford: Blackwell. Stuart, Allan, Bárbara Adam, Cynthia Carter. 2003. Environmental Risks and the Media. London: Routledge. Zelizer, Barbie and Stuart Allan. 2002. Journalism after September 11. London: Routledge.

Filmography (Fiction films, documentaries and TV programmes mentioned) Theatrical films Cameron, James, Director. Avatar. 2009 Bridges, James, Director. The China Syndrome. 1979 Emmerich, Roland, Director. The Day After. 2004 TV films BBC 1. “Cathy Come Home.” 1966 BBC 1. “Edge of Darkness.” 1985

Anthropo-scene

BBC 1. “Threads.” 1984 BBC 2. “Smallpox.” 2002 BBC 2. “The War Game.” 1985 Channel 4. “An Inconvenient Truth.” 2009 Channel 4. “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” 2007 Channel 4. “The Greenhouse Conspiracy.” 1990 ITV. “The Day After.” 1983 TV series BBC 1. “Doomwatch.” 1970-1972 BBC 2 “IF…” 2004-2006 BBC 2. “Earth - The Climate Wars.” 2008

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CHAPTER FIVE FROM TEACHING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AT UNIVERSITY TO PRACTISING IT IN A FIRM OF SOLICITORS IN ENGLAND AND WALES: DEFENSE OF THE INTERESTS OF THE PLANET OR NEW SOURCE OF INCOME? GERALDINE GADBIN-GEORGE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR PANTHÉON-ASSAS UNIVERSITY (PARIS II)

According to Part I (2) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990: “The environment consists of all, or any, of the following media, namely, the air, water and land; and the medium of air includes the air within buildings and the air within other natural or man-made structures above or below ground”1. The environment extends from global to local, from macro to micro. It is everywhere. If the landscape works of painters such as English Turner and Constable or French Monet (to name but a few) remind us of the beauty of nature, excessive industrialism has damaged the environment and brought pollution with it. Natural phenomena like climate change, floods or droughts are a way for the earth to rebel against the humans who have abused it. Intergovernmental organisations like the worldwide United Nations Environment Programme or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the European Environment Agency, non governmental agencies like Greenpeace were set up in order to alert people to the risks of environmental degradation and find ways of stopping or slowing it down. Scientific movements like ecology developed and subsequently became the spearhead of political parties. 1

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/part/I/enacted.

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The many past and current infringements to the environment have led to an ever increasing amount of international recommendations, national legislation and guidance aimed at protecting it or limiting those infringements. Lawyers worldwide must now be conversant with the following principles which pervade environmental literature: the principle of Sustainable Development, first mentioned in the 1987 Brundtland report by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the Precautionary Principle invented and developed by the Commission of the European Communities2, the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) or Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) defined by the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)3 and the Public Participation Principle introduced by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development4. The purpose of this study is to show how current and future lawyers of England and Wales (which have their own legal system) get involved in environmental law from the moment they enter university until they practise in a firm and what are their motivations. We will focus on solicitors as opposed to barristers. Unlike the latter solicitors are often able to deal with a case from its outset until its outcome.

Environment at a Crossroads with Other Disciplines In the early 1980s, Leonard and Morell wrote: “Ten years ago there was little concern or awareness in developing countries about the quality of the environment” (Leonard and Morell 1981, 281). We may therefore assume that environmental issues have been on people’s minds—or at least their governments’—for about forty years. Environment is everywhere, it is not static which means that it is difficult to discuss it independently 2

See page 3 of the following report: Commission of the European Communities. 2/2/2000. “ Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle ”. Brussels. EC (2000) Com (2001) 1. Retrieved on 27/10/2011 from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/library/pub/pub07_en.pdf. 3 Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development . 2006. “Extended Producer Responsibility. Project Fact Sheet ”. Paris. Retrieved on 28/10/2011 from http://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3343,en_2649_34395_37284725_1_1_1_1,00 .html. 4 See principle 10. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. June 1992. “Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development”. Rio. http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=78&article id=1163.

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from other domains such as science, religion, philosophy or the law. It is an interdisciplinary subject. For certain authors environment and environmental law are closely connected to science. According to Kiss and Shelton: “The need for environmental law to take into consideration the “laws of nature” inevitably leads to an interdisciplinary approach to environmental problems. Lawmakers and jurists must rely on and utilize scientific expertise” (Kiss and Shelton 1997, 9). Sands went one step further by implying that environmental law is led by science: “to a great extent, international environmental law is driven by scientific evidence […]” (Sands 1995, 63). Environment is often linked to health issues as stressed by Moeller (Moeller 2005, 2). Environment is also often related to religion. For Gottlieb religions have an “environmental agenda” which is “continually set and reset by their adherents, as they engage in the complex and controversial process of reinventing traditions to meet contemporary concerns” (Gottlieb 1996, 9). And environment and philosophy are closely intertwined. Pratt, Howarth and Brady examined the relationship between environment and philosophy through the opinion of the Romantics, a Scholastic point of view and from that of the Cartesians (Pratt, Howarth and Brady 2000, 3 & 8). There is now an environmental market. Vogel talked about “environment and consumer protection” (Vogel 2003, 557). The expression “green business” usually refers to the fact for a company or “business to reduce negative environmental impacts” (Friend 2009, 2) but we personally would also say that it refers to the whole business built around environmental issues of which companies, governments, international organisations and most citizens are actors. As well of course as lawyers.

Development of Environmental Law For the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association: “There have been laws aimed at protecting or improving the environment since at least Old Testament times (Deuteronomy 23: 12-13, which concerns sewage disposal)”5. According to these provisions of the Holy Bible: “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. [...] And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement”6. For former President of the International Court of Justice Sir Robert Jennings, environmental law is not “a modish concern” and we should remember 5 6

Retrieved on 26/10/2011 from http://www.ukela.org/rte.asp?id=14. http://bible.cc/deuteronomy/23-13.htm.

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that “of the two pioneering decisions [which revolve around environmental issues] both still leading and much-cited cases, one was the Bering Sea Arbitration of a century ago, and the other, the Trail Smelter Arbitration of half a century ago” (Jennings in Sands 1995, xii). Environmental law must be considered in two ways. On the one hand legislation is enacted, recommendations made and conventions signed to protect the environment before it is destroyed and on the other hand to set limits to the levels of pollution and put an end to the causes of damage to the environment. This has led to what Richardson called a “juridification of environmental policy in the 1970s and 1980s” in Western European countries (Richardson 2002, 429). There has been a flurry of legal texts over the last few years and in particular since the 1990s parallel to the “growth in the regulatory competence of the European Union” (Vogel 2003, 557). The legal aspect of the environment is manifold. In Europe national legislation must comply with European legislation. Failure to do so may result in court action before the national and potentially European courts, thus creating national or European caselaw which have a binding effect (national caselaw having to abide by European caselaw). At international level one must take into account the documents drafted by “states, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, treaties, other international acts such as resolutions of the General Assembly and other international bodies, EC regulations and directives, [...] customary law, the general principles of law, and general problems of compliance, implementation and enforcement, and dispute settlement” (Jennings in Sands 1995, xii). Governmental or non-governmental bodies, agencies, charities (like the Environmental Law Centre specialising in Fundamental Freedoms and Human Rights relating to Health and the Environment) and of course lawyers’ and non lawyers’ associations (United Kingdom Environmental Law Association) have been set up to play a part in the defence of the environment by gathering information, drafting documents, suggesting changes to the current situation and responding to people’s needs and questions whatever they are. The Environment Agency defines itself as an “Executive Non-departmental Public Body responsible to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a Welsh Government Sponsored Body responsible to the Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development”7. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is “a non-departmental public body, accountable through Scottish .

7

On its website: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/default.aspx.

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Ministers to the Scottish Parliament [which advises] Scottish ministers, regulated businesses, industry and the public on environmental best practice”8. The Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland has a similar approach. At European level the European Environment Agency was set up in October 1993 and its aim is to “provide EC institutions and Member States with ‘objective, reliable and comparable’ information to enable them to protect the environment, to assess the results of such measures and to disseminate information to the public” (Sunkin, Mong and Wight 2001, 11). Important national environmental legislation includes the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act 1876, the Alkali Act 1863, the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA), the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA), the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 (PPCA), the Water Resources Act 1991 (WRSA), the Water Industry Act 1991 (WIA), the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (WCA) and the Environment Act 1995. Of course this list is not exhaustive and a regular update is provided by the Environment Agency9.

Environment and Lawyers in England and Wales People setting up manufacturing businesses, local authorities building roads, freight companies which wish to travel throughout the country may need to get in touch with a solicitor to ask for advice or to issue or defend a court action on their behalf. It was therefore only logical that aspiring solicitors and solicitors themselves would soon want to become familiar with this fast developing area of law.

The teaching of environment at University and College of Law The logical way to become a solicitor is to do a legal degree at university (or another degree followed by a conversion course to acquire legal knowledge) before undertaking the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law where students improve to an extent their theoretical legal knowledge but mostly acquire practical legal knowledge before taking the solicitor's oath and working in a firm.

8

http://www.sepa.org.uk/about_us.aspx. See its website: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/netregs/legislation/current/default.aspx.

9

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Even before passing your A-levels you have to consider which university you would most like to join. Various ways exist to pick and choose the place of your dreams but it is common to look at the university guides regularly published by the press. Newspapers like the Times, the Independent or the Guardian have an extensive coverage of environmental issues in their articles so we expected their university guides to reflect their green interest. Annex 1 and annex 2 (respectively the Guardian’s and the Independent's latest university guides) show that surprisingly the terms “environment” and “environmental” do not even appear once. It would be erroneous to assume that English universities do not talk about environment or teach environmental law. It seems however that environmental concerns are not yet a reflex for the academics or journalists who compiled the information which appears in the university guides. In annexes 1 and 2 we attempted to define which subjects are likely to involve any environment related or environmental law teaching. A look at various websites confirms that various universities offer some environmental law degrees or postgraduate diplomas. Queen Mary (University of London) offers a Master of Laws (LLM) in Environmental Law. The emphasis is placed on the “interdisciplinary programme, encompassing legal, political and human rights issues of environmental protection, whilst drawing on expertise from colleagues in other […] University [...] departments, including geography, human rights and physics”10. De Montfort University in Leicester also offers an LLM in Environmental Law. On top of the compulsory “Environmental Law and Practice core module” students can choose other modules such as “Atmospheric Pollution, Health and Safety Law, Waste Management and Contaminated Land, Planning Law, Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Law, Water Pollution Law, Environmental Assessments […], International Environmental Law, Noise Pollution Law, Environmental Crime, Nuclear Energy and Environmental Challenges, Light Pollution, Negotiated Study Module”11. The University of Dundee offers a postgraduate Masters in Water Law with additional modules such as “International Water Law (the law of transboundary water resources), National Water Law (including water rights and water quality and taking a comparative approach) and Regulation

10 Retrieved on 29/10/2011 from http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/llm/programmes/environmental/index.ht ml. 11 Retrieved on 29/7/2011 from http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/business_and_law/law/courses/pg/llm_env.jsp.

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of Water and Sanitation Services (looking at both the public and private sector and focusing on good governance)”12. The above list is of course far from exhaustive. The last few years have seen a proliferation of new graduate diplomas in environmental law and others offering an interdisciplinary teaching involving some environmental aspect. For instance graduate diplomas include an LLM in Environmental Law at the Universities of Nottingham, London-School of Oriental and African Studies, an LLM in Environmental Law and Policy at the Universities of Newcastle and that of Kent and an LLM in Environmental Health Law at the University of Surrey. Interdisciplinarity is also topical with a BA in Environmental Studies and Law (Combined Studies) at the University of Hertfordshire. Postgraduate diplomas include a Master of Sciences (MSc) in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy at the University of Oxford, an MSc in Sustainability (Environmental Politics and Policy) at the University of Leeds and an MSc Law and Environmental Science at the University of Nottingham. According to Adelson: “Environmental Studies brings together relevant disciplines and concepts to address environmental issues and to resolve environmental problems […]. Environmental Studies engages science, social practices, values, and beliefs” (Adelson 2008, 3). Some universities seem to privilege speciality and others interdisciplinarity. Likewise the programme in some universities (like De Montfort) seems to revolve more around damaged environment (and how to remedy it or prevent it from being further damaged) compared to others (such as Dundee) which seem to focus on how to protect the environment before it gets damaged. There is no obvious criterion as to why a particular choice is made but the creation of a diploma or a compulsory or optional module relating to environmental issues or environmental law obviously derives from a strategic choice from universities. Myers talked about “trendy environmentalism” (Myers 2011). The wide eclectic range offered by British universities is positive to avoid what Slaughter, Tulumello and Wood described about scholars “see[ing] the same world outside their office windows” (Slaughter, Tulumello and Wood 1998, 370). When “green” graduate or postgraduate students go to the College of Law to do the Legal Practice Course with a view to becoming solicitors they must follow “foundation subjects” which are listed on the College of Law’s general website. There are eight centres across England and Wales where it is possible to follow the relevant course: Birmingham, Bristol, 12 Retrieved on 13/10/2011 from http://www.dundee.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/water_law_llm.htm.

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Chester, Guildford, London Bloomsbury, London Moorgate, Manchester and York. There are seven compulsory subjects which are: “contract law, criminal law, equity and trusts, European Union law, land law, public law, tort”13. Environmental law does not appear as one of the main subjects but two points must be borne in mind. Environmental law may for instance be indirectly taught through the study of European Union law, land law or the public law course. Moreover the purpose of the Legal Practice Course is—as mentioned in the name itself—not so much to improve students’ theoretical knowledge of the law as their ability to practise the job of solicitor. The whole idea is to learn through the study of main subjects (like the law of contract or negligence) how to deal with a client, draft pleadings, write a settlement agreement or go to court. A would-be environmental law specialist can always go back to university after his Legal Practice Course to improve his academic knowledge or acquire practical professional experience when he joins the environmental law department of a firm of solicitors. We cannot finish this section without mentioning the increasing importance of environmental education in schools, universities or similar institutions of higher education. In its Thessaloniki Declaration of 1997, UNESCO described environmental education as “a process of transmitting knowledge and information to make the public understand the problems and to stimulate awareness” (Newman 2011, 106). According to Palmer: “Whilst the words ‘environment’ and ‘education’ do not appear to have been used in conjunction with each other until the mid-1960s, the evolution of environmental education has incorporated the significant influence of some of the ‘great’ [...] thinkers [...] Goethe, Rousseau [...]. many writers […] attribute the founding of environmental education in the UK to a Scottish Professor of Botany and an originator of town and country planning – Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1933)” (Palmer 1998, 4).

Further Teaching to Solicitors: Continuing Professional Development Paragraph 3.1 of the SRA Training Regulations 2011 Part 3 (which came into force on 6th October 2011 and superseded the Training Regulations 2009) provides that qualified solicitors, however experienced they are, should follow at least sixteen hours of Continuing Professional

13 Retrieved on 28/10/2011 from http://www.college-of-law.co.uk/OurCourses/GDL/GDL-course-content-and-assessment/.

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Development (CPD) training every year14. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has a webpage on how to find a CPD provider. “Environmental law” is amongst the possible options. There is a whole range of possible providers of courses, who range from barristers to businesses specialised in training as well of course as the College of Law itself15. Sixteen hours’ further education a year does not seem much but it is no doubt a way to keep up to date with the numerous developments in the domain of environmental law.

Environment in Law Firms Environmental law has become an area of law in which some solicitors must work in the same way as conveyancing, criminal law or commercial litigation. Some firms have set up environmental law departments because of their convictions and others simply to get into this emerging but fast developing market. Simultaneously solicitors who praise the virtues of protecting the planet are expected to preach it at home. This is why environmental education is increasingly encouraged.

A New Business The professional body of solicitors, the Law Society, explains that clients who have to deal with an environmental legal issue should “find a solicitor”. The Law Society has a “Planning & Environmental Law Committee compris[ing] solicitors specialising in all areas of town and country planning and environmental law [which] identifies areas of planning and environmental law [...] that require reform or review and formulates recommendations for consideration by ministers and officials”16. Based on the experience of its members, the Planning & Environmental Law Committee would therefore act as a lobbying group. The Law Society and its members come across as very proactive. But where do solicitors acquire this experience? Probably not at the College of Law but mostly at university or within a firm itself when they do their two-year vocational training. American Erin Brockovich was employed as a secretary in a law firm when she decided to help victims in 14

http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/cpd/content.page. http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/cpd/find-cpd-providers.page. 16 Retrieved on 8/10/2011 from http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/areasoflaw/view=areasoflawdetails.law?AREAOFL AW=Environmental%20law&AREAOFLAWID=33. 15

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a major negligence case involving the pollution of a river. Acquiring knowledge as a trainee solicitor should therefore not be a problem mostly if one bears in mind the fact that every solicitor must follow Continuing Professional Development classes throughout his career. With the birth of the environmental market there has been an explosion of environmental law cases. Taddia pointed out that “as well as existing clients dipping their toes into renewables, potential new business for law firms is emerging among a raft of new start-ups which deliver ‘clean’ technologies, or ‘cleantech’” (Taddia 2011). More traditional work such as conveyancing or negligence actions may respectively involve environmental aspects such as town and country planning issues or pollution issues. Solicitors are therefore forced to adapt to a growing need and they are usually happy to indulge by getting familiar with national or international legislation and texts. Depending on the size of the firm or its agenda, solicitors may elect to advertise themselves as lawyers acting on behalf of polluting companies or conversely green groups (or individuals) wishing to protect the planet. Financial issues are important as a firm of solicitors has a commercial object and more money will generally be made out of the companies responsible for pollution than their victims. Strangely enough the Environment Agency has a list of “key partners” which includes “the Health Protection Agency […], the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [...], the Department of Energy and Climate Change” but surprisingly does not include lawyers17. We can only assume that a governmental body is not allowed to advertise the services rendered by solicitors.

Environment Management Practice in Firms of Solicitors According to Hortensius and Barthel the idea of developing “international standards on environmental performance” arose during the preparation of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development known as the “Earth Summit” (Hortensius and Barthel 1997, 19). A number of firms have since proudly gained the ISO 14001 certification granted by the International Standards Organisation based in Geneva. The ISO 14001 was first published in 1996 and “is the only ISO 14000 standard against which it is currently possible to be certified by an external certification authority”. The standard “is applicable to any organization that wishes to: implement, 17 Retrieved on 26/10/2011 from http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/113014.aspx.

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maintain and improve an environmental management system, assure itself of its conformance with its own stated environmental policy, […] ensure compliance with environmental laws and regulations [...]”18. Rondinelli and Vastag disputed that ISO 14001 was in any way useful (Rondinelli and Vastag 2000, 504). General “green initiatives” (Taddia 2011) have been taken by the Law Society itself which is working towards “the collective reduction of the profession’s carbon footprint and adoption of more environmentally sustainable practices [...]”. In 2007 the Law Society “adopted a formal environmental policy committed to: Managing, monitoring and reducing the environmental impact of [its] business operations”19. Green initiatives have been taken individually by firms of solicitors such as cutting down on printing paper or organising video-conferences between solicitors and clients to save them the need to travel. If such decisions are praiseworthy we may however question the real motivation of firms. On the one hand solicitors are citizens and thanks to the mediatisation of the need to protect the environment there is a growing awareness amongst people that steps must urgently be taken. On the other hand firms are businesses with a commercial objective. External signs that environmental concerns have been taken on board will be noticed by clients who may prefer to instruct environmentally friendly solicitors. To conclude, the solicitor profession is in constant evolution. Under the Legal Services Act 2007 and since 6 October 2011 the profession has become more competitive than ever—in an increasingly complex and depressed market—with the introduction of the Alternative Business Structures which will allow “non-lawyers to own and invest in law firms”20. It is still too soon to see whether this will affect the way environmental issues are tackled by solicitors. Whatever the consequences of the reform may be, it seems from the above that solicitors are very green aware irrespective of whether their motivations are commercial or not. The motivation may arise when prospective solicitors study at university. We saw that academics have introduced a substantial number of courses or diplomas revolving around environmental law or environmentally linked disciplines. There is no doubt a trend in being seen as a defender of nature but it is also true that the new environment market has opened up lots of new concepts to protect. The proliferation of legal texts requires solicitors to get up to speed. 18

http://www.iso14000-iso14001-environmental-management.com/iso14001.htm. http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/aboutlawsociety/corporateresponsibility/ environment.page. 20 http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/practicesupport/regulation.page. 19

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Funnily enough Rayner reminds us that “in April 2011 the UK government was referred […] to the European Court of Justice for its continued failure to comply with the Aarhus Convention and provide an affordable procedure for mounting legal challenges to development plans that might damage the environment” (Rayner 2011). The Aarhus Convention of 1998 is the common name for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters and seeks to ensure access to justice in environmental cases. The British government was thus accused of not setting the right example. Let us hope that this will change.

References Adelson, Glenn, James Engell, Brent Ranalli & K.P. Van Anglen. 2008. Environment: an Interdisciplinary Anthology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Coyle, Sean and Karen, Morrow. 2004. The philosophical foundations of environmental law: property, rights and nature. Portland: Hart Publishing. Environment Agency. April 2011. Environmental Permitting Regulations, Operational Risk Appraisal Scheme (Opra for EPR), version 3.6. Bristol: Environment Agency. http://publications.environment-agency.gov.uk/PDF/GEHO0410BSFAE-E.pdf. Retrieved on 30/6/2011. Friend, Gil. 2009. The Truth about Green Business. New Jersey: FT Press. Gottlieb, Roger S. (ed.). 1996. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. London: Routledge. Hortensius, Dick and Mark Barthel. 1997. “Beyond ISO 14001: an Introduction to the ISO 14000 series.” In SHELDON, Christopher (ed.). ISO 14001 and Beyond: Environmental Management Systems in the Real World. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 19-45. Kiss, Alexandre Charles & Dinah Shelton. 1997. Manual of European Environmental Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1st ed Grotius Publications 1993). Leonard H. Jeffrey and David Morell. 1981. “Emergence of Environmental Concern in Developing Countries: A Political Perspective.” 17 Stan. J. Int'l L. 17, 281-296. Moeller, Dade W. 2005. Environment Health. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Myers, Todd. 5/9/2011. “How the rise of trendy environmentalism is harming the planet.” The Seattle Times. Retrieved on 7/9/2011 from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2016094849_guest06m yers.html. Newman, Julie. 2011. Green Education: an A-to-Z Guide. London: Sage Publications. Palmer, Joy A. 1998. Environmental Education in the 21st century: theory, practice, progress and promise. Abingdon (Oxon): Routledge. Pratt, Vernon, Jane Howard and Emily Brady. 2000. Environment and Philosophy. London: Routledge. Rayner, Jonathan. 12/05/2011. “European Union is subject to Aarhus Convention, UN rules.” LSG. http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/european-union-subject-aarhusconvention-un-rules. Retrieved on 8/8/2011. Richardson, Benjamin J. 2002. “Economic Instruments in UK Environmental Law Reform: Is the UK Government ‘Sending the Right Signals’?” European Journal of Law Reform 3/4, 427-450. Rondinelli, D. and G. Vastag. 2000. “Panacea, common sense, or just a label? - The value of ISO 14001 environmental management systems.” European Management Journal. 18/5, 499-510. Sands, Philippe. 1995. Principles of Environmental Law. Vol 1. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Retrieved on 10/10/2011 from http://osgoode.yorku.ca/osgmedia.nsf/0/10051BEDE52F4C08852571 DA0074B61E/$FILE/Euro%20journal%20of%20law%20reform.pdf. Taddia, Marialuisa. 15/9/2011. “Environmental considerations are rising up the law firm management agenda.” Law Society Gazette. Retrieved on 20/10/2011 from http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/environmental-considerationsare-rising-law-firm-management-agenda. Slaughter, Anne-Marie, Andrew S. Tumulello and Stephan Wood. July 1998. “International Law and International Relations Theory: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary Scholarship.” The American Journal of International Law 92/3, 367-397. Sunkin, Maurice, David Mong & Robert Wight. 2001. Sourcebook on Environmental Law. Londres: Cavendish Sourcebook series. Vogel, David. October 2003. “The Hare and the Tortoise Revisited: The New Politics of Consumer and Environmental Regulation in Europe. British Journal of Political Science 33/4, 557-580 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Annex 1: the Guardian’s “University guide 2012 subjects”21 List of subjects proposed by alphabetical order

Possible link with environmental issues

Possible link with environmental law

Agriculture, forestry Agriculture, forestry and food; American and food studies; Anatomy and physiology; Anthropology; Archaeology and Forensics; Architecture Art and design Biosciences, Building Biosciences and town and country planning, Business and management studies

Building and town and country planning

Chemistry, Classics, Chemistry Computer sciences and IT Dentistry, Drama and dance Earth and marine sciences, Economics, Education, Engineering: chemical, Engineering: civil, Engineering: electronic and electrical, Engineering: general, Engineering: materials and mineral, Engineering: mechanical, English

21

Earth and marine sciences, Economics, Engineering: chemical, Engineering: civil, Engineering: electronic and electrical, Engineering: general, Engineering: materials and mineral, Engineering: mechanical

Retrieved on 28/10/2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment.

From Teaching Law at University to Practising it in a Firm of Solicitors

Annex 2: the Independent's University Guide22 List of subjects proposed by alphabetical order

Possible link with environmental issues (such as health issues, pollution etc)

Possible link with environmental law

Accounting & Finance, Aeronautical & Agriculture & Forestry Aeronautical & Manufacturing Manufacturing Engineering, Architecture Engineering, Agriculture & Forestry, American Studies, Anatomy & Physiology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Art & Design Biological Sciences, Building, Business Studies

Biological Sciences

Celtic Studies, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Classics & Ancient History, Communication & Media Studies, Computer Science

Chemical Engineering, Chemistry

Building

Dentistry, Drama, Dance & Cinematics East & South Asian Studies, Economics, Education, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, English

Economics, Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Food Science, General Engineering

General Engineering

22

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98 Geography & Environmental Science, Geology, German

Chapter Five Geography & Environmental Science

History, History of Art, Architecture & Design, Hospitality Iberian Languages, Italian Leisure, Recreation & Recreation & Tourism, Tourism, Land & Property Land & Property Management, Law, Management Librarianship & Information Management, Linguistics

Law

Materials Technology, Materials Technology, Mathematics, Mechanical Mechanical Engineering Engineering, Medicine, Middle Eastern & African Studies, Music Nursing, Other Subjects Allied to Medicine

Other Subjects Allied to Medicine

Physics & Astronomy, Politics Philosophy, Pharmacology & Pharmacy, Politics, Psychology Russian & East European Languages Social Policy, Social Work, Sociology, Sports Science Theology & Religious Studies, Town & Country Planning and Landscape Veterinary Medicine

Social Policy

Town & Country Planning and Landscape

PART III GREEN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER SIX THE GREEN, GREEN LANDSCAPE OF HOME: GREEN INITIATIVES IN YILAN, TAIWAN CHUN-CHIEH CHI PROFESSOR DEPT. OF ETHNIC RELATIONS AND CULTURE NATIONAL DONG-HWA UNIVERSITY, TAIWAN

Introduction Mid-summer 2010, local people in central Taiwan gathered in front of one of Taiwan’s largest naphtha cracker complexes to protest against the company that operates it. They were much angered by two accidents inside the complex in less than one month; both incidents had involved fire and explosions, releasing significant amounts of toxins into the local environment. Yet in 1991, people from the same communities had gathered in the streets to welcome the coming of a modern industrial facility into their peripheral village, because of the promise of jobs and community development. Two hundred kilometers away and four years earlier, the same chemical company had been taken aback when Yilan County in Northeast Taiwan rejected its proposal to build a massive naphtha-cracker complex there. The company was much surprised to learn that at the time when most Taiwanese people were still celebrating the so-called “economic miracle” of the country achieved through rapid industry-led growth, any county would decline the promise of progress. Yilan County, in this way, became famous for its rejection of industrial seduction while embracing slow change and a green environment. The purpose of this paper is first to trace Yilan County’s environmental history and to explain why its people had developed a social mentality that was in sharp contrast to the majority of people in Taiwan at that time. Secondly, this paper will discuss how Yilan County has subsequently come up with creative “Green Initiatives,” including

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hosting an annual “Green Fair” and an “International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival,” in order to achieve green growth for the county. The final section of this paper will discuss the implications of Yilan County’s experiences, in light of global environmental change, for other parts of Taiwan and for other parts of the world. The case of Yilan County sheds important light on current debates regarding the possibility of “green” or “sustainable” development. Not only did Yilan County precede the Bruntdland Commission by two years in articulating the importance of development that does not compromise the needs of future generations, but the political process underlying the Yilan County naphtha cracker controversy illustrates the centrality of democracy and an informed electorate in the achievement of sustainable development.

Yilan as a Peripheral County Located on the northeast corner of the island, Yilan County is one of the three counties that have long been considered the “back mountains” of Taiwan. While indigenous Atayal people have inhabited the Yilan area for almost three hundred years, Chinese immigrants were late to settle in this region because Yilan is separated from the population center of northern Taiwan by high mountain ranges. Geographically, the county is surrounded by mountains and ocean; this gives Yilan a special, isolated character. At the end of WWII, the population of Yilan was about 255,000; it steadily increased to 443,000 in 1980. Population growth then began to stagnate, due mainly to young and middle-aged residents leaving in search of jobs. It was only after the completion of a superhighway linking Taipei and Yilan in 2006 that this trend lessened. By 2010, the population was still just 460,000 in its total area of 2,137 km2 (Yilan County, 2010; see table 1.1). The population density is 215 per square kilometer, making Yilan one of Taiwan’s less densely population counties. Major economic activities in Yilan until the 1980s remained primary resource production—including farming, fishing, mining, and forestry. Industrial production in Yilan prior to the 1970s was limited to cement factories that processed the limestone ore extracted locally. By contrast, on the western plains of Taiwan, export-led industrial development was making rapid progress, with the Taiwanese state making strategic economic plans and offering tax incentives as well as low-cost lands to encourage private investment. By the early 1980s, Taiwan had become wealthy and famous internationally with its export of inexpensive consumer goods. While Yilan finally caught up with the industrializing

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trend in the mid-1970s with the introduction of light industries such as garment-making, food processing, and chemical industries, the scale of production remained very small (Li, 1990). As a result, while most of Taiwan was enjoying the economic benefits of industrialization, Yilan remained largely a county of farmers and fishers with little sign of the “progress” signified by smokestacks. It was against this socio-economic background that the petrochemical giant of Taiwan—Formosa Plastics— had its eye on Yilan. Table 1-1: Population of Yilan, 1950-2010 Year 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Population 255041 293897 339456 378881 412787 427655 442988 449981 450943 465043 465186 461586 460486

Source: Yilan County, 2010

In 1987, Formosa Plastics purchased 290 acres of land in Yilan in order to expand production of raw materials for its petrochemical-related products. The company expected this investment to be an easy move, welcomed by locals, as the central government fully supported industrial investments of this sort, and Yilan was lagging behind the nation in economic development. Indeed, by the mid 1980s, agriculture-based Yilan was facing serious economic problems, due to low prices for agriculture products (especially compared with industrial products), insufficient agriculture labor, and inadequate modern agriculture knowledge (Shi, 2000), Formosa Plastic’s big investment would definitely bring muchneeded jobs and tax revenues, and the investment proposal was indeed very attractive to many counties and areas. However, much to the company’s surprise, both the residents and local government openly rejected this “heavenly investment” for fear of pollution. In a televised

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open debate, the head of the company Mr Wang argued that “the success of this investment will glorify Yilan residents’ ancestors.” To this, Yilan County mayor Chen Dingnan countered with the following statement: “If we allow this investment to proceed, it will bring much misfortune to our descendants.” Chen’s statement was a prescient expression of the Brundtland Commission’s definition of “sustainable development” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Peter Ho (2006) has described the important tensions that have developed—especially since the publication of Lomberg’s much-pilloried Skeptical Environmentalist—between the competing visions of development offered by neoconservatives, on the one hand, and those interested in “greening” development. Neoconservatives have cultivated environmental skepticism—including the denial of climate change and the downplaying of the environmental and human health hazards associated with industrial pollution—in order to decrease public opposition to traditional, unregulated industrial development (Jacques 2006, 2009). Such unregulated development approaches, which might best be called “brown development”, brought unparalleled wealth to industrialists and great economic progress to societies around the world (including Taiwan), but simultaneously caused massive environmental problems and had negative impacts on human health. Societal concerns triggered by these problems led eventually to the concept of “sustainable” (or “green”) development. While numerous authors have criticized the sustainable development concept as being a mainstream reaction against environmentalism and the notion of limits to industrial growth, it does at minimum draw attention to the problems of completely unregulated industrial development (for an excellent discussion of this important debate, see Castro 2004). Whether it is a co-optation of stronger environmentalism or not, sustainable development thinking has been a product of democracy; it has come about due to the demands of the populace on their leaders to restrict brown development and thereby safeguard the environment to some degree. This has decidedly been the case in Yilan.

Green Initiatives in Yilan To many Yilan residents, the rejection of the petrochemical investment came as no surprise, as the Yilan County government had been promoting “green” thinking for several years. 1981 marked the political as well as socio-environmental turning point in the history of Yilan County. Since the coming of the Nationalist Party (hereafter, KMT) to Taiwan and declaration of martial law in 1949, Taiwan has become a de facto one-

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party state with the replacement of the Constitution with “Temporary Provisions Effective during the Period of Communist Rebellion”, which lasted until 1987. Under martial law, while there are still local elections, no new political party was allowed to be established which ensured that the KMT had almost total control of all political affairs in central as well as local governments. In 1981 however, running as an independent candidate, Chen Dingnan defeated the KMT-supported candidate and became the first ever non-KMT mayor in Yilan County. The 1980s also marked a critical political transition period for Taiwan, as opposition groups and civil society began to challenge the political dominance of the KMT, and the authoritarian state began its transformation “from hard to soft authoritarism” (Winckler, 1984). It was a result of this national political environment that political leaders in Yilan were able to challenge the status quo, both politically and economically. Yilan has nurtured many important cultural-political figures in Taiwan. Over the past 100 years, Yilan’s cultural and political leaders have repeatedly engaged in democratic actions and movements. One of the most famous cultural-political leaders in Japanese colonial period (18951945) was Weishei Chiang, a physician born in Yilan. In 1921, Chiang established the “Taiwan Cultural Association” with the intention to educate people about Taiwanese culture (as opposed to Japanese colonial culture) and to cultivate (Taiwanese) national consciousness among the general public. Furthermore, he founded the first modern political party in Taiwan—the Taiwan People’s Party—and enthusiastically advocated freedom of speech and self government. As such Chiang is commonly regarded as the leading figure in the history of Taiwan’s anti-colonial and democratic movements (Huang, 2006). Being a non-aligned mayor, Chen had much freedom in making important decisions for the county, such that while the central government was very much in favor of helping Formosa Plastics to secure the land for its new production complex, Chen was able to reject this investment proposal due to his concern for the health of the residents. It is worth noting that in the 1980s, there were effectively no environmental regulations in place to monitor Taiwan’s mounting pollution problems; people usually had to defend themselves against pollution by staging protests (Hsiao, 1999). Soon after his taking office, Chen decided to promote a cleaner Yilan County by making pollution-related regulations. His first move was to institute the “Blue Sky Project” by constantly monitoring air pollution released by all five cement factories in the county, and setting very strict penalties for those who violated, since residents had been complaining about air pollution problems originating from these

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factories (Chen, 1985). As such, Yilan County became the first local government in the history of Taiwan to take on pollution issues. Soon after the implementation of the Blue Sky Project, Chen proclaimed that Yilan County would set an example for all of Taiwan as a “county stood on environmental protection.” In this light, it was no wonder that in 1987 Chen was very much against the plan to set up a huge petrochemical complex in his county, given that the operation of the complex would generate significant amounts of air, water, solid waste and noise pollution. From that point forward, Yilan was famous nationally for being a “Green County.” In 1987, the public became aware of Taipower’s (the partially state-run power company) plan to build a coal-burning power plant, and residents were very concerned about potential pollution problems of the proposed facility (Liang, 2002). Villagers living near the site raised four reasons for their opposition to the plant: 1. The waste heat and landfill would seriously pollute the land and marine environment and damage fish stocks. 2. Air pollutants and acid rain would seriously damage the health of surrounding farm lands and fish farms. 3. Air pollution would negatively affect people’s health. 4. The proposed site was the best port for the fishing fleet, and should not be used for other purposes (Liang, 2002). However, Taipower used all possible means to block any opposition voices or actions and local people had to organize an “anti-power plant self-help group” for their fight. The county government was, on the one hand, under pressure from the central government to allow the power plant to be built, and to be more self-sufficient in Yilan County’s power supply. On the other hand, with the great potential of different forms of pollution, the county government would destroy its newly earned “Green County” name if it allowed the power plant to be constructed. Finally, the Yiland Wild Bird Association came to help. The association argued that the proposed site was an internationally important area for migratory birds, with up to 140 kinds of bird and at least 3,000 ducks coming each year for their winter stay, and that therefore the area should be designated as bird sanctuary (Chinese Wild Bird Federation, 1993). The county government happily accepted the Wild Bird Association’s suggestion and filed an application for the area to be designated as bird sanctuary (Yilan County Government, 1992). In 1993, the central government’s Council of Agriculture approved the

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county government’s application, and designated 128 acres of the proposed power plant site a water bird sanctuary, thus effectively excluding the possibility of constructing a power plant on the site. This was also the first official bird sanctuary proposed by a county government in Taiwan. It is also worth noting that whereas in the 1980s, environmental NGOs in much of Taiwan usually had to fight against coalitions of capitalists and local governments, in Yilan County, environmental NGOs often fought hand-in-hand with the county government against potential polluters and legislators of the KMT party. Environmental sociologists Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) argue that private industries and government often cooperate to promote industrial growth; this leaves only NGOs, especially environmental NGOs to fend for the environment. Indeed, environmental movements organized by local as well as national NGOs are often credited for fighting local and central governments’ endless quest for industrial growth, and for forcing the governments to legislate environmental law and regulations (Hsiao, 1999; Ho, 2006). In Yilan County, however, environmental NGOs found local government their “natural” ally, and they often worked together to promote a cleaner Yilan. In the case of antipetrochemical complex movements for example, in addition to the county government’s objections, the local Gamalan Magazine Society was most instrumental in organizing waves of protest movements alongside government actions to express people’s voice against the complex (Lin, 1992).

From Green Initiative to Green Growth Having rejected the temptation of industrial growth, Yilan County made a strategic county plan to focus its future development on green growth and to cultivate local culture. The first and most important project under this green growth thinking was to transform one of the most important rivers in the county—Dongshan River. Like most rivers in Taiwan, the Dongshan riverbed used to be piling up with silt resulting in constant flooding in rainy seasons. The county government first cleared the riverbed and in some sections, straightened the river to make it more navigable. More importantly, the riverbanks were redesigned using ecologically sound methods so that they would be welcoming, friendly and accessible to people. After these transformations were done, the Dongshan riverbank areas became the first river system in Taiwan to acquire the name “accessible river park.” In 1996, the county government decided to host a new “International Children’s Folklore & Folkgame Festival” along

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the banks of the Dongshan River; the festival became very successful by attracting more than half a million visitors every summer. It also became the model for green initiatives as many other counties in Taiwan began inventing their own festivals. With the success of the International Children’s Folklore & Folkgame Festival, the county government decided that the tourism industry should be the future of the county. By the late-1990s, domestic tourism industry in Taiwan started to grow rapidly as the central government adopted a five-day work week every other week in 1998 (a five-and-a-half day work week for the other week), and a five-day work week in 2001; people have more leisure time for travel. More importantly, unlike most areas in the western part of Taiwan, Yilan’s countryside remained relatively unchanged in its agricultural landscape and mountain scenery, consequently it could attract people’s visit especially from the northern part of Taiwan where the population of Taiwan concentrates. Therefore in 2000, the county government began to organize another festival for the spring season. As the county government was famous for being green, and Yilan is most attractive to outsiders for its green landscape, the government decided to show visitors Yilan’s green countryside and green initiatives with the Green Expo. The Green Expo proved to be yet another success for the county, with about 300,000 visitors each year visiting the Expo. While the International Children's Folklore & Folkgame Festival focused on entertainment, the Green Expo aimed more for education such as green technology, local culture, and community engagement. In the early 1990s, the Taiwanese government initiated a community revitalization grand scheme in a drive to reconnect dispersed community members due to industrialization and urbanization, and to recreate a sense of community for them. To do so, many communities came up with ingenious ideas to hold the community together. In Wujie community, for example, villagers’ sense of community was greatly boosted when their plan to physically move a village temple to a new location caught national attention. In Baimi community, villagers revitalized traditional wooden clog making and turned it into a cultural enterprise by making smaller, artistic clogs for decoration. In order to promote local culture and local communities, the Green Expo featured a section on community affairs to let different communities exhibit their community revitalization work and even sell their cultural products. By contrast, the modern capitalist industrial system, mainly through its endless “treadmill of production” (Schnaiberg and Gould, 1994), has a tendency of destroying both nature and culture in its path. Whereas E.O. Wilson argues that there are three kinds of wealth: ecological, cultural, and

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material, most human activities in our time tend to destroy ecological and cultural wealth when trying to accumulate material wealth (Wilson, 1991). Unfortunately, much of the ecological and cultural wealth being destroyed is irreplaceable. Yilan County, through its Green Expo made a positive move to introduce visitors the environment and culture at the same time and in this way it not only provided educational materials to visitors, but also reinforced Yilan’s image of being at the forefront of non-consuming green growth. In addition to promoting a sense of community, beginning in the early 1990s, Yilan also focused on cultivating a distinctive cultural foundation for the county and for its residents’ identity. One of the major projects was to build a complex for the exhibition of traditional Taiwanese and Yilan Arts—the Traditional Arts Center. The center houses many exhibition halls and shops for traditional arts and crafts as well as traditional food. It also offers daily performances of Taiwanese Opera, traditional Taiwanese puppet show, and an electric (modern) version of the Taiwanese puppet show. The Center attracts thousands of visitors each day on weekends and school holidays, and has become one of the most important arts center for preserving and promoting traditional Taiwanese arts and crafts. The Traditional Arts Center is only one of two dozen museums, cultural groups and socio-cultural foundations that compose Yilan County’s “Museum Family,” a concept promoted by the county government on the one hand to facilitate horizontal linkages among these museums, cultural groups and foundations; on the other hand to encourage residents to engage more in cultural activities. In addition, the county also encouraged the construction of green buildings as demonstrated in Yilan County Government Buildings themselves. The Yilan House, on the other hand, is a special building style that encompasses environmentally sound elements while taking on traditional characteristics of buildings in Yilan area. Today, Yilan County is proud to present visitors the many Yilan Houses that dot the countryside. With these green initiatives, Yilan County has turned its own image from a “backward” farming county into a progressive green county. Yilan uses this green image, facilities, and activities to attract tourists and develop tourism-related business such as country style bed and breakfast with great success, thus making Yilan the most successful model for green growth in Taiwan. In 2006, tourism development in Yilan was further facilitated by the completion of a new expressway connecting Taipei and Yilan. However, the expressway also became the biggest challenge Yilan faces in its pursuing green growth path.

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The Future of Yilan’s Green Growth The completion of Beiyi Expressway greatly shortens travelling time between Taipei and Yilan. Before the expressway, it took roughly two hours of driving on winding roads or one-and-a half hour train ride to travel between the two areas; it now takes only 40 minutes to drive under normal traffic conditions. Yilan used to be geographically segregated from more populated northern Taiwan, which also nurtured Yilan residents’ unique identity. One of Yilan residents’ most common “home coming” experiences was that after long train or car ride, a shout of “there is Turtle Island!” referring to the sighting of a turtle-shaped island about 10 kilometers away from the Yilan coastline. Today, the expressway has already brought road congestion and increased air pollution to Yilan, and it has also made daily commuting between Yilan and Taipei possible. More importantly, since Yilan has thus been made an effective suburb of Taipei, land speculation followed the expressway to Yilan. In trying to keep Yilan’s landscape green, Mayor Yo, the successor of Mayor Chen and one of the key figures in the newly established national opposition party, set very strict restrictions on non-urban building density and building coverage ratio in 1997. In 2005, the dominant KMT party candidate Lu won the county mayoral election; Lu took a much more probusiness and pro-land development position. As such, soon after the expressway was completed, the county government lessened building restrictions in order to attract real estate investments. One immediate consequence of this policy change was the coming of private investors from out of the county to purchase farmland and to construct “farmhouses” on the farmland. These “farmhouses,” in reality, are much more like mansions in the middle of the farmlands. With the same amount of money, people can purchase a condo in Taipei, or a big farm land and a mansion in Yilan. As a result, these mansions now stand all over the farmland of Yilan, gradually transforming the landscape. The other challenge to the future development of Yilan County is also related to land use patterns. As the income from traditional farming practices can no longer sustain a farmer’s life, more and more farmers are abandoning farming. The central government, with its compensation money, also encourages farmers to keep their farm lands idle in order to prevent the price of rice from falling, as rise consumption over the past two decades has steadily declined in Taiwan. This is precisely the reason why farmers are selling their farmland to land speculators and buyers from outside the county. One of the ways of keeping faming sustainable is to turn to high valued cash crops and organic crops. Over the past few years,

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for example, farmers in the Sanshing area have been able to promote green onions and pears very successfully, making farming in the area sustainable while keeping the area green. It is worth noting that the relatively smooth and successful transition from a farming county to a “green” model county, as opposed to transition to an industrial county (following the footsteps of many counties in Taiwan) was made possible first and foremost by the strong leadership of the mayors. Also important was that the county government was buttressed by Yilan’s very vibrant civil society, which had a relationship with the county government very unlike that of other counties in Taiwan. In most counties in Taiwan, county governments usually welcome industries to set up factories, often resulting in people and environmental NGOs protesting against both government and industry. In Yilan County, cultural and environmental NGOs over the past 30 years have often stood side by side with county government to fend off the industrial establishment and to engage in green initiatives such as the Green Expo and the International Children’s Folklore & Folkgame Festival. While the close relationship between the government and civil society had its advantage, it also had many people worried as the civil society may lose its relative autonomy over time and that the county government may be thereby deprived of necessary social critique. This was partially evident from the challenges of Beiyi expressway and changing land use patterns, as NGOs in Yilan put up very little opposition to these governmentsupported projects and policies. Notwithstanding these challenges, with its green and cultural initiatives, Yilan has become a green model for other counties in Taiwan. Yilan County continues to use these green initiatives to attract the visit of tourists, so far with great success. While Yilan is far from being free of industrial establishment, and the new expressway brought new challenges to its green landscape, Yilan County over the past 30 years has set a good example of “green growth” to other counties in Taiwan.

References Castro, Carlos. J. 2004. Sustainable Development: Mainstream and Critical Perspectives. Organization & Environment 17(2): 195-225. Chen, Ding-Nan. 1985. New Image of Lanyang: the Accomplishments of Mayor Chen Ding-Nan over the Past Four Years. Yilan: Yilan County Government. Chinese Wild Bird Federation, 1993. The Wounds of Gamalan: Saving Wuwei Port. Taipei: Chinese Wild Bird Federation, 1993.

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Ho, Ming-Sho. 2006. Green Democracy: A Study on Taiwan’s Environmental Movement. Taipei: Socio Publishing Co., Ltd. Ho, Peter. 2006. “Trajectories for Greening in China: Theory and Practice.” Development and Change 37(1): 3–28. Huang, Huang-Hsiong. 2006. A Biography of Giang Weishei—Sun Yat Sen of Taiwan. Taipei: China Times Publishing Co., Ltd. Hsiao, H.H. Michael. 1999. “Environmental movements in Taiwan.” Pp. 31-54 in Asia’s Environmental Movements: Comparative Perspectives, eds. Yok-Shiu F. Lee and Alvin Y. So. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Jacques, Peter. 2006. The Rearguard of Modernity: Environmental skepticism as a struggle of citizenship. Global Environmental Politics 6(1): 76-101. Jacques, Peter. 2009. Environmental Skepticism: Ecology, Power and Public Life. Ashgate Publishing. Li, Pei-Rong. 1990. A Study of the Shift in Production Structure in Yilan Area. Taipei: Master Thesis, Chinese Culture University. Liang, Hung-Bin. 2002. “The Yilan experience of a county stood on environmental protection.” The Yilan Journal of History 56: 33-81. Lin, Chang-Yau. 1992. A Sociological Analysis of Yilan anti-sixth Naphtha-cracker Plants Movement. Master Thesis, National ChengChi University. Schnaiberg, Allen and Kenneth Goud. 1994. Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Shi, Chi-Shen. 2000. History of Socio-Economic Development in Yilan County. Yilan: Yilan County Government. Yilan County Government, 1992. Yilan Wuwei Port Water Bird Protection Plan. Yilan: Yilan County Government. Yilan County Government. 2010. An Analysis of 1998 Yilan County Population. Yilan: Yilan County Government. Wilson, Edward O. 1991. “Biodiversity, Prosperity, and Value.” Pp. 3-10 in Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Brken Circle, edited by F. Herbert Bormann and Stephen R. Kellert. New Haven: Yale University Press. Winckler, Edwin A. 1984. “Institutionalism and Participation on Taiwan, From Hard to Soft Authoritarianism.” The China Quarterly 99: pp. 481-499

CHAPTER SEVEN ENTANGLED INTERESTS AND UNSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN FORESTS: ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE STAKES AND POWER RELATIONS BETWEEN SE ASIAN STATES, NGOS, GLOBAL CORPORATIONS, THE PALM OIL INDUSTRY AND FOREST PEOPLES

IVAN TACEY JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 UNIVERSITY

Since the 1970s Southeast Asian landscapes have been transformed beyond recognition as vast areas of forests and peat swamps have been cleared and transformed into palm oil plantations. Oil Palm (Elaesis guineensis), originating from West Africa, is now the most-traded oil seed crop in the world. Malaysia produces nearly 40% of the world’s palm oil and is the second biggest producer in the world after Indonesia. Together Indonesia and Malaysia account for 85% of world production. Malaysian output in 2010 reached 17 million metric tons and was forecast to increase to 17.6 million in 2011. Palm oil has seeped into our lives in a variety of ways—it is used in 50 percent of all consumer goods from soaps, shampoos and lipsticks to vegetable oils and packaged food and bio-fuels. Palm oil’s ubiquity means everyday consumer activities in Europe, the US and elsewhere are complexly entangled with landscape transformations in Southeast Asia. Palm oil is an essential lubricant in the machinations of 21st century capitalism, heralded by some as a green bio-crop and others as a dangerously polluting species. The trope of liquidity, which is so often used as the dominant metaphor of globalization, capitalism and modernity, may seem appropriate in an examination of the palm oil industry,

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however, capital, people, goods, ideas, images and ideologies do not flow seamlessly around the world unhindered by geographic, social, cultural and political borders. The palm oil industry has intensely reconfigured environments in Malaysia and Indonesia leading to massive losses of biodiversity in formerly forested areas. Palm oil estates, logging roads and other related development schemes have fragmented the environments of many forest-dwelling indigenous minority groups in Southeast Asia. Often indigenous peoples—whose land rights have not been recognized by either colonial or post-colonial governments—have been pushed off their ancestral lands and coerced into government resettlement villages. Indigenous peoples’ opposition to deforestation and conversion of forests into palm oil plantations have been overshadowed by more powerful actors such as national governments, state departments, economists and environmentalists. The new landscapes of forest peoples are being shaped by a variety of actors including environmentalists, immigrant plantation workers, global corporations, government officials, human rights lawyers, poachers, tourists and Western consumers. These tremendous changes have transformed the societies, economies and religions of Southeast Asian indigenous peoples. This paper examines how Malaysian landscapes and peoples have been imagined and represented by different interest groups—indigenous peoples, the “state” and environmentalists—in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods and analyzes how “entanglements” of actors, representations, discourses and power have (re)created Malaysian landscapes, transforming places, people and their practices. Rather than giving a general impression of how the landscape transformations caused by the palm oil industry have affected minority indigenous groups across all of Southeast Asia, the focus is placed on a particular forest-dwelling minority indigenous group of Peninsular Malaysia: the Batek—with whom I have conducted anthropological fieldwork since 2007. Clearly though the inference is that many other Orang Asli groups living in Peninsula Malaysia are facing similar situations; as too are many minority indigenous peoples across Southeast Asia and in other parts of the world.

The Batek and Social Change According to government statistics ethnic Malays account for 63.1% of the population in Peninsular Malaysia. The second and third largest ethnic

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groups are respectively the Chinese (24.6%) and Indians (7.3%)1. Defining who is and who is not indigenous is a highly-politicized endeavor in most Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia both the Orang Asli and the Malays are considered indigenous people or Bumiputera (“sons of the soil”). However, the rights allocated to these two groups are incomparable. The Malays are the dominant ethnic group of the country both numerically and politically. The Orang Asli (the indigenous minority peoples of Peninsula Malaysia) number around 190,0002 accounting for only 0.5% of the total population and are marginalized socially and politically. In 1997 more than 80% of the Orang Asli were living below the poverty line (compared to 8.5% nationally) and 49.9% were among the very poor (compared to 2.5% nationally). (Nicholas 2000, 30) Anthropologists have usually divided the Orang Asli into three major subdivisions: Semang (or Negritos); Senoi; and Aboriginal Malay. In recent years most anthropologists have been using these three broad categories to refer to societal patterns associated with different modes of subsistence rather than the racial characteristics that typified earlier anthropological studies. The Malaysian government has followed this tripartite categorization and defined 18 Orang Asli ethnic subgroups in the Peninsular with six ethnic groups belonging to each of these three larger categories of Semang, Senoi and Aboriginal Malays. Many anthropologists have criticized this rather neat and simplistic categorization (Nicholas 2002, 121; Benjamin 2002, 22-23). In anthropological literature the Batek have usually been described as forestdwelling egalitarian hunter-gatherers. However, the current situation is far more complicated. The Batek number around 1,5003 and live across a large geographical area covering Northeast Pahang, Southern Kelantan and Northwest Terrengganu. The Batek construct their anthropogenic environment in a number of ways including everyday practices, shamanism, hunting and socio-religious rules and practices. They see 1

The 2010 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia (Census 2010) estimated the total population at 28.3 million of which 91.8% were Malaysian citizens and 8.2% were non-citizens. Malaysian citizens consisted of Bumiputera (67.4%), Chinese (24.6%), Indians (7.3%) and Others (0.7%). The Bumiputera category (meaning “sons of the soil”) includes ethnic Malays, the “Natives” of Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli. The Ibans constituted 30.3% of the total citizens in Sarawak while Kadazan/Dusun made up 24.5% in Sabah. 2 The Prime Minister of Malaysia cited this figure on 7th October 2011 in the Budget 2012 speech. 3 According to JAKOA (The Department of Orang Asli Development) the Batek numbered 1,447 in the year 2010.

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themselves as “guardians of the forest”, belonging to the “moral community” that encompasses people, forest, animals and superhuman beings who act as “protectors, providers and “moral watchdogs” (Lye 2005, 117). Many anthropologists have described other hunter-gatherer peoples of Southeast Asia, Amazonia, Central Africa, Siberia, Canada and Southern India with similar concepts. These peoples are usually described as being animists, with an egalitarian form of sociality structured around the principle of sharing; and with social relations and ideas of personhood that spread beyond humans into animals, meteorological phenomena, plants and “’supernatural' beings” (Bird-David 1992, 19-44; Descola 1994; Vivieros de Castro 1998, 469-488; Ingold 2000). Until large-scale deforestation began in the late 1970s, virtually the entire Batek area was covered in tropical rainforest fragmented only by rivers, streams, limestone escarpments and the Tahan mountain range. Now the largest remaining area of unbroken forest in Peninsular Malaysia is the Taman Negara national park that straddles the three Malay states of Pahang, Teregannu and Kelantan. The park was established in 1938/39 and covers an area of 4,343 square kilometers. Originally the park was established as a game reserve by the British due to fears about habitat threats to larger fauna stemming from expanding pioneering settlements and forest clearance (Lye 2002, 168, citing Burkhill 1971). Covering a substantial area of the Batek’s ancestral lands, Taman Negara has provided a forest refuge for those Batek who have chosen not to accept relocation to government resettlement villages in logged-over areas. The Batek are permitted by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) to live within the park and travel in and out of the park as they wish. They are also allowed to collect forest products, to hunt and fish but they are not allowed to sell these products on to traders. Despite being free to carry on their hunting and gathering activities, the above mentioned rules mean the Batek can no longer continue to trade forest products from Taman Negara with outsiders; or can only do so illegally with the danger of being arrested. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how much forested land has now been transformed into palm oil plantations due to three factors. Firstly, different government departments, scientists and environmentalists use different criteria to describe forests and forest cover. Secondly, figures vary considerably in different reports. And thirdly land transformation occurs at a rapid rate. In the mid-1990s reports estimated forest-cover to be somewhere between 40-45% of the peninsula’s total land area (Lye 2005, 5). The conversion of formerly-forested lands into plantations—vast areas

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of the environment beyond the boundaries of Taman Negara—has dramatically altered the Batek’s environment, economies and practices. Most Batek groups have historically combined a range of economic activities including foraging, collecting and trading forest products and occasional wage work or agricultural work. Sometimes, Batek living in Taman Negara will guide tourists for extra money. In resettlement villages the Batek have been encouraged to take up agriculture and grow rubber trees. One of the major consequences of life in resettlement villages is increased pressure to assimilate into wider Malaysian society, particularly the Malay segment. This generally involves increased pressure to convert to Islam (the Orang Asli have been subject to intense missionary activity since the 1980s) and through Orang Asli children’s exposure to the national education system. Other negative consequences of village life include reduced freedom of movement, drink and drug problems associated with lifestyle changes, bullying in schools, loss of forest knowledge, fragmentation of communities, increased social differentiation, increased poverty and loss of independence (Gomes 2007, 140-164).

Batek Perceptions of the Landscape, Forest Knowledge and the Creation of Place The everyday activities of hunting and gathering activities still play a major role in all Batek communities whether these communities are based in the forest or in government resettlement villages. Batek men use blowpipes with poison darts to hunt small-to-medium-sized arboreal game including monkeys, gibbons, siamangs, civets and squirrels. Children and adults often hunt birds with catapults. Burrowing animals such as bamboo rats and porcupines are dug or smoked out of holes then killed with machetes by both men and women. Occasionally wild boars are trapped. Turtles and tortoises are also regularly eaten. The Batek do not eat large iconic forest animals such as tigers, leopards, panthers, elephants, rhinoceros or bearcats4. The Batek gather many forest foods including yams, palms, mushrooms, ferns, berries, nuts, bamboo shoots, palm cabbage and seasonal fruits (Endicott 1999, 299). For forest-dwelling 4

Many of the larger and more dangerous forest animals are considered ritually salient by the Batek particularly tigers. Batek hala’ (“shaman”) are said to be able to transform into animals—the tiger being the most powerful. Tigers are considered particularly powerful and dangerous across the Malay Peninsula and Southeast Asia generally. They are “commonly associated with ‘kings, shamans and magic’—in a word, potency” (Lye 2005, 111).

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Batek, yams are the principal source of carbohydrate. The preferred food of the Batek is fruit and the fruit season from July to September is always looked forward to with impatience. The Batek mark the beginning and end of the fruit season with a Kensing (“singing ceremony”) where they ask and thank the hala’ (“superhuman beings”) for abundant fruit as well as request help for curing sicknesses. When shamans are present they may enter trances and go on “soul journeys” to visit the hala’. Anthropologists have described the Batek, and other indigenous minority groups across Southeast Asia, as being arboricentric. Trees are used in a variety of ways as “land, property, kinship and time markers” (Lye 2005, 86). They also play an important role in religions and origin myths. (The Batek claim that long ago when the earth was becoming overcrowded causing food shortages, half the Batek transformed themselves into food bearing trees (30, 88).) The forest also contains groves of fruit trees planted by the Batek’s ancestors and fruit orchards planted by Malays who moved out of the area during the communist insurrection or “Emergency” (1948-1960)5. The Batek are reputedly the last indigenous peoples of Malaysia to practice tree burials (Endicott 1979, 114-118). The importance of the forest goes far beyond subsistence activities. For many indigenous peoples like the Batek land is not only a source of subsistence but also the place of their ancestors; an anthropomorphized environment overflowing with meanings. Transformations of forests into plantations are literally “removing the humanity from the landscape”. (Lye 2005, 30) Living in a rainforest environment is not easy and a great deal of knowledge is necessary on a daily basis. Lye Tuck Po has underlined the importance of Batek activities such as hunting, gathering, fishing, dwelling, movement as well as continual acts of revisiting for creating a sense of place in the forest. These everyday activities are what phenomenologist Henri Lefebvre has termed “rhythms of being” (Lefebvre 1991) and cultural geographer Yi Fu Tuan has labeled “fields of care” (Tuan 1977). The forest is charged with social and emotional attachment for the Batek. During my fieldwork with the Batek, many—including those based in government resettlement villages who only spent part of their time in the forest—reiterated time and time again the importance of forest knowledge: “Our children when they live in the forest know how to 5

“The Emergency” is the term used to describe the conflict between the government and communist insurgents between 1948 and 1960 that was principally fought in the forests of Peninsula Malaysia. The Communists first coined the term “Orang Asal” in the hope of befriending forest dwellers and receiving the Malay Peninsula logistical support from them. The government were quick to follow and took the nearest available term “Orang Asli”.

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live in the forest. They know how to hunt and find medicine in the forest.” (Pengulu Hamden, Kuala Koh: 27/03/08) Entering the forest without the necessary knowledge is considered extremely dangerous. During my research the Batek enjoyed repeatedly recounting lists of forest foods. Batek knowledge of forest foods is extremely wide-ranging and forms an important aspect of their identity. The first foods the Batek listed were nearly always takop (“yams”), followed by palms, fruits and animals. Here is an example of one such list given by Ai Klisom, a young father aged about 24, from the Post Lebir resettlement village: We have many takop. There are zem. These are big yams, enough for 3 or 4 families; kΩbak, this is eaten with fish, it smells strong so it covers the smell of the fish, it grows in high hills; pam, a long and thin yam that can be eaten with fish, monkey, or wild boar; kΩnseh, these are like pam but given a different name; tahoƾ, a yam that must be cooked on a separate fire or else lawac [“taboo”]; tãw, the size of a forearm a bit like a kΩbak. We eat ta-ah, a tall palm tree, we eat the centre of the plant; ta-bah another palm, we eat the centre; gin, a type of palm that grows near stones, we eat the centre; hen-lap, this is used for making haya [‘lean-tos’] and the centre can be eaten. We can also eat many fruits of the forest like tawis, cawas, te-koi, durian daun, and bawio. Other fruits we can eat include ha-bun, wud, kalois, reden, ker-mel, ug-uk, tahmun, kapis, ha-tar, man-reh, proh and many more. We don’t have sugar in the forest but there is no problem as we can eat tam-poi, pa-hit, pra joh, ker-bah, bacow, kanim and many others (Ai Klisom, Post Lebir 17/04/08)

Despite the fact the young man had lived a fairly sedentary life compared to the fulltime Batek foragers of Taman Negara, he claimed to still have the knowledge needed to survive in the forest. As he continued to explain, Before, the Batek would eat these foods all the time but now because of beras [‘rice’] we eat less. However, Batek Hep [‘forest Batek’] still eat these plants every day. When there is no beras the Malays go hungry but the Batek don’t because they know about these foods. All Batek aged about 10 or more know about these foods. In the forest we have everything: food to eat and medicines for headaches, stomach aches and pregnancy. These medicines come from bark, roots, leaves. Some that we burn, some that we mix with water, some we mix with others, some we rub on the skin. (Macang 17/04/08)

Because of forest loss many Batek have been coerced into settling at villages like Post Lebir where they are encouraged to take up agriculture. This means they can no longer hunt and gather full time. Shop-bought rice has now replaced yams as the main source of carbohydrates. However, this

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does not mean they have somehow lost all knowledge of the forest. Nearly all the Batek I spoke to at Post Lebir did make regular trips to the forest, especially when rumors were circulating the village about a particular abundance of a certain forest product—usually rattan or eaglewood. However, it is evident that knowledge varies greatly between individuals. Some Batek have spent long periods dwelling in, observing and learning about the forest. Others have spent more time in the village and are less skilled in fishing, blowpipe hunting and other forest activities. It takes conscious effort to learn different skills and many Batek underlined the importance of learning from their parents. If their parents do not teach them a particular skill they will, in all likelihood, not learn that skill. As Tim Ingold has commented, “we cannot … regard knowledge, along the lines of the genealogical model, as a kind of heritable property that comes into the possession of an individual as a legacy from his or her ancestors.” (Ingold 2011, 161) There has been a tendency to see indigenous peoples like the Batek as homogenous culture groups, somehow magically born with the ability to survive in environments like the rain forest. However, knowledge of an environment must be actively learnt and furthermore, it can only be learnt if the environment still exists. The Batek concept of pesaka’ or sakaq refers to “the area in which a person grew up, the primary place of residence of the parents during the person's childhood.” Kirk Endicott has stated that “the exclusive ownership of land is an absurdity to the Batek” and “there is no sense in which the persons who share a pesaka' claim collective rights of ownership or custodianship over it. The term pesaka' can refer to the person's actual place of birth, a whole river valley, or a vaguely-defined region, depending on the context of discussion.” (Endicott 1988, 113) Endicott has underlined the social and sentimental links to place that this concept covers. As individuals relocate to different pesakas for marriage or other reasons, new generations of Batek are born into different pesakas to that of their parents, thus connecting different areas and people in complex overlapping ways. This has the effect that Batek can travel over very long distances into distant pesakas and still find kinship links connecting them to the local land. The author also describes how the Batek “regard all unharvested naturally occurring resources as being unownable”: All the wild foods, forest produce and raw materials they use are considered freely available to anyone who wants to harvest them, regardless of where they are located or who found them … Contradicting this general rule, however, there is a vague feeling that the fruit orchards belong to the river valley group on whose river they lie. (113)

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He contrasts the Batek’s lack of the concept of bounded territory with those of Western Semang groups and the Menraq who have been encapsulated between Temiar and Malay farmers. Since Endicott conducted his research huge areas of land have been converted to palm oil and each year Malays encroach further onto Batek lands. Thus, it could be argued that the Batek are increasingly developing concepts of land ownership due to increased land shortage caused by deforestation and the transformation of forests into oil palm plantations. During my 2008 fieldwork, the Batek were making active attempts to protect areas of land they considered particularly valuable—in this case because the land contained precious iron ore—by leaving permanent camps over the land6. To summarize, Batek perceptions of the landscape connect people to place relations in five ways: the practicing of everyday activities using experiential embodied knowledge religious beliefs and practices emotional ties social relations rules governing behavior Historically, the Batek have not had any concept of exclusive ownership of bounded areas of land although current land shortages mean territorial concepts are developing.

Land Rights and State Representations of Peoples and Landscapes One of the reasons the lands in which indigenous peoples live are so sought after by developers and loggers is simply because they are the only lands left available for development. This is usually because these environments are in some of the most geographically difficult areas to access and develop commercially. This is precisely the reason minority indigenous peoples historically chose to live there—in order to avoid interference and control by lowland state society (Scott 2009). The stakes for using negative representations to justify resettlement programs that free up these environments for plantations and other developments are 6

However, on a brief return visit in 2010 I was informed that this attempt had been unsuccessful and Malays had pushed the Batek off the land in order to set up a mine.

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very high. “Landscape” and other related concepts including “wilderness”, “wildness”, “savagery”, “nature”, “environment”, “landscape”, “bio” and “green” bear heavy and often shifting semantic loads that have important consequences on land rights and the (global) political economy. In a discussion of wilderness concepts and indigenous peoples’ rights anthropologist Darrell Posy has stated: ‘Wild’ and ‘wilderness’ imply that these landscapes and resources are the result of ‘nature’ and, as such, have no owners: they are the ‘common heritage of all humankind.’ This has been a convenient way for corporations seeking resources to target such places, because it suggests that local communities have no tenurial or ownership rights, and thus their lands, territories and resources are ‘free’ for the taking. (Posy 2006, 30)

Several anthropologists have described how Malaysian development programs and policies aimed at the Orang Asli stem from the ideological goal of controlling the Orang Asli and their territories and resources in order to free up forested land for transformation into plantations, golf courses, airports and other developments (Nicholas 2000, 51-57; Lye 2005, 6-8). Identities and rights are closely related in Malaysia and the contest over resources has led to the ethnogenesis of an Orang Asli identity and the emergence of Orang Asli political consciousness. In recent years the Orang Asli have become more active in affirming their rights and asserting control over their homelands (Nicholas 2000, 147-195). To understand the power relations involved in the designation of different land rights to different ethnic groups it is necessary to explore the etymology behind the linguistic representations used by different actors to describe landscapes and people. Distinctions between the vocabulary used to describe people and places are often blurred. People, such as the Batek, who live in forests—places that have been represented as “savage”, “natural” or “wild” by outsiders— have all too often also been represented as “savage”, “natural” and “wild” people. The stereotyping of Malaysia’s minority indigenous peoples as “wild savages” has had extremely negative implications for them; including “justification” of Orang Asli enslavement in the precolonial period and denial of land rights to the Orang Asli in the colonial and contemporary periods. The dichotomies of savage/tame, culture/nature are not only part and parcel of European colonialism but also feature heavily in the imagination of the Malay ruling classes. This is to say that the various stereotypes of the Orang Asli—which often depict these peoples as being animal like—and the representations of certain environments as “wildernesses” have served the interests of members of the Malay ruling

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class and European colonialists; and, more recently, environmentalists and scientists (Dentan 1997). The etymology of the English word “wilderness” can be traced to the prefix of “wild” meaning “in the natural state, uncultivated, undomesticated”, and the Old English “deor” meaning animal7. Environmental historian Roderick Frazier Nash traces the origin of “wild” to early Teutonic and Norse languages use of the word “will” “with a descriptive meaning of self-willed, willful, or uncontrollable” (Nash 1967). In Malay the closest translation of wild is ‘liar’: anthropologist Lye Tuck Po has highlighted the animalistic associations of the term, which is “associated most straightforwardly with the world of “nature” and within that the behavior of animals. This is most decidedly a farmer's characterization of the world, for it makes a clear distinction between the ‘savage’/out and the ‘domesticated’/in” (Lye 2000, 2). Robert Knox Dentan also has convincingly discussed the concept of “wild” in relationship to Malay enslaving of the Orang Asli that continued up until the 1920s; despite its ban by the British colonial government in the late 1800s. He describes how liar invokes the idea of being “shy”, “undomesticated”, “uncultivated”, “restless” as opposed to jinak “which refers to having lost one’s fear or shyness or reluctance to do what one is told; to become familiar or tame; to be harmless … To make people jinak, memperjinak, is to be intimate with, familiarize, tame, domesticate or successfully discipline them” (Dentan 1997, 111, citing Awang and Ysoff 1990, 300400). Historically, Malays, and Austronesian people more widely, had “the tendency to represent nature as ‘wilderness’ that needed to be conquered, defeated, subjugated, or ‘tamed’ before dynastic belonging could be assured” (Lye 2005, 104, referring to Schefold’s review, 2002). The similarities with European wilderness concepts are clear. In the precolonial era Malays often considered forests with awe and reverence, as dangerous places filled with ghosts and other dangers; places to be avoided if possible. Malay villages and towns were restricted to coasts and large river valleys. During this period forests were not considered as resources. However, rare forest products such as hunted meat, honey, resins, spices, eaglewood, rattan and rhinoceros horns were much sought after by Malay lowland agriculturalists and their trading partners. Indigenous peoples’ knowledge of the forest environment meant they were expert collectors of forest products which were traded for metal tools, pottery, basketry, textiles, salt, rice and other manufactured goods and 7

Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com.

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dietary supplements. Juli Edo has explored how certain Orang Asli groups’ land rights were recognized by the Malay State of Perak through sultans and their subordinates giving Orang Asli leaders letters of authority (surat kuasa) (Edo 1998, 1) despite the sometimes conflictual relations between Malays and the Orang Asli in the pre-colonial era during periods of enslaving. In an analysis of an Orang Asli reserve in the state of Kedah, Shuichi Nagata has stated that although “no such office existed among the Semang” a Malay intermediary may have acted as a liaison between Semang groups and pre-colonial Malay state governments (Nagata 1997, 84-97). Furthermore, in a review of the Orang Asli political situation in pre-colonial Malaysia, Colin Nicholas states that “there is much evidence in the literature to show that some of the Orang Asli groups played very dominant roles in the administration and defense of established political systems in the Malaysian Peninsula” (Nicholas 2000, 73-78). During the British colonial period most forested land was marked as mysterious “jungle” on colonial maps and was not considered as a resource until the late 19th century establishment of large-rubber estates. However, due to a lack of infrastructure, technology and geographical constraints, vast areas of Malaysia’s forests could not be exploited. In this period Orang Asli were often labeled with extremely derogatory terms using the wild/tame oppositions such as Orang Liar (“uncivilised, wild but free men”), Orang Jinak (“tame” or “enslaved men”) or through ethonyms connoting animality Orang Mawas (“people-like apes”) and Besisi (“people with scales”) (Nicholas 2000, 6). The political stakes behind situating the Orang Asli on the fulcrum between the animal and human realms should not be underestimated and was endemic during British colonialism worldwide8. Juli Edo has highlighted the British colonial government’s role in the denial of Orang Asli land rights: When the British intervention began … all land came under the control of the Queen, vis-à-vis the colonial government … [Orang Asli areas] were converted under various legal titles to Forest Reserves, Water Catchment Areas, Game Reserves, agricultural areas, and mining sites. (Edo 1998, iii) 8

In a discussion of how English “natural law” undermined native Irish and Scottish law and property rights, landscape theorist and geographer Kenneth Olwig describes how both Irish and native Celtic peoples of the Scottish isles were denied fully-human status during colonization. In fact, “King James branded the native Celtic peoples of the Scottish isles as animals in order to justify his policy of displacing them with English-speaking ‘Saxon’ colonists from the lowlands of Scotland.” (Olwig 2002, 151)

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The British colonial period is the precise moment when Malaysian landscapes were classified and fragmented into different zones associated with different uses. It was at this moment that populations were reified into different “races” with different “qualities”, “weaknesses” and, most importantly, rights. The contemporary ethnic category Orang Asli, which is the official term used by the government to refer to all of Peninsula Malaysia’s minority indigenous peoples, only emerged in the late 1950s during the Malaysian Emergency. Originally it was used as part of the government campaign to win the “hearts and minds” of Orang Asli living in the forest in order to discourage them from aiding the communist insurgents with logistical support. The term, which can be translated to mean “Natural” or “Original” (from the word “Asli”) “People” (from the word “Orang”), clearly conflates indigenousness with ‘naturalness’ in a similar way to many other indigenous ethonyms. Malaysia was granted independence in 1957 and large-scale rural development projects began the next decade. However, deforestation greatly intensified in the 1970s due to technological advances, improvements in infrastructure and the timber industry’s re-imagining of forests. Tropical rainforest are extremely diverse places and species richness meant that in the colonial period loggers preferred forests where only one valuable species dominated; teak, oak or beach for instance. Anna Tsing has described how heterogeneous rainforests in Indonesia were re-imagined in the 1970s when Dipterocarps (a diverse group of huge forest trees that tower over the rainforest canopy) were “remade as disposable plywood for the Japanese construction industry—all looked alike, and the rest of the trees, herbs, fungi, and fauna became waste products. This change also emptied the forest conceptually of human residents, since the fruit orchards, rattans, and other human-tended plants of forest dwellers were now mere waste” (Tsing 2005, 15-16). By the early 1970s forest clearance for conversion to palm oil estates began in formerly remote areas, including much of the Batek territories in Kelantan. Forest peoples were resettled to government-sponsored villages and were encouraged to take up small-scale agricultural projects. Roads and infrastructure projects began to increase links between rural areas with market centers. Juli Edo has described how the post-independence Malaysian government has inherited British policy, and the Orang Asli have been regarded as “squatters on state land”. Discussing the Orang Asli Act 1954 (Revised 1974) Edo states: [T]he Orang Asli do not have absolute rights to their land. Most of their land, including those areas where projects, especially agriculture, have

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Colonial and post-colonial Malaysian governments’ representations of forest land as empty “wildernesses” to be used as “natural” resources has meant the Orang Asli have been denied basic rights to land. In contemporary Malaysia the Orang Asli have virtually no real legal title to any land at all. As Colin Nicholas has remarked, [u]nder present Malaysian laws, the greatest title that the Orang Asli can have to their land is one of tenant-at-will— an undisguised allusion to the government’s perception that all Orang Asli lands unconditionally belong to the state. However, provisions are made for the gazetting of Orang Asli reserves, although such administrative action does not accord the Orang Asli with any ownership rights over such lands. (Nicholas 2000, 33)

This means although the Orang Asli may live on lands that have been gazetted, the government can reacquire this land at any time without any need to give the Orang Asli compensation. This situation dates back to the enactment of the Aboriginal Peoples Ordinance in 1954 at the height of the Malaysian Emergency. Colin Nicholas describes how the Act “called for the introduction of some regulations for the protection and control of the Orang Asli and their traditional territories” (Nicholas 2000, 82). One of the goals behind the act was to prevent communist insurgents from gaining access to Orang Asli communities to get supplies and logistical support. In 1974 the Act was revised again as the Aboriginal Peoples Act. The links between land, ethnicity and rights are highly apparent. As Nicholas has highlighted, the Act is “the only piece of (Malaysian) legislation that is directed at a particular ethnic community” (82). Orang Asli land rights cannot be fully understood without a comparison to Malay land rights. By the early 20th century (during the British colonial period) large tracts of Orang Asli lands were handed over to ethnic Malays and were designated Malay reservations. In these reservations only ethnic Malays could own or lease land and their land titles were recognized in perpetuity (85, citing Means 1985, 639-670). Orang Asli perceptions of the British colonial period vary enormously but the situation was described to me by a young Semai man I met in the town of Gua Musang: “If only you could speak Semai so I could tell you how heartbroken we are that the British gave this country to the Malays.” (Gua Musang 21/03/08) As this Semai man so emotionally remarks, this crucial

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turning point in Malaysian history effectively created two classes of indigenous peoples in Malaysia: politically and numerically dominant Malays; and the politically disenfranchised Orang Asli who had effectively been made refugees in their own country.

Environmental and Scientific Representations of Forests Tropical forests contain more than half our planet’s terrestrial species and Southeast Asian forests are known as being among the most species rich. Since the 1980s environmentalists have been increasingly successful in drawing the media’s attention towards deforestation. In recent years they have been particularly critical of the palm-oil industry for its contribution toward tropical deforestation and accompanying species loss. Despite some small successes (certain products we can find in supermarkets are now labeled as being palm-oil free) the transformation of tropical forests and peat swamp forest into palm oil plantations has continued at an alarming rate. Much of the global demand for oil-palm products has been driven by the food industry. However the possibility of using oil-palm as biofuel has recently sparked increased fears of a rise in demand for the crop9. In 2008 an international research group of scientists from leading universities, conservation and environmental groups examined the spread of oil-palm plantations on greenhouse gas emissions and bio-diversity (Danielsen 2008). They also analyzed “changes in carbon stocks with changing land use and compared this with the amount of fossil fuel carbon emission avoided through its replacement by biofuel carbon.” (1) Their results “suggest that it would take between 75 and 93 years for the carbon emissions saved through use of biofuel to compensate for the carbon lost through initial forest conversion, depending on how forest was cleared. If the original habitat was peatland carbon balance would take more than 600 years.” (1) Unsurprisingly their research also showed “species richness of birds, lizards, and mammals was always lower in oilpalm plantations than in forest” (7) and that in oil palm plantations a few species of vertebrates and invertebrates dominated—reflecting a loss of bio-diversity. “Most forest species were lost and replaced by smaller numbers of non-forest species, resulting in simpler, species poor communities dominated by a 9

The European Union aims to use biofuels in 10% of transport by 2020. MEPs are divided over the European Parliaments legislative work on bio-fuels and what the criteria for sustainability should be. Despite this the EU has the ambition to design the world’s first comprehensive set of laws on sustainable production and use of bio-fuels.

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few generalist species of low conservation significance.” (8) Medium-tolarge iconic mammal species such as tigers, clouded leopards and orangutans are virtually entirely absent from oil palm plantations (8). Flora in oil-palm plantations is also radically less diverse and many species are totally absent in plantations without showing any signs of regeneration. The researchers state other likely effects of oil palm plantations on the environment include: an increase of greenhouse gases from road building and urbanization associated with agricultural expansion; air pollution (thick haze) from forest burning which can reduce photosynthesis and carbon fixation; pollution to surrounding aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems caused by soil erosion and by fertilizer and pesticide run-off from plantations; and finally, both sediments and pollution might affect coral reefs as a potential long-term carbon sink (8). To put it simply, the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations has extremely negative consequences for the environment. Interestingly, the 2008 international research group make no mention of the effects that palm oil plantations, associated species loss and pollution are having on human populations in their paper10. The researchers portray the rainforest as a “virgin”, “natural” environment “pristine” and “unpolluted” by human presence. Forestdwellers have simply been erased from the picture. This is by no means an isolated case. Eden-like descriptions of rainforests abound in environmental and scientific literature. When forest-dwellers are mentioned they are all too often depicted as balancing carefully on the border between humanity and animality or as noble savages living in harmony with their environments and who must therefore be protected as an endangered species11. Untouched and uncorrupted by industry, these representations offer a mirror of alterity through which to view ourselves12. 10

Many environmental and scientific reports do mention the effects of palm-oil plantations on indigenous peoples. Non-Governmental Organizations including Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch, Life Mosaic and the Rainforest Alliance regularly do. In no way do I want to give a one-sided impression of the literature. 11 The media is particularly fond of these images of indigenous peoples (un)dressed in fantastically colourful flowery head-dresses, wearing skimpy loin cloths or penis guards and carrying blowpipes. Indigenous people are of course also aware of these identity markers and often use them to their advantage at national or international demonstrations and conferences. 12 The notion of the alterity of the “primitive” and how it functions as a mirror of Euro-American industrial society has been much discussed by anthropologists. See Adam Kuper. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion. London: Routledge.

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Simplified descriptions of supposedly human-free “natural” environments such as rainforests have a long history in the environmental movement. Contemporary wilderness ideas have woven together complex religious, scientist, political, and environmental concepts transnationally. Geographer and landscape theorist Kenneth Robert Olwig has written extensively about the history of the American National Parks movement (which the Malaysian National Park model is based upon) and how it was founded upon the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 19th century. He has also described how America’s most influential landscape practitioners John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Frederik Law Olmsted were themselves inspired by the wilderness writings of David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson who praised the “sublime” aesthetics of American landscapes. “Wilderness” landscapes were primarily designated, created and “preserved” for physical and spiritual recreations: “American parks were developed as places where free access would allow members of the nation to recreate, both physically and spiritually, by walking or hiking through the landscape” (Olwig 2002, 192). Wilderness concepts that were so important in terms of American national identity had themselves developed in a European context. The difference between the “sublime” American “wildernesses” that would be protected as National Parks and British landscaped gardens “was that [the former] were not seen as the creation of a landscape architect who sought to mirror the nature of the supreme architect; rather, they were seen as having been authored by the supreme architect himself” (192). Olmsted and his peers never considered humans as part of these wildernesses except as spectators. In fact Aldo Leopold, like the British landscape architects that preceded him, was quite aware of the similarities between wilderness preservation and stage management. The impossibility of a “natural” national park is evident, as Olwig has argued: The paradox of … national parks is not only that they are expected to preserve the landscape both for and from the nation, but that they must preserve the landscapes as wild nature even though, in fact, the parks must be actively managed to preserve their aesthetic and scientific values. (210)

The Batek have been completely excluded from co-managing Taman Negara with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP). This is despite the advice of anthropologists even as it is becoming increasingly evident that local peoples can manage forests and guard regional biodiversity in a more sustainable way than centralized models (Gill, Ross & Panya 2009, 123-138). They are well aware that they are considered in much the same way as animals. (“Animals are meant to be observed, not

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participate in political life” (Lye 2002, 153-154)). Even international organizations such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) often follow simplistic nature/society dichotomies. Since June 2004 Taman Negara has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative list as a “natural” site. Of central importance is that the Batek have been totally omitted from UNESCO’s text about Taman Negara which is depicted as a human-free wilderness and no mention is made that the park covers a large area of the Batek’s traditional territory. For forest-dwelling peoples like the Batek, not only do the actual findings of the previously discussed 2008 report on the effects of palm oil represent a devastating impact on the environment, but also the representational implications the report perpetuates—of the forest presentation as a natural and people-free “wilderness”—constitute a very real ongoing danger that the Batek will be literally written-out from their own landscape. The entanglements between romantic literary, environmental, scientific and administrative discourses that have favored “natural”, people-free wilderness representations have had severe sociopolitical consequences for indigenous minority peoples like the Batek. Not only have forest dwellers lost their homelands and been physically deterritorialized and relocated, they have also been omitted and erased from representations. They have been rendered invisible.

Conclusion Entanglements of actors, representations, discourses and power have played a major role in the transformation of landscapes in Peninsular Malaysia. The contemporary actors whose interwoven lives are shaping Malaysian landscapes include minority indigenous peoples, representatives of the oil-palm industry, politicians and government employees, environmentalists, scientists, representatives of indigenous peoples associations, tourists and consumers. The pressures and exigencies of these actors upon Malaysian landscapes have largely been informed by the entanglements of constantly-shifting and culturally-bound, historical representations of peoples and places. In different periods ‘wild’ Malaysian forest landscapes have been represented in a variety shifting permutations by non-forest peoples. In the pre-colonial period they embodied a “wildness” to be respected and avoided. In the early colonial period they became mysterious “jungles” beyond the civilized world. Finally, in the late-colonial and contemporary post-colonial periods they were remade as “resources” to be “developed”.

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In Malaysia representations of people and landscapes have always been closely related. However, it was not until the late colonial period that legal codification categorically reified both. Colonial and post-colonial Malaysian state’s legal “fixing” and categorization of the environment involved biopolitical classification of certain areas of the landscape into “development” zones and others as “protected” zones13. Malaysian land classification has gone hand in hand with the governing of the population who have been classified into simplified and reified bangsa (Malay for “ethnic groups” or “races”) assigned with different rights. State simplifications are an inherent aspect and outcome of Malaysian “development” projects which have transformed the heterogeneous and biologically-rich forest landscapes, which were historically loaded with cultural meaning by their forest dwellers, into homogenous mono-crop plantations stripped of all cultural meaning except economic value. The zoning of landscapes into areas of resource exploitation and development and other areas of conservation means the people and places within the conservation zones have been effectively frozen in time. The Taman Negara national park is represented as a “primeval”, “virgin” or “primary” rainforest despite its management as a tourist attraction14. Batek who have chosen to live inside the park—the largest remaining area of forested land on the Peninsular and covering a large area of their ancestral lands——have been fictively “frozen” in time as stone-age huntergatherers. This freezing has taken two dimensions: legal and representational. Legal “freezing” has meant Batek living in the park can hunt and gather in the forest but are forbidden to collect flora and fauna for trade with outsiders15. They are also not permitted to modify the park in any way. Representational “freezing” takes several forms. The local tourist industry has utilized romantic stereotypes of the Batek as “wild” stoneage 13 This involved the European scientific techniques of measurement and representation associated with geography including cartography and surveying. 14 Taman Negara has been represented in this way nationally by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) and in tourist brochures, as well as internationally through organizations such as UNESCO. 15 Even outside the park the Batek are subject to strict rules that effectively “freeze” them in time. One Batek elder in Post Lebir in Kelantan informed me that he used to hunt with a gun but the JHEOA (Department of Orang Asli Affairs) confiscated it from him. Another villager then told me this was because he was hunting animals to sell on to Chinese middlemen. In Pahang I was informed the Batek were often harassed and even arrested by the police for hunting forest animals or chopping down trees to use for lean-to building (activities allowed in Malaysian law) and then later released. The Batek’s understanding was this was done to humiliate them.

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hunters whom tourists can visit and watch; a “living” tourist attraction of lean-to life, blowpipe making and use and other cultural performances16. Some Batek have been persuaded to live in government resettlement villages outside Taman Negara in villages like Post Lebir. In this fragmented landscape, resettlement villages are often located near islands of logged-over secondary rainforest surrounded by vast palm oil plantations. In resettlement villages the Orang Asli are subjected to “development” in a mirroring of the “development” of the landscapes that surround them17. Development programs in resettlement villages include state encouragement of the Orang Asli to take up agriculture (hunting, gathering and horticulture are seen as “evolutionarily” more primitive); to live in villages that closely resemble Malay villages; to take up Islam; and for Orang Asli children to attend national schools. In-other-words, the Orang Asli are encouraged to assimilate to the Malay section of Malaysian society. As they have been denied land rights, when they are moved into resettlement villages their land is freed up for development and can be transformed into palm-oil plantations, damns, golf-courses, airports or other projects. The entanglements that have led to the transformations of the forest are by no means restricted to pressures from the local environment but should be seen as a complex historical weaving together of local, regional, national and global stories, actors, economies and policies. The European Union’s policy of using 10% of biofuel in transport by 2020, if implemented, will have a direct affect on landscapes in Malaysia18. So too will global producers’, distributors’ and consumers’ choices of whether to continue producing, buying and selling products containing palm-oil. Literary, scientific and environmental representations of the environment or “nature” as being human-free has had huge consequences on the creation of national parks—and thus, also on the development of landscapes beyond the park boundaries—not just in Malaysia but also in the Americas, Africa and across Asia. All too often the minority indigenous people living in these landscapes have been either directly evicted or subjected to strict laws. However, minority indigenous peoples should not be simply seen as passive victims of development. Land transformation projects in Malaysia and elsewhere have been accompanied by the ethnogenesis of national 16 Of course the Batek have played-up to this stereotype to earn small sums of cash for these performances. 17 Even the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA) has just been renamed as the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA). 18 See footnote p. 122.

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minority indigenous peoples’ identities. The internationalization of the indigenous peoples’ movements and land rights struggles have pitted these peoples against state and national governments and global corporations worldwide. A current example of this is a land rights case which began on 26 March 2012 between a Semelai community of Orang Asli against the state and federal governments as well as the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA). According to the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC): The headmen of two Semelai villages in Bera, Pahang and four other villagers, in their representative capacities, are seeking declarations that the state authority failed to administratively gazette 2,023 hectares of their traditional lands which were approved for gazetting in 1974. Instead, the state gave a significant portion of the land to Felcra Berhad to be developed as an oil palm plantation for neighbouring (non-Orang Asli) villagers. The area concerned was also the subject of a logging protest by the Semelai in April 2006 (COAC facebook page).

This was not the only land rights protest by the Orang Asli that year. On March 21 2012, Jakun villagers from the state of Johor “filed an application for leave to apply for judicial review against Mersing District Land Administrator’s order to evict them from their customary land encompassing the Endau Rompin National Park” (COAC facebook page). (On 17th January 2012, the Jakun were given only one day “to vacate from the National Park area and abandon all the structures built and crops planted therein” (COAC facebook page)). And land rights protests were not limited only to the courts, in January 2012, a Temiar Orang Asli community from Gua Musang in the state of Kelantan set up a road blockade in an attempt to stop loggers from entering their villages. The blockade was burnt down by police who then arrested 13 Orang Asli and a lawyer who was present (COAC facebook page). Contemporary media has also transformed the ways in which land rights struggles are represented. The information concerning the three previously-mentioned examples of land rights struggles was taken from the Centre for Orang Asli Affairs Facebook page. Another example of the way modern media technologies are shaping and disseminating representations of these struggles is the Malaysian digital satellite television service Astro’s recent broadcast of a critical three-part documentary about the Malaysian model for Orang Asli development19. 19 “Model Pembangunan untuk Orang Asli” (“The Model for Orang Asli development”).

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Such new technologies have fundamentally altered the way indigenous peoples’ political struggles are represented and mean ever greater global audiences are becoming aware of problems that in the very recent past would only have been known about locally. The contemporary period of globalization ensures technologies, media, politics and business are interwoven into peoples’ lives across political, cultural and geographical borders; thus, creating ever more complex connections. It is possible that a healthy backlash against the environmental and social homogenization of Southeast Asian landscapes will emerge thanks to these new entanglements.

References Bird-David, Nurit. 1992. "Beyond the ‘Hunting and Gathering’ Mode of Subsistence: Observations of the Nayakas and Other HunterGatherers". Man, New Series, 27 (1): 19-44. Dentan, Robert Knox. 1997. "The Persistence of Received Truth: How the Malaysian Ruling Class Constructs Orang Asli". In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo edited by Robert L Winzeler. New Haven: Yale Southeast Asia Studies. Descola, Phillippe. 1994. In the Society of Nature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edo, Juli. 1998. Claiming Our Ancestors’ Land: An Ethnohistorical Study of Seng-oi Land Rights in Perak. Malaysia PhD Thesis Australian National University. Endicott, Kirk. 1979. Batek Negrito Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. 1988. "Property, Power and Conflict among the Batek of Malaysia." In Hunters and Gatherers 2: Property, Power and Ideology edited by T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers. Endicott, Kirk. 1999. "The Batek of Peninsular Malaysia". In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers edited by Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gill S. K., Ross W. H., and Panya O. 2009. "Moving beyond Rhetoric: The Need for Participatory Forest Management with the Jakun of South-East Pahang, Malaysia." Journal of Tropical Forest Science 21 (2): 123–38. Gomes, Alberto G. 2007. Modernity at Large: Settling the Menraq forest nomads. London & New York: Routledge.

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Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment. Oxon & New York: Routledge. —. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London & New York: Routledge. LeFebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. (First published as Production de l’espace, 1974). Lye, Tuck Po. 2002. "Forest People, Conservation Boundaries, and the Problem of “Modernity” in Malaysia". In Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives edited by Geoffrey Benjamin & Cynthia Chou. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. —. 2005. Changing Pathways: Forest Degradation and the Batek of Pahang. Petaling Jaya: SIRD. Nagata, Shuichi. 1997. "The Origin of an Orang Asli Reserve in Kedah". In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo edited by Robert L. Winzeler. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. Nash, Roderick Frazier. 1967. Wilderness and the American Mind. Yale: Yale University Press. Nicholas, Colin. 2000. The Orang Asli and the Contest for Resources: Indigenous Politics, Development and Identity in Peninsular Malaysia. Copenhagen: IWGIA. —. 2002. "Organizing Orang Asli Identity". In Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Olwig, Kenneth. 2002. Landscape, Nature and the Body Politic: From Britain’s Renaissance to America’s New World. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Posey, Darrell. 2006. "Indigenous Ecological Knowledge". In Paradigm Wars: Indigenous People’s Resistance to Globalization edited by J Mander and V Tali-Corpuz. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Scott, James. 2009. The Art of not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space & Place: The perspective of experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connections. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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Vivieros de Castro, Eduardo.1998. "Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 4 (3): 469-488.

CHAPTER EIGHT IS ECONOMIC GROWTH SUSTAINABLE? MICHAEL EDESESS, PH.D. VISITING FELLOW HONG KONG ADVANCED INSTITUTE FOR CROSS-DISCIPLINARY STUDIES AND SCHOOL OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Introduction Mainstream economists and mainstream environmentalists view economic growth in very different ways. Representing the economist’s view is the following definition by Stanford economist Paul Romer, writing in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: “[Economic growth] occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that make them more valuable.” (Romer 2008) This definition implies a fixed endowment of resources, but no fixed limit to economic growth. By contrast, environmentalists take it for granted that economic growth must be limited. Typical is this statement by Paul Ehrlich (1997) and four other environmental scientists: “Since natural resources are finite, increasing consumption obviously must inevitably lead to depletion and scarcity.” The argument is stated frequently and seems obvious to environmentalists: economic growth is consumptive and therefore depletes resources; hence, it cannot continue to compound forever. Most people on both sides would probably agree, at least, on the conventional measure of economic growth: growth in the gross domestic product (GDP). In the case of worldwide economic growth, the measure is the gross world product (GWP)—the sum of the GDPs of all countries. Environmentalists would argue that GWP is a poor measure of social progress or enhancement of well-being. They would agree, however, as would economists, that it measures economic growth, if only approximately.

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The core of the debate, therefore, is over whether GWP can continue to grow forever. GWP is a statistic that is compiled from intricately-detailed data by specialists in the field. Many decisions must be made in compiling GWP, relying on innumerable arbitrary choices about what should and should not be included. While economists and environmentalists agree that GWP growth is the conventional measure of economic growth (if not necessarily the best measure of the growth of economic welfare), they do not agree about the implications of GWP growth. This paper will first consider the different kinds of growth that may or may not drive—or be driven by—GWP growth. Second, it will discuss the relationships among these kinds of growth, by exploring three misconceptions about these relationships—and about the meaning of GWP growth—that cause many environmentalists to believe that economic growth cannot continue forever. Finally, it will discuss the danger that environmentalists perceive to be posed by economic growth in general, and the danger’s actual source.

Different kinds of growth Economist Paul Ekins (2000) defines four kinds of growth: (1) growth of the economy’s biophysical throughput; (2) growth of production; (3) growth of economic welfare; and (4) environmental growth.

1. Growth of the economy’s biophysical throughput The economy’s biophysical throughput includes such resources as fossil fuels, timber, ores, domestic crops and animals, and water; and it includes such waste products as carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, methane, CFCs, and other pollutants or potential pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, as well as a myriad of pollutants emitted into the earth’s rivers, oceans, and soils. Indefinite growth in biophysical throughput is not impossible in principle (Edesess 1993). The field of industrial ecology seeks to configure combinations of productive industries in such a way that the waste product of one is a resource for another. Nevertheless, there must be some upper limit to the level of substance flow. If economic growth were proportional to a measure of the total mass of substance flow, economic growth would surely be contained by physical limits. If nothing else, increasing throughput of sheer substance mass would require the increasing use of energy, which is subject to physical limits.

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2. Growth of production Growth of the production of the human economy is what is meant by GWP growth. GWP attempts to measure in a common coinage the aggregate value of production to the economy. This requires measuring the relative value to people of a host of different products—from haircuts to audiobooks to refrigerators—on a common scale. The obvious measure is units of money, based on what people pay for each product. Hence production equates also to consumption, because for every seller of a product whose value (sales price) can be measured, there must be a purchaser—a consumer. GWP calculations try to correct for changes in the value of money itself—inflation and deflation. To do this accurately is a difficult if not impossible task. Changing prices of products over time reflect not only changes in the value of money but changes in the value of the products themselves, which is affected both by changes in the products and by substitutes for those products that become available. For example, the price of a “phone” has obviously changed over time, but so has its value to the purchaser because its features are ever-changing. It is a difficult and largely arbitrary decision how much of the change in price can be attributed to a change in the value of money and how much to a change in the value of the product. Similarly, a product that is displaced by substitutes—a black-and-white television that uses a cathode ray tube, for example—will see its price fall because substitute products become available with more features at a similar or even lower price. How much of this price decline should be attributed to an increase in the value of competing products and how much to disinflation? Ultimately, these decisions are made by employees at government agencies—the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S., for example—sometimes with great difficulty. Such considerations, as I shall further elaborate, make it difficult to determine whether the numerical value of the GWP is subject to limits on its growth.

3. Growth of economic welfare “Economic welfare” is usually interpreted to mean something measured not just by the average value of GWP per capita, but by other, perhaps less quantifiable, economic measures and non-economic measures as well. Such qualitative measures as “standard of living,” “quality of life,” and even happiness can be considered measures of welfare, or of economic welfare in the broader sense of “economic.” For example,

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certain goods—such as beautiful scenery—that are not traded in markets and therefore do not have prices, and hence cannot contribute to GWP, nonetheless have economic value in the sense that people will trade off other economic products to gain access to them. Similarly, some “bads”, such as certain forms of pollution, are not included in GWP but people will trade off other economic goods to avoid them. For example, people will pay more for homes that are located in areas where the air or water is less polluted. Efforts have been made to adjust GWP by placing monetary values on these non-market goods and bads and adding them as positives and negatives to the GWP. Mostly these efforts have not succeeded in creating aggregate measures that can compete with GDP and GWP in capturing the attention of researchers, governments, business and the public. The first type of growth, growth in biophysical throughput, pertains to more or less tangible, physical growth; the second type of growth, growth in GWP, pertains to growth in an intangible measure; the third type of growth, however, growth in “economic welfare,” “standard of living,” “quality of life” and happiness, is yet more intangible still.

4. Environmental growth Ekins defines a fourth kind of growth, environmental growth, referring to the natural ability of ecological capital to grow and regenerate. Ekins cites a paper by the late Indian environmentalist Anil Agarwal (1986) in which Agarwal calls for constructing a concept of a “Gross Nature Product.” Agarwal says, “Unfortunately we do not know as yet how to construct such an indicator,” but the concept in his view includes “Activities needed to develop … ecological infrastructure-like soil and water conservation programmes, afforestation, building of protection walls, and digging of ponds and tanks.” Ekins says of environmental growth, “it is probably the most important kind of growth,” but doesn’t develop it much further in the rest of the book. I will discuss the idea and its relation to economic growth later in this paper. I will take up in the next three sections, first, the relationship between growth of the economy’s biophysical throughput and growth of production; second, the meaning of “growth of production,” or GWP growth itself; and third, the relationship between growth of the economy’s biophysical throughput and environmental growth. I will not discuss further the third type of growth—growth of economic welfare—because it is more intangible than any of the others and can readily be defined to be free of limits.

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Relationship between Growth of Biophysical Throughput and Growth of Production We have seen that growth of biophysical throughput, growth type 1, is subject to physical limits and therefore cannot continue forever. Growth of production, on the other hand, growth type 2—what we assume economists and environmentalists agree is defined by growth in GWP—is the growth in the aggregate price that consumers are willing to pay for that production, whatever form the production takes. It should by no means be immediately evident from this definition that this number is subject to a limit. Ekins claims that many analysts regularly fail to make the distinction between growth type 1 and growth type 2. He says The failure to distinguish rigorously and consistently between growth types 1 and 2 is the single most important source of the confusion which continues to beset even the most recent writing about growth and the environment, in particular that which stresses the limits to growth. (Ekins 2000, 58)

As an example of this confusion, Ekins quotes another author: The limits to energy availability, environmental raw materials and sink capacities mean there are very real limits to the growth of the physical scale of the material economy. Insofar as the value of the material economy is linked to its physical scale, the economic growth of the material economy also faces limits. This means that the unlimited exponential growth of the money economy is a virtual impossibility. (Parris 1997, 25)

Ekins’s comment about this passage is: “In fact, the third sentence does not follow logically from the second.” (Ekins 2000, 60) Ekins is right, the author cannot conclude “that the unlimited exponential growth of the money economy is a virtual impossibility” without proving—as the author points out—that “the value of the material economy is linked to its physical scale.” In fact, it would not be enough to prove merely that the value of the material economy is linked to its physical scale; it must be proven that the value of the material economy is proportional to its physical scale. Many, perhaps most, environmentalists assume as a self-evident proposition that the value of the material economy is linked to its physical scale. But no proof of this proposition is available. Meanwhile, a plethora

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of recent anecdotal evidence shows that the value of the material economy is not necessarily linked to its physical scale. The examples are familiar and legion by now. My 8-gigabyte flash drive is lighter and takes up less space than the smallest joint of my little finger, yet it stores in its memory more than 10 times as much data as were stored by all the computers in the world when I first learned to program computers; and, each of those mainframe computers at that time occupied a whole floor of a building, which required carefully controlled air conditioning and/or heating. Dematerialization—reduction in the use of physical materials—can also be achieved by substitution between inputs to the production process; changes in the composition of outputs; and more efficient use of the same input through improved technology. At one time it was thought that the price of copper would soar as its reserves depleted due to the rapidly increasing use of copper in wires for electrical conductivity. Then fiberoptic cable substituted for copper wire—a lighter, cheaper substitute. LEDs—light-emitting diodes—are replacing other kinds of lighting, providing light more energy-efficiently and compactly. Instead of huge pinball machines, adolescents are entertaining themselves with video games on tiny handheld devices. These examples suggest at least, if not prove, the logical possibility of unlimited GWP growth. Steadily advancing technology, it would seem, could conceivably enable the improved ability to do all the things we like to do, and more and better, without increasing—indeed while decreasing —the quantity of materials that we use. These bits of anecdotal evidence do not prove it is possible—and they certainly do not prove it is likely— but they suggest that it is possible.

Meaningfulness of GWP Growth Since it is generally agreed among both economists and environmentalists that GDP is the conventional measure of a national economy’s total production (or its consumer counterpart, total consumption), it is a good idea to explore how GDP is defined. The compilation of GDP is an arduous and complex task, involving many thousands of items of numerical data, all needing to be categorized and summed to obtain the GDP. I shall simplify the concept by considering the most basic possible economy. Suppose this economy consists of two families, each of which grows and eats their own corn and beans. Each has a collection of shiny rocks that they found in the vicinity.

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Each family is self-sufficient, growing and eating their own food; hence, there is no trade and zero GDP.

The Economy Grows Now, suppose they discover that one family is better at growing corn and the other is better at growing beans. Perhaps, one day, one of the families tried one of the other’s beans, and remarked that it tasted better (or was bigger) than his or her family’s own beans. They traded a little corn for a few beans, making the discovery of the comparative advantage of one family in growing beans and the other in growing corn. They commence to trade corn for beans with each other on a regular basis. The corn and beans are harvested at different times, so they use the shiny rocks as tokens to keep track of who has traded what with whom. Thus, the economy grows; the growth can be measured by how many stones are traded. Finally, one family grows only corn and the other grows only beans. Has growth ended? Not at all. Now the families discover that: • One sows better; the other reaps better • One tends the children better while parents are working in the field; the other prepares meals for field workers better • One massages the aches and pains of harvesters better; the other cleans the living quarters better They continue to trade services using the shiny stones; GDP keeps growing, limited only by the capacity to trade stones (keep the accounts). But if the accounting became “substanceless” (nowadays we would say paperless)—as most accounting is now—that might not be a constraint. This seems to imply that GDP could grow without limit.

Final Goods and Intermediate Goods This analysis is incorrect, however, as anyone familiar with the details of how GDP is defined would point out. GDP includes only final goods and services (those that are actually delivered to the consumer) not intermediate goods and services (those that are exchanged between agents along the production line). For example, while an automobile manufacturer purchases tires from a tire manufacturer to put on the car, the ultimate purchaser of the car also pays for the tires as part of the cost of the car. Hence if, in the calculation of GDP, the value of the transaction of the automobile manufacturer purchasing the tires were added to the final

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cost of the car to the purchaser, then payment for the tires would be added twice into GDP. Much of the effort that compilers of GDP devote to the calculation goes to defining the separation of final goods from intermediate goods, and to including only final goods and services in the calculation of GDP. That separation, however, is difficult if not impossible to make. In the simple economy above, the sowing and the reaping would be intermediate services; but it is less clear how to categorize the others—do they enhance production and are therefore intermediate services, or are they only for the consumer? The standard approach is to assume that business-to-business transactions are intermediate, while purchases by consumers (households) or by government are final. This can lead to many strange anomalies, however. To take only one example: historically, in the United States and other countries, corporate employees’ retirement benefits have been funded by defined-benefit pension plans. The corporations contributed to the pension plans and paid the investment management fees. Since the 1980s many corporations have switched from defined-benefit plans to definedcontribution plans (called 401(k)s in the U.S.), in which employees contribute themselves, out of their pre-tax salaries (corporations usually add a matching amount to those employee contributions). In definedcontribution plans, the employees own the funds they have invested in, and pay their management fees. Hence, in the case of the defined-benefit pension fund, the employer paid the management fees, so it would seem in keeping with the standard approach to defining final vs. intermediate goods and services that those management fees would be considered intermediate and not included in GDP. But when the plans were shifted to defined-contribution plans owned by the employees, who pay the management fees, those fees would seem to have become a final product—because it is purchased by the employee, a consumer. Does this mean that the GDP rose because corporations switched from definedbenefit pension plans to defined-contribution 401(k) plans? In 1988 economist Robert Eisner, a past president of the American Economic Association, investigated this definition of final vs. intermediate goods and services in detail. He showed in an article for the Journal of Economic Literature (Eisner 1988) how difficult it is to define the difference. For example he asked, “Is driving to the supermarket intermediate in the acquisition of food? Is eating itself intermediate to the creation or maintenance of human capital?” His conclusion is that, “The … definitions of final product … make our measures of income and output hostage to particular institutional

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arrangements.” That is, they depend on what is defined as an intermediate consumer and what is defined as a final consumer. For example, the financial sector of the U.S. economy as a percentage of U.S. GDP rose from 2% in 1945 to about 8.5% in 2010, making the largest contribution to GDP growth in recent times of any sector. But are any financial products “final” products? Finance’s purpose is to allocate resources toward the production of goods and services—not to be those goods and services in and of itself. Why, then, would finance be thought to contribute anything at all to GDP? Why are not all financial goods and services “intermediate”? In short, while GDP is supposed to be defined in such a way that only things purchased by the end consumer are included—which would at least impose one kind of limit on its growth—in fact, there is continual, and growing, leakage from what should normally be considered intermediate goods and services to what might be considered final goods and services; there is, in reality, no good way to define the distinction. Another regularly cited example is the increase in GDP over the last 40 years or so because many women who would formerly have been housewives have entered the job market. The goods and services that they used to provide in the home, and that were not included in GDP because no monetary transactions paid for them, are now included in GDP because nannies and other servicepersons are hired to perform those services. It is possible in principle that GDP could increase forever even without this constant leakage in the GDP accounts from intermediate goods and services into final goods and services, because it could include an everincreasing proportion of insubstantial services such as people paying each other for massages, yoga lessons, etc. But unless the definitions of final and intermediate goods and services are completely overhauled—in a way that is not obvious to see—GDP will also continue to increase, simply with the volume of electronic purchase and sale transactions that can be recorded.

Relationship between Economic Growth and Environmental Growth Neither Ekins nor Agarwal defines precisely what is meant by environmental growth. One obvious interpretation is merely growth of biomass or restoration of environments that have been degraded. I will, however, show that there is a sense of environmental growth that is analogous to economic growth; and that indeed, it may be possible

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to define a measure in which the type of environmental growth that is analogous to economic growth can continue forever.

The Creative Destruction of Economic Growth The following sequence roughly defines the “creative destruction” process of economic growth: • • •

•

New products are created continuously. Consumers as a group—or the market—“reveals its preferences” by shifting away from some of the old products to some of the new. Value is presumably added, because the consumers now have a greater choice, and given the choice of the new products or the old they choose the new products—this must mean an increase in consumers’ utility, that is, the value to them of their economic options. We assume that value creation is measured by GDP growth.

The Creative Destruction of Environmental Growth An analogous process of creative destruction occurs continuously in the natural environment: • • • •

New species/mutations are created continuously. The environment “reveals its preferences” by allowing some of the new mutations to survive while some of the old die. Can value be said to have been added, because the process has a directionality, driven by preference? Can that value creation be measured?

Here I have substituted “nature” for “the market” as the agent expressing its preferences. Is there any reason not to attribute an increase in utility to “nature” when nature selects one species or mutation over another—any more than to attribute an increase in utility to consumers as a group when they select one product or product mutation over another? One difference is that we have a numerical measure of the increase in utility to consumers as a group in the measure of GDP—but as we have seen, that measure, which purports to cleanly separate growth from monetary inflation, and to accurately measure the total value of final goods and services, is not as clean or well-defined a measure as is generally thought. In fact, if one were to consider the measure known as GDP as the

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standard of a viable measure, one might easily be able to define a measure of environmental growth that is analogous to economic growth as measure by GDP, and is just as viable.

Example of the Creative Destruction of Environmental Growth: the Amazon Rainforest Rainforests have often been held up as the paradigm of how nature works sustainably in a steady-state and beautiful harmony. This is, however, a fabrication of the romantic human imagination. The evolutionary origins of rainforests are complex, difficult to determine precisely, and different for different rainforests. Nonetheless, it is apparent that they must develop—if developing from scratch—through an evolutionary process conceptually something like the following: 1. Scrub growth begins at the ground. 2. Some of the growing plants—trees—engage in an “arms race” (Dawkins 1996, 169), competing with each other to grow toward the sun to harvest solar energy. Each tree grows higher to compete with its neighbors, which would otherwise cast it in shadow. If the trees could reach an agreement to grow only to less than their supportable maximum, they could share sunlight without growing too high; but they do not do that. 3. Plants unable to grow to these heights cannot secure solar energy and die. 4. The forest canopy grows to its level of incompetence1. It seems only logical and predictable that this would happen. Why, then, are these trees that have grown to their maximum supportable level, their level of incompetence, sustainable? They may not be. There are growing signs that creative destruction in rainforests is continuing. Large vines called lianas (Fountain 2011) wrap themselves around trees, using the trees to support the lianas’ growth toward the sunlight (see Figure 3-1). These lianas climb to the tops of the trees, and over them. They capture the solar energy, and weigh down the trees and weaken them further. The trees collapse; the lianas survive. The creative destruction of the natural environment continues.

1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle.

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Figure 8-1. Lianas

To many environmentalists, this may seem a strange or inappropriate comparison. But at some point, if the human race is to survive with its civilization at least mostly intact, its evolutionary processes will have to blend in with those of the natural environment. The natural environment’s evolutionary processes are brutal in many ways, some of which we would aspire to mimic, and some of which we would shun. We will need to romanticize nature less in aspiring to imitate it. We must decide how much of the brutal processes of nature must inevitably be part of human evolution as well.

The real issue Most environmentalist concern about growth revolves around warnings that we will face a crisis. A crisis, however, is less likely to be caused by growth in general than by some particular sub-trend that goes unnoticed.

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This was, for example, the cause of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. While many people worried about such imbalances as the ballooning U.S. trade deficit and the rise of indebtedness of households in general, it was specifically the packaging and reselling of extremely low-quality mortgages that caused the crisis—a problem that seemed to most people, even as it was developing in the news, something that could hardly become a serious problem. Similarly, in the environmental area, advance warning was luckily obtained about the impending hole in the ozone layer, because specialized scientific researchers realized that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could set off a process that destroyed stratospheric ozone. Thus, while many environmentalists speak in terms of the sheer volume of total pollutants or the quantity of resources used, it is not the total throughput that causes the problems, but rather, specific components of the throughput that can have deleterious effects and go unnoticed. Many crisis watch activities should be modeled after the program of vigilance that tracks asteroids and comets whose trajectories could cause them to hit the earth. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a program to observe objects that could potentially do great damage by colliding with earth, and to devise means of deflecting them. This is a good example of the effectiveness of vigilance, monitoring, and preparation in the face of hidden danger. In response to this danger, astronomers observe the skies for signs of comets or asteroids with earth-crossing trajectories; scenarists plan and prepare action (such as deflection and orbit modification2) in case a threat becomes imminent; calculations are refined if a heavenly body approaches; and action is set in motion if the threat does become imminent. General calls to reduce consumption or reduce growth will be less effective than programs targeting specific dangers and responding with specific actions. Granted, the most serious threat that we are aware of now—increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause warming and climate change—is a result of the growth of industrial technology in the last 100 to 200 years, which many people think of as virtually synonymous with “economic growth”. However, it is neither necessary that economic growth should cause such problems, nor that such problems can be solved by reducing economic growth. Indeed, it is possible that increased economic growth could be their solution—if economic growth includes devising new technologies that solve the problems.

2

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050186565_2005187872.pdf.

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Thus, environmentalists should focus less on generally lambasting something that goes by the name of economic growth, and more on promoting the scientific exploration and analysis that is needed to identify specific problems – much as scientists and analysts identify the danger of large earth-approaching celestial bodies and seek to allay the dangers, a danger that is, after all, not anthropogenic and therefore has nothing to do with economic growth. Economists, for their part, have their own blind spot. Most of their theories—and as a result their worldviews—tend to assume what I will call a “differentiable” evolutionary path. To a mathematician, a differentiable path is one that is continuous and smooth—it is easy to predict the direction in which it is going to go from the direction in which it has just gone. Economists, hence, tend to assume that any dangers to the economy–to which they boil down most of human endeavor—will arise in smooth, incremental and detectable ways, for example by means of a marginal price signal; and that the human endeavor will be able to respond smoothly by means of a marginal response. That comfortable assumption, however, does not apply to many of the most dangerous risks. Without farsighted advance detection programs and preparation, for example, humanity would be in more danger of destruction from a comet hitting the earth. Lacking these farsighted programs, no marginal signal would arrive in time for us to mount a marginal response sufficient to avert disaster. Similarly, some environmental dangers lurk in ways that the normal processes of economic adjustment will not be able to deal with. It has been the role of environmentalists to warn of those dangers, and often to employ—or to be themselves—the scientists who are able to foresee the dangers. However, to warn of the danger of “economic growth” in general is to depart from that crucial role, and to take on a role that risks being identified with the proverbial boy who cried wolf. The conclusion is that environmental action should emphasize less the discouragement of “growth” and “consumption” in general, and more the careful and ongoing identification and monitoring of specific potential sources of environmental instability and danger, and the planning of what to do about them. What should concern us is not growth in general, but specific hidden threats (environmental or human-made) that deliver no, or inadequate, marginal signals.

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References Agarwal, Anil. “The Fifth World Conservation Lecture: Human-Nature Interactions in a Third World Country”. The Environmentalist. Volume 6, Number 3, 165-183. http://www.springerlink.com/content/0251-1088/6/3/. Dawkins, Richard. 1996. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton. Edesess, Michael. November 1993. “Entropy, Economics, and the Environment”. AERE Newsletter, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Volume 13, No. 2. Ehrlich, Paul R., Gretchen C. Daily, Scott C. Daily, Norman Myers, and James Salzman. December 1997 “No Middle Way on the Environment”, The Atlantic Monthly, http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97dec/enviro.htm. Eisner, Robert. December 1988. “Extended Accounts for National Income and Product”. Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XXVI, pp. 16111684. Ekins, Paul. 2000. Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability: The prospects for green growth. London: Routledge. Fountain, Henry. 23 May 2011. “A Tree Hugger, With a Twist”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/science/24vine.html. Parris, B. 1997. “Development in Wonderland: the Social and Ecological Sustainability of Economic Growth”. Issues in Global Development. No. 9, February, World Vision Australia, Melbourne. Romer, Paul M. 2008. “Economic Growth”. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Liberty Fund. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/EconomicGrowth.html.

PART IV GREEN GROWTH AND ENERGY

CHAPTER NINE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN GABONESE FORESTS: FROM RHETORICS TO CONCRETE EFFECTS ETIENNE BOUREL PHD STUDENT LYON 2 UNIVERSITY

In Gabon, the forest sector is currently experiencing major sustainable development transformations, under what is called “sustainable forest management”. The goal for businesses is to create “forest management” to take into account the three dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, economic and social questions. What I would like to do, here, is to explain this situation and to suggest a measure of the gap between rhetorical and practical effects. The data have been collected during fieldworks which took place in Gabon, for a research relative to how to work and to live on a logging camp in Gabon and to transformations in forestry according to sustainable development. It began during a master’s degree and continues for a PhD. So, I have already spent fourteen months in Gabon to investigate on these questions.

The Emergence of Environmental Issues on the International Scene, in the Congo Basin and in Gabon The industrial exploitation of the Gabonese forest began in the late nineteenth century. It was long regarded by foresters only for its potential economic value as an "open air mine" (Kialo 2007). On the international scene, it was in 1972, during the Stockholm Conference, that environmental concerns first emerged. Nevertheless, it was a decade later, in 1983, that forest preservation became as much important a stake as its trade, during the creation of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO),

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officiating under the United Nations auspices. These considerations were, thereafter, specified during the Rio de Janeiro 1992 and Johannesburg 2002 Earth Summits. In Africa, in the Congo Basin, at the beginning of the nineties, intergovernmental consultation policies were designed. This especially resulted in Ministerial Conferences, called, since 2004, the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC). It gradually led to the adoption of new laws in each sub-region’s countries to integrate sustainable development’s related concepts in a legislative framework. Cameroon was thus the pioneer in this field, in 1994, by endorsing a new forestry code. In the case of Gabon, such renewal legislation was not voted until the 2001 last day. It is important not to see these reforms only in the consideration of environmental arguments because they are also the result of World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s pressures, encouraging a greater industrialization of timber industry (Kialo 2007). Without going into details, objectives of the new Gabon Forest Code can be summarized in four points: x Implement a strategy for the development and the sustainable management of forests. x Provide good practice tax incentives for sustainable management. x Assist in the development of a local log transformation industry (the trunk). x Involve local people.

Forest Governance Actors in Libreville For manufacturers, becoming a forest manager represents a profound change in the profession of forester. It is no longer operating, marketing and / or processing the logs. Theoretically, social and environmental aspects become full-fledged activities of forest managers. Any decision must be made in concert with various partners, planned and designed in terms of social or environmental potential impacts that it can generate. The training of qualified personnel is a key to successful forest management. Similarly, if the company should seek to gradually internalize skills, a set of players come to second it as the State, in implementing this process. So, that which might be called “environmental governance” was established in recent years around the issue of forest management. For Geraldine Froger, governance refers to “all the regulatory mechanisms of an economic and social system to ensure common goals” (Froger 2006), id

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est, here, sustainable development. So, I was able to meet in Libreville a number of actors that can be classified into different categories: x x x x x x x

The Ministry of Waters and Forests and its related organizations. Private companies. Unions (especially for bosses). NGOs. International governmental organizations. Research departments (or consultancies, consulting firms). Research centers.

A huge part of these actors live in the Gabonese capital and, concretely, leave it for province as little as possible. For example, civil servants are used to considering as a form of punishment the fact to be placed in another town in the country. This can be explained by the very big centralization of Gabon and the problems in regional development it encounters. So, it is possible to notice a disconnection between national scale-level and local scale-level in the application of sustainable development strategies. Lots of activities of the “forest governance” consist of meetings, workshops, statements of intent, programme drafting. In the best cases, they are informed by the locals’ data collections but the methodologies of these data collections have always the same problem: they are produced quickly, considered in a particular view and veered off by political opinions about environmentalism or what a good way of life should be. Finally, actors of forest governance in Libreville form an acquaintanceship little world of well-paid people, generally satisfied with their situation and who look with a kind of contempt and condescension at all that is connected to the hinterland.

Three Major Companies In this context, the impulsion to start changes to sustainability in logging companies, most of the time, emerges from companies themselves. If changes have accelerated these months, three big firms, (two of them being French and the last one French and Swiss) anticipated forestry transformations during the nineties and are now ecocertified by the most recognized label: FSC label1 (Forest Stewardship Council). It is supposed to present guarantees to consumers about the good quality of 1

http://www.fsc.org/, accessed in September 2011.

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forestry production, social aspects (workers, their relatives and locals) and wildlife aspects in each company’s concessions. The fact is that these guarantees are buying behaviors prescriptive. Indeed, on these companies website, we can see pictures exciting the almost symbiotic relations these companies are henceforth supposed to maintain with Nature, workers and wildlife. This first document is the home page of Compagnie des bois du Gabon website2. We can see a panoramic picture of a moist tropical forest. We do not know where the picture was taken. Vegetation is dense, high and seems free of human signs of activity. The sky is cloudy, as regular in the region. So the visitor is engaged in an imagination work. What can he understand of this ecosystem with virginal aspects and offered to contemplation, which only lacks the Flash animation of Tarzan swinging from vine to vine? That it will vigorously be cleared and gutted by a group of chainsaws and bulldozers in the coming years? Certainly not. The company’s motto, inscribed in the bottom right corner of the banner, gives us the key to read this visual oxymoron: a picture of a non-exploited forest to represent the activities of a logging company. So, the motto explains that, through its commitments, the company would be in an ethical perspective for the “African forest”. But the “African forest” is a hypothetical object created through a double reification: the capital's name and supposed unity of all that the adjective refers to. So, for the company, Culture is no longer opposed to Nature, but on the contrary, takes it in charge and is able to respect it, including through mining. This feat is also at work through the slideshow opening the site of a second company Rougier Gabon3. We find the same representation of the forest area: dense, non-situated and without human presence. The sky is cloudy again. The paradox is, however, pushed one step further, not by the words of the main activities of the company (production, processing and negotiating internationally) or the insertion of three vignettes depicting the various stages of transformation of matter, but here again, by the company’s motto: “Managing forests. Enriching wood.” If, for the Compagnie des Bois du Gabon, “commitment” could refer to an announcement of political action, here it cannot even be considered because we are just talking about “manage”. The so-called “neutralization” of business operations expected, therefore, is supposed to be accompanied by benefits because, through it, the wood lives. It is possible to note that there is no mention of social issues in the company. Still, an economic 2 3

http://cbgpog.com/, accessed in September 2011. http://www.rougier.fr/, accessed in September 2011.

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activity involved in predatory relations with the environment, thanks to a both visual and rhetorical discursive device leads to a kind of neutralization impacts of exploitation. The website of the third company provides a clarification on the other two components of a hypothetical forest eco-responsibility: social and faunal aspects. Indeed, by clicking on the “sustainability” tag of the Compagnie Equatoriale des Bois - Precious Woods website, the visitor is faced with three paragraphs explaining how the company policy is based on a sustainable model, creates value-added environmental elements and contributes to social and economic development. This involves reforestation activities. The photo illustrating these few sentences4 presents a worker in the process of transplanting cuttings. The organization of the vegetation of the place shows that it is clearly in a plantation, but does not mention where it is, who that person is or what he does exactly. Once again, the imagination of the visitor is invited. Thus, in views of the different locations of the company and the clothes worn by the worker, it is possible to think that he is an African worker. The organic composition of his basket tends to create a match between the work and the element in which it takes place. Finally, the worker has both hands on the basket handles, he is applied to his task and, if the blur of one of his hands indicates that the cliché took him in action, the absence of sweat on his forehead allows to suppose some peaceful work. This is not the worker's ability to triumph over the material but rather his tendency to deal with it which is highlighted. In addition, the person who is shown is not a real worker, but the representation of an archetype, an ahistorical character reconciling humanity with nature. So, this picture is really an expression of a western and colonialist discourse. Returning to the homepage of the company5, the visitor is sure to be attracted by a sticker on the bottom left of the page that contains three gorillas. This picture is organized on three levels: the first and the third consisting of plants, the great apes are presented in a supposed “natural environment”. Moreover, the composition of the image suggests that it is a “family”, specifically a mother and her two children. The company becomes the guarantor for the symbiosis of these primates with their surroundings.

4

http://www.preciouswoods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section &id=5<emid=95/, accessed in September 2011. 5 http://www.preciouswoods.com/, accessed in September 2011.

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These four documents refer to the three dimensions of sustainable development in forestry: forest production, social aspects and fauna. Discursive strategies do not reflect a highlighting of the mechanical power in a hostile environment, but rather, a respectful relationship with a rich and complex ecosystem. So, is formed what we can name “the myth of eco-friendly company” because, precisely, changes are fundamentally formal. This myth is reinvesting “the imagination of the primary forest regarded as the primitive ecological niche” (Martin-Granel 2010, 116), just as other companies, like Toyota, have been able to do to advertising purposes. It would be possible to develop and analyze the link between show and technology operated through this praise of technical rationality refinement capabilities taking place on logging companies’ website. But instead, let us see what concretely appends for national companies and workers.

The New Context Consequences for Domestic Contractors and Workers If the largest companies were able to anticipate the changing context in the forestry sector, the consequences of these changes on domestic contractors would be different. Since 2008, a ministerial order has complemented the legislation and laid down rules for obtaining logging permits by a tendering procedure. This procedure has, for the moment, held only once, in May 2009. It is now mandatory for anyone wishing to undertake a legal activity in the country. A Gabonese contractor I met in 2009 was precisely in this situation. He let me do fieldwork on his logging camp in 2009 and 2010, during my master fieldworks. The current complexity of the procedure prevented him from engaging in lawful activity because he did not manage to obtain a regular concession from the ministry. This can be explained by the new high standards and also by the everyday life corruption in the ministry. If, at first, this failure informs on the maintenance of clientelistic and corrupt logics beyond the legislative complexification, more broadly, it refers to the fact that entry into a logic of sustainability for a logging company requires human, substantial financial and technical resources. And currently there are no Gabonese contractors able to do this without external support. This leads to a marginalization of national contractors for the benefit of international corporations. Otherwise, the contractor continued his activities with informal loggers he hired. They were still working without contracts or social protection,

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with payroll paid at random and in particularly precarious housing, feeding and care conditions. Among the factors that make this possible, we should mention the trust from a form of fictive kinship: workers considered themselves as “in family” or “between brothers” because they were all Africans, and in particular, all Gabonese. Yet, the regular betrayal of that trust by the contractor and their working conditions and life brought many of these workers to want to join international companies, and primarily the eco-certified ones. As they perceived those ones, seamlessly, like French ones, it followed a (re-) ethnicisation perception of social relations resulting from the fact that the new standards and new technological knowledge were accepted because received as foreigners, “white” and thus viewed positively (Bazin 1998, Dougnon 2007). This perception of French companies was confirmed to me a few weeks ago by a worker during an interview shortly after his voluntary departure from an Asian company because of the poor pay and living environment it offers to its employees (translation mine): But wait, you think really, although I do not know what policy our politicians do, but we, we're French. Logically, what is missing is only to give us the nationality [...] We're not French? Are we, logically, today, ready to come off with the French? I do not think so. Everything we do today, we are, we copy the French. Everything. (Excerpt from an interview on 26/07/11)

During an interview with one of the coordinators (of Centrafrican nationality) of the implementation of forest certification in one of the major Asian companies in Gabon, he used the following terms to speak about the attractiveness of certified companies on workers (translation mine): Clearly, it is clear. As we move toward certification, we act, sometimes it’s from our impulsion, sometimes it’s required by law, sometimes it’s required by the repository. And it’s the sum of these acts that gives the label, giving the certificate. At the end, it’s: improvement of workers’ living conditions, beautiful homes, decent wages. All this, classrooms, spare-time activities. And after, the hype on TV, people see and say, “Ooh, but now, I must go to work at [company of the manager], I must go to work at Precious woods, I must go to work at Rougier’s”. This is an outcome that motivates some friendly-work workers in such a company. (Excerpt from an interview on 08/07/11)

To this, someone should answer that, among the various aspects that include sustainable forest management, social aspects are generally the poorest part of the infrastructure development. The efforts often consist in complying

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with existing legislation. Moreover, compliance with environmentalism leads to an extensive codification of workers’ expected actions, corresponding to a particularly well-accomplished form of governmentality (Luke 2006). At last, it is possible to contradict the guarantees provided by labels through scientific analysis based on empirical data, which show that the situation for the locals deteriorates in contact with sustainable managed spots and that workers are finally drawn up by wages only (Mengue Medou and Waaub 2005).

A Conclusion in Three Words and, maybe, some Food for Thought Far from the Libreville forestry governance gentle small world and the idyllic visions of major companies’ websites, pragmatic consequences of sustainability introduction in forestry in Gabon can be summed up in three words: imperialism and symbolic alienation. Imperialism because powerful nations, especially the ex-colonizer ones, can strengthen their dominant positions. This mostly happens at the expense of national contractors who are disappearing from the landscape. Symbolic alienation because this alienation takes place in workers’ imagination and comes to redouble the alienation they live as proletarians, id est people on whom a process is imposed. In a recent contribution to a collective book, HEC-Paris professor Andreu Solé examined the different attitudes identifiable in debates around words like “sustainable development” or “ungrowth”, and the resulting worldviews. In terms of worldview, he analysed the main organization of today’s world is the company. And it is the company and not the market, which is anthropologically much more widespread through societies in time and in space. If the market supposes an exchange and is so based on a horizontal logic, the company supposes a hierarchy and is so based on a vertical logic. For these reasons, he could conclude that: “In short, how can we not realize that the problem is the company?” (Solé 2011, 24) Finally, in a 2005 essay written with Philippe Pignarre and entitled “Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell”, great Belgium philosopher and epistemologist Isabelle Stengers analyzed capitalism-holding on the mind, in particular through this eternal formula: “I know that it’s not good but I must do that anyway”. And so authors propose unbewitched practices because they think that “another world is possible”. To succeed, these practices have to stay at a local-level, in the margins, the interstices of society. They are not for public spaces. They find a place on the edge of

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society, but, as all cinema lovers know, what is “out of shot” is always more important than the shot itself.

References Bazin, Laurent. 1998. Entreprise, politique, parenté : une perspective anthropologique sur la Côte-d’Ivoire dans le monde actuel. Paris, Montréal: L’Harmattan. Dougnon, Isaïe. 2007. Travail de Blanc, travail de Noir. La migration des paysans dogon vers l’Office du Niger et au Ghana (1910-1980). Paris: Karthala-Sephis. Froger, Géraldine. 2006. “Significations et ambigüités de la gouvernance dans le champ du développement durable”, Mondes en développement “Gouvernance et développement durable”, vol. 4, n° 136, 11-28. Kialo, Paulin. 2007. Anthropologie de la forêt. Populations pové et exploitants forestiers au Gabon. Paris: L’Harmattan. Luke, Timothy W. 2006. “On Environmentality: Geo-Power and EcoKnowledge in the Discourses of Contemporary Environmentalism” in Haenn, Nora and Wilk, Richard R. (eds.), The Environment in Anthropology: A Reader in Ecology, Culture, and Sustainable Living. 257-269. New York: New York University Press. Martin-Granel, Nicolas. 2010. “Singeries au Congo”, Cahiers d’études africaines, 198-199-200: 1113-1145. Mengue Medou, Célestine, and Waaub, Jean-Philippe. 2005. “Évaluation des impacts socio-économiques : cas d’unité forestière d’aménagement de la compagnie forestière Leroy-Gabon”, Vertigo, 6-2, http://vertigo.revues.org/index4392.html, accessed on 4 August 2009. Sole, Andreu. 2011. “Développement durable ou décroissance : le point aveugle du débat” in Abraham, Yves-Marie, Marion, Louis et Philippe, Hervé (dir.), Décroissance versus développement durable. Débats pour la suite du monde. 14-33. Montréal: Ecosociété. Stengers, Isabelle, and Pignarre, Philippe. 2007. La sorcellerie capitaliste. Paris: La Découverte.

CHAPTER TEN PROMOTING “GREEN ELECTRICITY” IN THE EUROPEAN INTERNAL MARKET: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EUROPEAN MARKET LAW AS REGARDS TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ETIENNE DURAND PHD STUDENT JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 UNIVERSITY

Spear-famed Achilles sprang from the bank and leapt into his midst; but he rushed on him in a furious wave, and stirred up all his streams in tumult, and swept down the many dead who lay thick in him, slain by Achilles; these out to land he cast with bellowing like a bull (...). But terribly around Achilles arose his tumultuous wave, and the stream smote violently against his shield, nor availed he to stand firm upon his feet. (Homer, The Iliad, Book XXI)

Like Achilles, fighting against tumultuous waves of the Scamander River, mankind has built its evolution within an environment which was only a backdrop of its history, but which is now turning against him. Even if the law and history did not completely ignore the environment, the Earth and the natural elements used to be considered as the gathering place of human life, and their protection should have also responded to the human needs: Carl Von Linné wrote, in the 18th century, that “the whole Nature must provide for the happiness of men whose authority extends to the whole Earth and who can appropriate all products” (Von Linne 1735, 121). The construction of law was made, in this context, within the framework of inter-individual relations. The “Social Contract” theory considers the norm as a balance between various personal interests, in a “war of all against all” (bellum omnia contra omnes) (Hobbes 1651, 224).

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Environmental requirements progressively add to this “war of all against all” a “war of all against any” (Serres 1992, 34), or a war of all against a whole. It has thus resulted in a real disruption in the development of human societies. Northern societies had given devout attention to economic development, Gilbert Rist even talks about a real “religion of development” (Rist 1996, 40). But, the environmental stakes, including the concept of “sustainable development”1, set some limits to the rule of the “Homo eoconomicus” (Demeulanaere 1996), replacing the environment at the centre of economic growth. The theme of Green Growth shows the crossroads between both these aspirations: “Growth”, which generally combines with economic development, and the attribute “Green”, which refers to the necessity of environmental protection. An opposition between economy and environment is contained in the notion of “Green Growth”, and, by the same way, of “sustainable development”. In this context, energy takes an important place in modern societies, seeking for a new developmental way. According to specialists, the great challenge to humanity consists in producing 60% more energy, while reducing 15% of their carbon emissions, in less than one generation (Sciama and Chevassus 2008). Furthermore, the development of commercial energy during the 20th century caused many aftermaths to the natural environment. Today, the energy sector seems to be responsible for 80% of all greenhouse gases in the European Union (European Commission 2007). Energy, the environment and economic development are also the three terms of the “Johannesburg equation” (Chevalier 2004, 365), which tries to answer this question: how can we manage to respond to the increase in global energy needs, while protecting the environment and allowing economic development? Because of its ecological interest, the electricity produced from renewable energy sources (E-RES) seems to be useful to answer the first and the second elements of the “Johannesburg equation": allowing an increase in the energy supply, the way E-RES is produced allows a reasonable use of the environment. But, the third element of the equation, economic development, stands in the way of the E-RES development. E-RES is an expensive energy and it suffers from the competition of conventional energy (fossil and nuclear): “a major obstacle for change is obviously the fact that the three big fossil energies generate income whereas renewable energies consume it.”2 (Chevalier 2004, 365) 1

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” G-H. Brundtland, Our Common Future, United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987. 2 “In a competitive market, the renewable electricity may be less competitive than

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The European Union has been acutely aware of the stakes of this challenge, and developed an ambitious legal corpus for promoting E-RES, as a way to permit Sustainable Economic Growth in Europe. With two directives adopted in 20013 and 20094, the European Union set a target of integrating 20% of E-RES in the European energy market by 2020 and encouraged the Member States to adopt support systems in order to avoid the competitive disabilities of green energy. However, these public interventions hurt the fundamental principles of the European market law, which prohibits state aids. In this context, we will study the conditions of the difficult reconciliation between public policies of promoting renewable energy and the basic principles of the European internal market. The erasing of the market law has been a first way used by the European Union to permit an E-RES growth. Regardless of the uncertain success of this enterprise, it seems useful to research how the market, instead of standing in the way of E-RES development, could be a vehicle of promotion of renewable energies.

the conventional electricity. On the one hand, within a competitive market the price of electricity is expected to decrease. Accordingly, it may create a very difficult environment for renewable electricity to emerge on the market, since most renewable electricity technologies still carry higher production cost than traditional electricity plants. Several reasons may explain this: first, some jurisdictions provide important subsidies to conventional electricity generation (coal, gas, nuclear, etc.) while the subsidies to the renewable electricity remain very low; second, the full cost of pollution (negative externalities) are not included in the production cost of conventional sources; and third, renewable electricity production is often associated with newer, higher-cost technologies. In addition, most renewable energy sources are not constant (wind, sunshine, waves, water flow…) and therefore the electricity generation may be very unpredictable, which may be considered as an additional cost. On the other hand, due to the characteristics of the renewable energy sources (local and unpredictable), the renewable electricity generation installations are often decentralized and small. Therefore, in the context of a competitive market characterized with increasing mergers and acquisitions, the small electricity producers are in a precarious position” (de Lovinfosse and Varone 2002). 3 Directive 2001/77/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market. 4 Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC.

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Top Down Approach: the Erasing of the Internal Market Law Encouraged by the European ambitions to promote renewable energies, Member States developed a large panel of promotional tools. This public intervention for an activity, which is fundamentally an economic activity, interferes with market exchanges, generating a legal conflict between promoting renewable energy policies and free market law. A first solution for this legal conflict between the market and energy would have been to prevent this conflict. Certainly a tautological proposition, but this solution was not as clear as it looked. It has been possible to rule electricity out of the market law, considering this good is no merchandise, justifying the rejection of market law. In fact, the application of European market law on a “thing” depends on the legal definition of “merchandise”.

Applicability and Application of European Market Law on Public Promotion Policies Lots of elements may convince that electricity, and particularly green electricity, should not be legally qualified as “merchandise” according to its intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics. The immateriality of the “electric thing”, its uncontrollable traceability and difficult storage, are many characteristics that complicate its legal supervision5. In addition to its physical characteristics, electricity has, in modern societies, a particular aura which explains its eviction from the commercial principles: as a vital resource for populations, a right to access electricity as a fundamental human right begins to be highlighted by specialists6; as a means to ensure their sovereignty, electricity gets more importance than just responding to what the populations need: energy is at the centre of geopolitical relations as we can see according to the recent debates about the independence of South Sudan and its consequences about sharing the energy resources with Northern Sudan, to the recent tensions between Israel and Lebanon about sharing the economic exclusive zones to determine the exploitation of gas resources of the sea, or to the Russian-Ukrainian gas disputes, from 2006 5

On this point, see also Sablière, Pierre. 2007. La nature juridique de l'électricité et les conséquences qui en résultent quant à sa fourniture, LPA, p. 4 and Larmoureux, Marie. 2009. Le bien énergie, RTD comm, p. 239. 6 See also Neri, Kiara. “Le droit à l'énergie : un nouveau droit de l'Homme?”, in Doume-Bille, Stéphane. 2010. Les défis énergétiques à la lumière du droit international au 21ème siècle, Larcier, p. 335.

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to 2009, which resulted in a suspension of gas supply from Russia to Europe between January 7th and 20th 20097. Concerning green electricity, natural resources that are used for electricity production justify a timorous approach of market law. As Bernadette Le Baut-Ferrarese wrote, “according to a meta-legal principle which considers that the environment must be defined as a non-merchant value”, renewable natural resources are “things apart, especially for the field of law” (Le Baut-Ferrarese 2010, 177). Nevertheless, European law has quickly recognized that electricity was “merchandise” (electricity is legally qualified as a “good” by a European directive of 19778, a “product” by a directive of 19859, and “merchandise” by a Council regulation of 198710). The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, formerly the European Court of Justice, ECJ) implicitly admitted in 1964 (ECJ, 15 July 1964, Costa vs ENEL, Case 6/64) and expressly in 1994 that “in Community law, and indeed in the national laws of the Member States, it is accepted that electricity constitutes a good with the meaning of Article 30 of the Treaty”. (ECJ, 27 April 1994, Municipality of Almelo, Case C-393/92) But, it seems that electricity in general, green electricity in particular, may not be considered as lambda goods, according to their special nature compared to other goods, which explains how they are non-exclusive merchandise. Because it has intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics that justify a surpassing of its strict merchandise condition, green electricity makes its exceptional case gush out of the market in which it circulates. For special merchandise, the European Union has established a specific market per se. It looks like a specific market because, in spite of the classical suspicion about state aids, the European Union asks the Member States to establish promotional tools in order to encourage the green electricity production. Meanwhile, a strict application of the market 7

On this point, see also Stern, Jonathan. 2006. The Russian-Ukrainian Gas Disputes of January 2006. Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Pirani, Simon, Stern, Jonathan and Yafimava, Katja. 2009. The Russian-Ukrainian Gas Disputes of January 2009: a Comprehensive Assessment. Oxford: Oxford Institute of Energy Studies. 8 Sixth Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonization of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes, Common System of Value Added Tax: Uniform Basis of Assessment. 9 Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products. 10 Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff.

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principles may not permit green energy to prosper. It may be considered as a specific market because, the European Union imposes an integration of 20% of E-RES in the European energy market, and it is totally unprecedented in European market law. It may be considered as a specific market because the E-RES market does not pursue the only objective of the regular working of the European market. It pursues so many targets as the sustainable development concept set to the future of the European construction. Finally, it may be considered as a specific market because the European judge and Institutions seem to limit the full application of market law when they control a national support system. This is how we have to study the application of market law about this very ambivalent good. A timorous application of European Union law is the logical consequence of these characteristics. However, its effects on the European market generate some doubts.

E-RES National Support: Appearance of Success or Success of Appearances? “If the prince inter-meddles likewise in trade, all manner of industry is ruined” (Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book V). As a pure expression of economic liberalism, this assertion irrigates the foundations of the European construction. Any aid granted by a Member State or through state resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market. (Article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU))

In spite of this principle of incompatibility, state aids could be legally granted in three hypotheses: the national support measure could not be legally qualified as a “state aid” according to the legal definition of the Treaty and the case law of the CJEU; a national measure could be legally qualified as a “state aid” but the Treaty could admit its compatibility with the market; the allocation of a national measure, which is legally qualified as a “state aid”, could be permitted by the European Commission, even if the Treaty does not recognize its compatibility. By choosing to place green electricity on the market, the European state aids law is also the framework in which public support must be included. The production of green electricity may be sustained by a few promotional tools that are not specially made for it. Investment subsidies,

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tax exemptions, tax relief or tax repayment are some options a state may choose to support any economic sector, even the production of green electricity11. But more than these first kinds of promotional tools, which are already particularly diverse and large, specific public support is established by Member States to promote renewable energies. First of all, it can be a tradable green certificates system. Chosen as a mechanism for the promotion of green electricity, in particular by the United Kingdom (“renewable obligation certificates” system), by Italy, or more, by Belgium’s government, the tradable green certificates system integrates support policy to the energy market. In this system, the public authorities allocate to E-RES producers some certificates, whose allocation depends on the production volume. Meanwhile, governmental regulations all force distributors to purchase a number of certificates over a predetermined period. The green producers sell electricity produced on the energy market, and their green certificate on a special market, at a price that reflects the additional cost of green energy production (compared with the cost of conventional energy). This system forces producers to lower production costs by innovation and permitting them to find acquirers among “forced distributors”. The competitive tendering system is borrowed by many states (in particular France) to avoid spontaneous nonintervention by green producers on energy markets. The state interference in supply and demand is raised to a superior degree compared to the tradable green certificates system. In the competitive tendering system, the public authorities invite green electricity producers to submit them an offer to supply electricity. Tenderers will be put in competition, and the contractor will be the beneficiary of a green power contract that is produced at the same price as offered. Finally, many Member States offered supportive mechanisms in order to persuade market law through a system of guaranteed prices. The state interference in supply and demand is complete, which is why the competition between green producers of electricity is cancelled out. Energy operators (generally electricity distributors) are obliged by the state to buy E-RES at a price set on their own. Knowing that their output will be sold at a superior price than the market's, they are not willing to lower their production costs contrary to the tradable green certificates system, paralyzing their innovative potential12. France created the same mechanism in cadence with the green supportive systems chosen by Germany and Spain. 11

For more information, see also Lefebvre, Francis (ed.). 2010. Développement durable, aspects stratégiques et opérationnels, p. 118 s. - Dispositifs d'aides à l'utilisation des énergies renouvelables. 12 On this point, see also Menanteau, Philippe, Lamy, Marie-Laure and Finon,

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National supportive mechanisms are unique despite their diversity, and few of them are subject to state aids prohibition as laid out by the Treaty. On the one hand, the CJEU adopted a strict interpretation of Article 107 TFEU regarding the legal definition of state aid, excluding tools that promote them. For example, the system of guaranteed prices, chosen by France, is not legally qualified as a state aid, because this measure does not involve any direct or indirect transfer of state resources13. In the same way, in the absence of a transfer of state resources, the tradable green certificates system does not constitute state aid by definition of Article 107 of the Treaty (European Commission, State Aid Decision N° 550/2001, 25 July 2001–Belgium–Green Electricity Certificates, OJEC C330, 24 November 2001). On the other hand, regarding national mechanisms of support known as the quality of state aid, the European Commission generally authorizes public support with environmental purpose. This is backed up by the fact that from 2001 to 2007, “up to 98 % of environmental aid measures were found to be compatible with the State aid rules” (European Commission 2008, 304). De jure or de facto, the European state aid regulation is almost “painless” for the promotional tools established in large diversity by Member States. Therefore, we could talk about real market niches for the E-RES. If the environmental objective Dominique. 2003. Les marchés de certificats verts pour la promotion des énergies renouvelables : entre efficacité allocative et efficience dynamique, IEPE Grenoble, Cahier de recherches 2003, n°29 and Della Faille, Patrick et al. 2007. Le nouveau marché de l'énergie, guide juridique à l'usage des distributeurs et des consommateurs. Paris: Anthemis. 13 The CJEU found in 2001 (ECJ, 13 March 2001, Preussen Elektra, Case C379/98) that guaranteed prices systems, which do not involved any transfer of State resource, do not fulfil the criteria of State aid with the meaning of the Treaty. This solution seemed inapplicable in France (the green electricity has to be purchased by the French Electricity Company – EDF – which was a public company, and also, used public funding). But the French administrative judge founded the same solution as the European Court in 2003 (Conseil d'Etat, 21 May 2003, Electricité autonome de France, req. n° 237466). This solution provoked lots of doctrinal criticisms: see also Bouquet, Gael. 2006. Les mécanismes de soutien à la production d’électricité à partir de sources d’énergie renouvelables à l’épreuve des articles 87 et 88 du traité relatifs aux aides d'Etat. AJDA, 697 ; Karpenschif, Michael. 2003. La notion d’aide d’Etat, application au secteur de l’énergie. CJEG n°595 ; Rousseaux, Sandrine. L'emprise de la logique marchande sur la promotion des énergies renouvelables au niveau communautaire. RIDE, 3/2005 (t. XIX, 3), 231-250 ; Wemaëre, Matthieu and Grimaud, David. 2006. La promotion des énergies renouvelables à l'aune du droit communautaire des aides d'Etat. Gaz. Pal., n°19, 23.

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pursued justifies the public support, at the European scale, then the environmental and economic efficiency of this kind of structure would contain some gaps. The development of promoting policies, as national development strategies, could lead to distortion of competition between energy operators. For example, Germany, which leads the world in producing wind power, allowed 8 billion euros for environmental aids in 2006, overtaking the total amount of aids granted by all Member States in 2001. Yet, this competition of national promotional systems is not in phase with the sustainable development requirements. The European market of wind energy is a glaring illustration. The United Kingdom and France have the most important wind energy resources in Europe, but their places in the European wind energy market do not reflect their potential14. On the contrary, Germany leads the European wind energy market, in spite of having less wind energy resources than France or the United Kingdom. This reveals that the level of aids vary considerably from one Member State to another, unaffected by the natural potential15. The European Internal market gave birth to an Ouroboros of the European economic freedoms. On the one hand, the freedom of establishment protected by the European treaties permits the economic operators to explore the renewable sources in the places where they could find optimal profitability. On the other hand, the compartmentalization of the national public systems, which are not legally qualified as a “State aid” or which are authorized by the Treaty or the European Commission, leaves the Member States free to establish their own promotional system, without taking care of the structure of their internal energy market and of the energy market of their neighbouring States. Thanks to this joint freedom guaranteed by European law, the operators of green energy can establish their production activities in the Member States which develop the most attractive promotional systems, without seeking for a maximization of 14

See also Menanteau, Philippe and Lamy, Marie-Laure. 2002. “Quels instruments économiques pour stimuler le développement de l'électricité renouvelable ?”, Les Cahiers de GLOBAL CHANCE, n°15. 15 Germany actually develops an important support of wind energy. A German regulation of 1991 permitted the implantation of more than 4 000 megawatts of wind electricity in such 9 years, by adopting a guaranteed prices system with a particularly attractive purchase tariff (9 eurocents per kWh, then 8 eurocents per kWh during 20 years, since 2000). In France, the purchase tariff for the onshore wind electricity is about 8 eurocents per kWh during 10 years, then decreases to a greater or lesser extent depending on the operating time. The increasing of production capacities depends more on the magnitude of support than the abundance of wind resources.

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their production, with a greater efficiency in using energy resources. In this context, we are convinced that such a European support system could be the way to optimize the potential of renewable resources. While permitting a unique European system, green electricity producers would not get their profit by seeking the most attractive promotional system but they could try to decrease their production cost by searching the abundance of energy resources.

Bottom Up Approach: Using Market Law as a Way to Promote Renewable Energies What could the European answer be to the doubts generated by the European energy market organization? It seems that an answer could be found in the market itself. However, this solution supposedly focuses on the way that European law considers E-RES, because we think that much confusion has been made about the legal treatment of this “good”.

Green Electricity and Environmental Service: Proposal for a Conceptual Separation Between the Product and the Production Process through the Competitive Lens When one tries to define a term or a notion which will determine the application or lack of application of a legal regime, the direction of a thought, a belief or a conviction, it seems to be necessary, as Durkheim said, to avoid “pre-notions” (Durkheim 1895) or misleading affirmations in order to permit the interlocutor to make his own reasoning, his own conviction, and in order to share it on the same bases. According to us, the notion of “green electricity” is based on an inappropriate “pre-notion”, which complicates its legal framing, because without an objective definition of a term, the application of a legal regime is essentially defective. Electricity is no more than “an energy flow provoked by the transformation of chemical or mechanical energy in electric energy” (Della Faille et al. 2007), a physical phenomenon resulting from the flow of charge particles such as electrons or ions. The addition of the attribute “green” does not influence its legal qualification. Talking about conventional, polluting or renewable electricity simply highlights external characteristics of the electricity product. One kilowatt per hour of electricity produced from fossil energy sources is exactly the same as one kilowatt per hour of green electricity. Only the way it has been produced justifies a different legal treatment between the two “kinds” of electricity. “Green electricity”: this term is intended to capture two different concepts

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under a common avatar that works hard to find its place in the unusual relationship between the environment and the market: “There is no doubt that the principles underlying environmental law are marked by a logic that does not sit well with the economic logic. Neither the law of profit nor the immediate profitability are at stake in environmental law, but the general interest and the long term” (Brunet 2004, 6). On the one hand, if it is admitted that electricity is merchandise, which can be traded on a market, it means that its merchant value is also recognized. On the other hand, the environment, which seems to be protected by using renewable energy resources to produce electricity, should be seen as a non-merchant value. In this context, the establishment of a European internal market, including free trade of the “electricity product” as a commercial value, cannot effectively introduce green electricity as long as the market assimilates the product and production process. According to us, a conceptual separation must be done between an “electricity product” and its production process to permit the European Union to define a common framework of E-RES support by applying the market principles to the “electricity product” and, according to the production process, any derogation that its environmental vocation supposes. The analysis of public support established for E-RES would be clarified. As we have already explained, the environmental objectives argued by Member States to justify their promotional policies convince the European Commission of their compatibility with market requirements. But admitting that the environmental vocation of E-RES is only pursued by its particular production process, the Commission should not allocate state aids which support the “electricity product”, because the “electricity product” does not pursue some environmental objectives itself. The environmental vocation of a state aid supposes that the state support could not exceed the value of the environmental service provided by the production process of E-RES. If the support exceeds this value, then the aid should lose its environmental objective and will become merely an aid to a product, which is supposed to move freely within the European energy market16. In other words, the promotion of E-RES should not support the “electricity product”, because otherwise the establishment of an internal energy market would be compromised. But it seems that by ensuring that 16

Actually, some of the national promoting systems provide this conceptual separation. This is the case of the tradable green certificates system, in which the producers sale their electricity on the energy market (which means a commercialization of the electricity product) and their green certificates on a specific market (which means a valuation of the environmental service provided by green electricity production).

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the supportive systems are strictly intended to compensate the cost of the environmental service provided by the green electricity production, the European Union will be more able to establish a European framework, whose form will depend on the legal definition of this environmental service.

The Likely Recognition of a Universal Environmental Service: Towards an “Ecologization” of the Electricity Market The European construction recognizes the primary role of commercial public services, throughout the notion of “services of general economic interest” (SGEI). More to the point, when the protection of a service is of central importance to the European Union, the European Institutions recognized, in the margin of the Treaty, the notion of “universal service”. This notion could be described as a SGEI whose creation is imposed by secondary European Union legislation: “the concept of universal service refers to a set of general interest requirements ensuring that certain services are made available at a specified quality to all consumers and users throughout the territory of a Member State, independently of geographical location, and, in the light of specific national conditions, at an affordable price.” (European Commission 2003) However, the environmental service provided by green electricity production would be considered to act in a general economic interest. The interest of this legal qualification would be to submit the public funding for E-RES to the framework that the European Union law has built for State subsidies in the public services. Regarding the E-RES, the existence of a general economic interest seems to be permitted throughout the environmental service provided by the green production process. On this point, a reading of case law of the European Court of Human Rights satisfies the opinion that Europe could accept to recognize the general interest pursued by producing green energy. In the Fägerskiöld vs Sweden case, the Strasbourg Court found that “there is no doubt that the operating of wind turbines is in the general interest as it is an environmentally friendly source of energy which contributes to the sustainable development of natural resources.” (ECHR, 26 February 2008, Case n°37664/04). The Court identifies the operation of the E-RES production system as contributing to the general interest. The judge seems to distinguish between product and production process. In this case, it is not the product that is supposed to contribute to sustainable development, but the way this product has been made. In addition, Directive 2009/72/EC of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the

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internal market in electricity17 recognizes that the production of E-RES contributes to the general interest18. Finally, whereas Directive 2001/77/EC did not go beyond setting indicative national targets for including E-RES on each national energy market, the new Directive 2009/72/EC sets binding national targets of integration of E-RES. It shows that the European Union is about to ensure that certain environmental services are made available at a specified quality to all consumers, as a real universal service. The crucial role of promoting E-RES could convince the European Union to make green energy production exclusively as a universal service. It could permit the European Union to ensure the European targets of the integration of E-RES, while having the means to control public support devoted to green energy. With respect to the public subsidies for SGEI, including universal services, the Court of Justice and the European Commission have established a legal framework to ascertain that public fundings do not exceed the strict compensation expense inherent in such a service19.

Conclusion: Promoting Green Energy in the European Market: a Market Issue? The progressive isolation of E-RES has caused some important doubts: on the one hand, it allowed the Member States to divide the green electricity market, making the Union such a mosaic whose fragments exist side by side but do not mix with one another; on the other hand, the operators’ desire for cost-efficiency leads them to choose their 17 Directive 2009/72/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and repealing Directive 2003/54/EC. 18 Directive 2009/72/EC, prec., Article 3.2 : “(…) Member States may impose on undertakings operating in the electricity sector, in the general economic interest, public service obligations which may relate to (…) environmental protection, including energy efficiency, energy from renewable sources and climate protection.” 19 ECJ, 24 July 2003, Altmark Trans. GmbH, Case C-280/00; Commission Decision of 28 November 2005 on the application of Article 86(2) of the EC Treaty to State aid in the form of public service compensation granted to certain undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest, 2005/842/EC; Community framework for State aid in the form of public service compensation, OJCE C 297, 29 November 2005; Commission Directive 2005/81/EC of 28 November 2005 amending Directive 80/723/EEC on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings as well as on financial transparency within certain undertakings.

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implementation in areas providing better subsidies rather than improved productivity. The creation of a European common rule could permit an alignment of the overall commitment to sustainable development. By ensuring regular functioning of European energy markets, Europe could make sure that public subsidies do not obstruct the free market of electricity because of an inappropriate justification of protecting the environment. By establishing a conceptual separation between electricity and the production process, the European Union could be able to establish maximum limits of state aids to make sure that an operator is not favoured on the only basis of its implementation area. In this sense, the search for the optimization of the production activity will go hand in hand with the best environmentally effective solution: the availability of environmental resources would take a crucial role in the choice of production method and localization. This proposal would combine market requirements and protection of the environment; both set pursuing, in an unprecedented way, converging targets. It gives the words of Pierre George all their meaning when he wrote, with a deliberately provocative tone, that “in a market economy, if you want to protect the environment, you have to transform it into merchandise.” (George 1971)

References Books Bruntland, Gro-Harlem. 1987. Our Common Future, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chevalier, Jean-Marie. 2004. Les Grandes Batailles de l’énergie, petit traité d’une économie violente. Paris: Gallimard. Della Faille, Patrick et al. 2007. Le Nouveau Marché de l’énergie, guide juridique à l’usage des distributeurs et des consommateurs. Paris: Anthemis. Demeulanaere, Pierre. 1996. Homo-Oeconomicus, enquête sur la constitution d’un paradigme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Durkheim, Emile. 1895. Les Règles de la méthode sociologique. Paris: Payot. George, Pierre. 1971. L’Environnement. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Hobbes, Thomas. 1651 (2000). The Leviathan. Paris: Gallimard. Montesquieu. 1748 (1995), De l’Esprit des lois. Paris: Folio Essais.

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Raes, Thierry et al. 2010. Développement durable, aspects stratégiques et opérationnels. Paris: Editions Francis Lefebvre PWC. Rist, Gilbert. 1996. Le Développement, histoire d’une croyance occidentale. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, Références Inédites. Serres, Michel. 1992. Le Contrat naturel. Paris: Champs essais, Flammarion. Von Linné, Carl. 1735 (1972). L’Equilibre de la nature. Paris: Vrin. Articles Bouquet, Gaël. 2006. “Les mécanismes de soutien à la production d’électricité à partir de sources d’énergie renouvelables à l’épreuve des articles 87 et 88 du traité relatifs aux aides d’Etat”. In Actualité juridique Droit administratif. Brunet, Andrée. 2004. “La régulation juridique des questions environnementales et le principe de subsidiarité”, La Gazette du Palais Karpenschif, Michael. 2003. “La notion d’aide d’Etat, application au secteur de l’énergie”, Cahiers juridiques de l’électricité et du gaz 595 Lamoureux, Marie. 2009. “Le bien énergie”, Revue trimestrielle de droit commercial Le Baut-Ferrarese, Bernadette, “Marché des énergies renouvelables et droit du libre-échange”. In Les Défis énergétiques à la lumière du droit international au 21ème siècle, edited by Stephane Doumbé-Billé, 177198, Larcier. Lovinfosse, Isabelle de and Varone, Frédéric. 2002. “Renewable Electricity Policies in Europe: Patterns of Change in the Liberalised Market”, UCL Working paper n°1. Menanteau, Pierre and Lamy, Marie-Laure, 2002, “Quels instruments économiques pour stimuler le développement de l’électricité renouvelable ?”, Les cahiers de Global Chance 15. Menanteau, Pierre, Lamy, Marie-Laure and Finon, Dominique. 2003. “Les marches de certificats verts pour la promotion des énergies renouvelables : entre efficacité allocative et efficience dynamique”. Grenoble: Institut d’Economie et de Politique de l’Energie, Cahier de recherches n°29. Neri, Kiara. 2010. “Le droit à l’énergie : un nouveau droit de l’Homme?” In Les défis énergétiques à la lumière du droit international au 21ème siècle, edited by Stephane Doumbé-Billé, 335-352, Larcier. Pirani, Simon, Stern, Jonathan and Yafimava, Katja. 2009. “The RussianUkrainian gas dispotes of January 2009: a comprehensive assessment”, Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

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Rousseaux, Sandrine. 2005. “L’emprise de la logique marchande sur la promotion des énergies renouvelables au niveau communautaire”, Revue internationale de droit économique 3. Sablière, Pierre. 2007. “La nature juridique de l’électricité et les conséquences qui en résultent quant à sa fourniture”, Les Petites Affiches. Sciama, Yves, and Chevassus, Nicolas. 2008. “Le dossier noir des énergies vertes”, Science et Vie, 1068. Stern, Jonathan. 2006. “The Russian-Ukrainian Gas Disputes of January 2006”, Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Wemaëre, Matthieu and Grimaud, David. 2006. “La promotion des énergies renouvelables à l’aune du droit communautaire des aides d’Etat”, La Gazette du Palais. Official texts Communications Communication from the European Commission, 21 May 2003, Green paper on services of general interest, COM(2003)0270 final. Communication from the Commission to the European Council and the European Parliament of the 10 January 2007, An energy policy for Europe, COM (2007)/1 final. Regulations Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff., Official Journal of the European Communities L 130, 26 May 1988, 42. Decisions Decision of the European Commission, State Aid N° 550/2001, 25 July 2001–Belgium–Green Electricity Certificates, Official Journal of the European Communities C 330, 24 November 2001. Decision of the European Commission, 28th November 2005, on the application of Article 86(2) of the EC Treaty to State aid in the form of public service compensation granted to certain undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest, 2005/842/EC, Official Journal of the European Communities L 312, 29 November 2005, 67-73. Directives Sixth Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonization of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover

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taxes, Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment, Official Journal of the European Communities L 145, 13 August 1977, 1-40. Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products. Official Journal of the European Communities L 210, 7 August 1985, 29-33. Commission Directive 2005/81/EC of 28 November 2005 amending Directive 80/723/EEC on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings as well as on financial transparency within certain undertakings, Official Journal of the European Communities L 312, 29 November 2009, 47-48. Directive 2001/77/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market, Official Journal of the European Communities L 283, 27 October 2001, 33-40. Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, Official Journal of the European Communities L 140, 5 August 2009, 16-62. Directive 2009/72/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and repealing Directive 2003/54/EC, Official Journal of the European Communities L 211, 14 August 2009, 55-93. Frameworks and Reports Community framework for State aid in the form of public service compensation, Official Journal of the European Communities C 297, 29 November 2005, 4-7. Report from the Commission, State aid scoreboard - Spring 2008 update, 21 May 2008, COM(2008)304 final. Court decisions European Court of Justice (ECJ), 15 July 1964, Costa v. ENEL, Case 6/64, European Court Reports p. 1141. ECJ, 27 April 1994, Municipality of Almelo, Case C-393/92. European Court Reports p. I-1477. ECJ, 13 March 2001, Preussen Elektra, Case C-379/98, European Court Reports p. I-2099.

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ECJ, 24 July 2003, Altmark Trans. GmbH, Case C-280/00, European Court Reports p. I-7747. European Court of Human Rights, 26 February 2008, Lars and Astrid Fägerskiöld against Sweden, Case n°37664/04.

PART V GREEN GROWTH AND POLITICS

CHAPTER ELEVEN CONSISTENCIES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN EU ENVIRONMENT POLICY ROBERT SHERRATT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 UNIVERSITY

The Origins of EU Environment Policy There was no express mention of environment policy in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, reflecting the founding fathers’ relative lack of concern for this policy area. The priority was economic and industrial reconstruction. Member States, however, did pass important legislation in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s on safety standards relating to radiation and control of dangerous chemicals linked to the industrial sector in Europe. The explicit notion of environment policy developed only in the 1970’s, having first taken off in the US. The first European Environmental Action Programme came out in 1973, and in this some basic principles of European environment policy, such as “polluter pays” and the “precautionary principle”, whereby policy-makers should act to restrict products or policies that pose potential risks even where scientific uncertainty makes it impossible to assess risk conclusively, were defined. These have remained core principles of European policy (Lenschow 2005, 307). In the 1980’s a series of ecological disasters, including the destruction of forests by acid rain, the hole in the Ozone layer and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, increasingly brought environmental issues to the forefront of public attention and hence firmly into the European political arena. The transnational nature of environment issues and pollution control was highlighted by revelations concerning cross-border toxic waste shipments in Europe, and the need to have a centralised European response became increasingly apparent (Kelemen 2009, 32).

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Inherent Weaknesses in EU Environmental Policy Business Interests The European Community, although also the standard-bearer of strong social policy and advanced human rights legislation, has as its basic vocation the liberalisation and stimulation of trade within its frontiers. This involves rigorous competition law and muscular protection of the free circulation of goods and services within a single market. The Treaty of Rome insists on “steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition” (Preamble) within the EC, and the objective of promoting economic growth and prosperity has always been primordial. It was perhaps not difficult to predict from the start that this background would weigh heavily on the development of environmental policy, by definition a normative and regulatory area. This apparent incompatibility is frequently mirrored in EU literature, as in the following sentence from an article on EU roads policy: “The European Parliament has voted to introduce tougher environmental safeguards into the EU’s plans for trans-European transport networks, but also to include more roads in its programme” (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 142). The earliest effective EC environment policy was subject to market compatibility. The European Commission had increasingly begun to propose green policies from the early seventies, but it came up against the more business-oriented Council of Ministers. When recession hit Western Europe in the late 1970’s the Commission was obliged, in order to have a chance of success, to put forward most of its environmental proposals as economic measures which were intended to improve general European competitiveness, relying on the harmonisation provisions of Article 100 of the Treaty of Rome or the general provisions of Article 235. The issuelinkage between environmental and market objectives was highlighted by the fact that EC environmental policy became mainstream through the Single European Act of 1986, the aim of the latter being to implement a single market. However, Article 130 r-t of the Act did lay the basis for independent Community environment policy and Article 100 a acknowledged the Community’s competence to regulate environmental matters in areas that affected the creation of the Single Market. Only concerning the latter, though, was recourse to qualified majority voting possible in the Council of Ministers. Environmental issues not related to the Single Market were subject to unanimous voting (Lenschow 2005, 307). The interests of business, typically represented by powerful multinationals, and the aim of economic growth have always cast a long shadow over ecological policy development within the EU. Business interests have

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consistently argued that over-regulation stifles growth, blunts competitiveness and leads to job losses in Europe. What has been described as the “carbon tax fiasco” was a case in point where business and lobbying interests effectively scuppered an EU-level environmental project which was designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The EU estimated in 1993 that a carbon/energy tax on big carbon polluters would help it to reduce CO2 emissions by between 3 to 5,5 % and thus help it to reach its overall CO2 reduction target. In a concerted opposition, industrial groups complained about loss of competitiveness and threatened relocalisation outside the EU if the proposal was adopted. The proposal was then so watered down as to be ineffectual. The salient point here is that greenhouse gas emission policy has repercussions on a wide range of industrial sectors in the EU, including coal, oil, motor, road, petrochemical and heavy industry. These are all major employers and are among the most powerful industries in the world (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 123). They also have active and heavily-subsidised lobbyists working for them in Brussels (Lecherbonnier 2007). The ambivalent position of the EU over genetically modified crops in the face of generally hostile European public opinion attests the effectiveness of lobby groups, which exert considerable pressure on EU institutions and actors in Brussels. Another inherent constraint on environment policy has been the Common Agricultural Policy. This accounts for between 40-50% of the total budget and has allowed ecologically damaging farming practices to take place throughout the EU. Although there have been consistent efforts to “green” the CAP, the bottom line is that European grain farmers cannot compete effectively with their North American counterparts without the assistance of widespread chemical-based farming methods. This basic economic reality, which the powerful farming communities in the different Member States of the EU are quick to uphold, is in stark opposition to ecologists’ aspirations. The farming sector in France is particularly strong, accounting for around 40% of the EU agricultural payout. The reticence of the Sarkozy administration to deal at source with the problem of toxic seaweed in Brittany as from around 2009, whilst preferring down-the-line or post-hoc solutions such as beach clearing, may be interpreted as an attempt to court the French farming community with presidential elections not far on the horizon.

The Institutional Framework and its Ramifications Many of the weaknesses and contradictions in EU environmental policy have arisen through structural pressures and constraints, so it is

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helpful to have an understanding of the basic institutional structure of the EU. The Treaty of Rome was silent on the environment, but it was also silent on other key areas such as the relative power of EC law as opposed to Member State law. The reason for this was that the founder states knew that they needed a supranational organisation to revive Europe, but they were unsure as to how much power they were willing to grant it. The EC emerged as a binary entity with multiple perspectives, juxtaposing supranational with Member State interests. In this context, European integration theory contrasts intergovernmentalism, in which the interests and sovereignty of the member States are highlighted and it is claimed that Member State preference is what sets the EU agenda, and neofunctionalism, which insists on the process of the gradual strengthening of the central high authority, the EU itself, and the eventual withering away of the nation states. It also evokes the idea of “spillover”, involving the inevitable spread of activity from one sector to another: if coal is produced trains will be needed to transport it, and the need for the central high authority to coordinate all the different sectors. These opposing theories both allude to a certain basic confrontation at the heart of the binary EU. At its root, the EU is a forum where battles of power and conflicts of interest are constantly being played out, but in a more complex way than in a classical nation state due to the organisation’s multifarious nature. Member States may have differences with the principal EU institutions or they may disagree with each other. The institutions themselves may clash, and interest groups or lobbies may be at odds with EU institutions or with the governments of the Member States. At the centre of this, the EU as an organisation does its best to establish solid and viable policy positions after negotiation with the various actors involved. EU environment policy is no exception to this conflict of interests/balance of power paradigm. In binary terms, the EU has traditionally been divided between the rich, environment-conscious north and the poor south. The so-called leading troika of Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands (later joined by Sweden and other northern Member States) have consistently pushed for the greening of EU environmental policy, whilst southern countries, such as Greece, Spain and Portugal and the Eastern European countries which acceded in 2005, collectively known as the “laggards”, have had a tendency to drag their feet on certain environment policies1. Britain was viewed as “the dirty man of Europe” in the 1970’s, but has made efforts to become a model pupil, especially 1

Although this north-south division has not been systematic, and the distinction between leaders and “laggard” states should not be overstated (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 16).

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concerning climate change. Indeed, David Cameron vowed to make his government “the greenest yet” in the UK2. The theory of liberal intergovernmentalism3 explains EU policy-making in terms of demand side, defined as what individual Member States require from the EU in a given area and which is decided upon at the national level, and supply side, the negotiating process at the EU level to thrash out actual EU policy (Rosamond 2000, 137). In the area of environmental policy different Member States, as we have seen, have different requirements, and the balancing act of the EU has been to satisfy all parties. The Commission has often sought to put forward the more progressive propositions of the northern countries in its attempts to “green”, but what have tended to be adopted at the end of the day are “lowest common denominators”, or what is acceptable to all the members of a qualified majority. This is due to the fact that final decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers, where a qualified majority voting system is used4, although the more ecologicallyminded European Parliament is also involved. In the Environment Council, environment ministers from more sceptical countries may be inclined to vote against “green” propositions, despite strong institutional and environment pressure group encouragement not to do so. The Environment Council, then, has been a typical forum for balance of power/conflict of interests scenarios, where a process of intergovernmental bargaining takes place which typically weakens the proposals of the Commission. As already noted lines have been drawn along a north-south cleavage, and in this arena conflicts of interest may occur between the EU and the Member States or between Member States themselves. In July 2011, for example, a week away from taking up the Presidency of the European Council, Poland decided to oppose a widely supported commitment to raise emission cuts. It called into question the consensus reached on the European Commission’s 2050 Low Carbon Roadmap, which calls for a 40 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2030, a 60 percent cut by 2040 and a 80 percent cut by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. Poland, which uses coal to produce 90% of its electricity, tends to 1

In June 2010 newly elected Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to cut UK government carbon emissions by 10% over the following 12 months, and promised transparency in government energy usage. 3 An interpretation of European integration put forward by Andrew Morevcsik in the 1990’s. Morevcsik, Andrew. 1993. “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist approach”. Journal of Common Market Studies 31 (4). 4 Voting by qualified majority on environment matters has been possible since 1986.

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perceive some of the EU’s ambitious environment policies as a threat to its economy. When challenged, the Polish Environment Minister, Andrzej Kraszewski, made the following statement: “We expect greater solidarity from Europe, and understanding of the situation of individual Member States.” (Trudelle 2011) The Commission proposes measures to the Council of Ministers and to the European Parliament5. There are 27 Commissioners, each of them being at the head of a Directorate General, one of which, DG XI, is the Environment DG. This initiates policy on the environment with the environment commissioner. Other DGs, such as those for business or financial affairs, are often at odds with the objectives of DG XI (Lenschow 2005, 312). Traditionally, The European Parliament has been the “greenest” of the three main policy-making bodies. It has a very active Environment Committee, but this is not always followed by the Parliament itself. The Peoples Party, a cross-national group comprising parties of the centre-right, holds an overall majority, and its members tend to defend business interests where these are threatened by higher costs. Even support from the Greens for environment policies in the European Parliament may not be forthcoming as they may prefer “no action to bad action” (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 36). In any case, as we have seen, in the last resort the final decision rests with the Council of Ministers, which is free to ignore all the technical expertise, agenda-setting and influence of the Commission and the European Parliament (37). On the global level, environmental policy fits into the framework of neo-functionalist perspectives since environmental problems, like pollution, spill over national boundaries and the need for a controlling central authority may seem quite logical. The EU, itself an original or sui generis structure, occupies a space between the national and the international arenas of environmental politics. There has been confusion, however, concerning this position: does the EU simply represent its Member States, or is it trying to carve out a distinguishing role for itself on the international stage? Cast in these lights it has had to answer to Member States who want to see their views put forward, but has also had to defend itself before negotiating partners, such as the USA, who have called into question EU negotiating legitimacy and leadership pretensions in a world more accustomed to negotiations between nation states. The EU has had to work hard to overcome this handicap, with its status and entitlements having to be negotiated at each series of negotiations on the environment 5

By way of “ordinary legislative procedure”, which now accounts for around 95% of EU legislation.

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(91). The General Assembly of the United Nations granted the EU full participant status at the Rio negotiations after this had specifically been asked for in 1992, and the Americans finally accepted the organisation as a de facto, cohesive actor in its own right at Kyoto in 1997. Once the EU has managed to negotiate deals at the global level, the question of enforcement arises, and this is another problematic area. The EU does not have a state apparatus with its own civil service, customs service, police force etc., and has to count on Member States to enforce environmental measures which have been decided at the global level. The recourse to coercion is difficult and may well be contested by the very Member States the EU is mandated to represent6. Finally, despite the fact that the Treaty of Maastricht admitted qualified majority voting for all environmental policy propositions, it also lays down that unanimous voting shall operate for policy areas of a fiscal nature and for measures affecting a Member State’s choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply (138). One of the major criticisms of the EU as an organisation has been “democratic deficit”, the claim that it is altogether too distant from the peoples of Europe. In order to improve its democratic image, the EU introduced a principle, known as subsidiarity, according to which the EU may only implement its own laws where national laws do not exist: a kind of engagement to fill legal voids where necessary but to respect existing domestic legislation. This has been used by Member States to frustrate the advance of EU environmental policy. The UK, for example, used subsidiarity as a basis for opposing the carbon tax in 1993 on the grounds that it already had equivalent measures in place in the form of VAT on fuel (136). Whilst the overall effectiveness of EU climate policy is not necessarily affected by subsidiarity, the latter may make it more difficult for the EU to ensure an effective, coherent policy in all the Member States. Another element that has hindered EU environment law has been the adoption of a “flexible” approach to implementation by Member States, as opposed to a state-directed hierarchical approach. This has been a direct consequence of the difficulty of getting Member States to agree to environment policy, and mirrors the difficulty of getting environmental propositions accepted by states at a global level. Flexibility involves elements such as tradable permits (endorsed by the Kyoto protocol), and the EU Emissions Trading System, ETS, introduced in 2001 as a replacement for the failed carbon tax. This is an instrument for allocating 6

Disputes which may arise ultimately fall within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

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carbon emission “allowances” to industries which pollute heavily. If the latter emit above their authorised level they are entitled to buy “allowances” from cleaner firms. The system has been heavily criticised by environmentalists on the grounds that it can be interpreted as a licence to pollute. A publication of the European Environmental Agency on the future of EU environment policy bemoans three of the traditional constraints on EU environment policy, namely, competition, institutional power politics and subsidiarity: The Lisbon Strategy (2000-2009) triggered critical reviews of existing EU legislation and requirements for new legislation to be “competitivenessproof”, as part of “Better Regulation”. The aim was to reduce administrative burden and improve EU competitiveness in the global market. Unfortunately, this led to questionable air and waste policy reviews, and delays in the delivery of revisions or development of legislation foreseen in the 6th EAP (Environmental Action programme). For example, we are still waiting for the Commission’s proposal on a revised National Emission Ceilings Directive, the Commission still refuses to present a Biowaste Directive, and even climate policies suffered under “Lisbon” competitiveness pressure. In the case of a proposed Soil Directive the Commission was determined to go forward, but a group of “old” Member States gathered sufficient votes for a blocking minority based on the excuse of subsidiarity, which still remains. (European Environmental Bureau 2007, 7)

The Successes of EU Environment Policy Given the constraints on the scope of EU environment policy that we have looked at, it is remarkable that the latter has nevertheless achieved so much and attained so high a level of cohesiveness. The EU has been an increasingly powerful player in global environmental politics since the second half of the 1990’s (Vogler 2005, 836), and has consistently promoted the integration of environmental policies both within and beyond the borders of nation states. The EU has been highly progressive and proactive in climate change policy. In this field a major step forward came in 1990 when the European Council called for early adoption of targets and strategies for limiting the emission of greenhouse gases, and agreement was reached that CO2 emissions should be stabilized at 1990 levels by the year 2000. In 1992 a comprehensive package, known as Specific Actions for Vigorous Energy Efficiency or SAVE, was produced by the Commission to ensure it would meet its stabilization targets by 2000. Following a prolonged struggle between the Commission and the

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Member States this package was considerably watered down in 1993, but the EU climate change policy was well and truly launched. The Treaty of Maastricht and later the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, which made sustainable development one of the EU’s central objectives, substantially expanded EU environment policy. The EU launched an ambitious programme just prior to the third Conference of the Parties (COP) in Kyoto in 1997 which called for a 15% emission reduction for three greenhouse gases by 2010, compared to 1990 levels, either individually or collectively within the EU. An interim target of 7.5% reduction by 2005 was proposed, if other major international actors would agree to the same commitments. The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005 was seen as a great victory for the EU, which took an active role in getting a sufficient number of countries to sign up in the face of American rejection. This was the first global climate agreement which set legally binding greenhouse gas emission targets. The EU has subsequently tried to fulfil its treaty obligations, setting up the Emissions Trading System in 2001. In 2008 the EU Climate Change package established the 20:20:20 targets for 20% of energy to come from renewable sources and committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20% by 2020. Although the Conferences of the Parties at Copenhahen in 2009 and Cancún in 2010 were not the successes that had been hoped for, the EU fought hard to push through measures that met resistance from protagonists such as China and the USA. There was a feeling of hope after Cancún. According to The Economist : “Yet some from Europe and from developing countries left Cancún talking of a revived push for broad-based and legally binding constraints” (The Economist 16-12-2010). Within the general ambit of the COPs, the EU has played an important role in getting hold-out states such as Russia involved in the process and it has worked closely with China, setting up an EU-China Partnership on Climate Change in 2005. This promotes the transfer of low carbon technologies and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects involving European and Chinese partners. The EU has supported every major Multinational Environment Agreement (MEA) since 1989, and has enacted effective regulations in areas other than climate control, including water pollution and ozone depletion in the mid-1980’s. It has also promoted the control of dangerous chemicals through the “REACH” programme, which has met with some success. Since the early 1970’s the EU has developed extensive environmental regulation covering nature protection. Legislation has covered air, noise, waste and water management, industrial installations, climate and energy. For many of the less environmentally inclined Member States, such as Italy, EU environmental legislation has been

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behind almost all national environmental policies. Indeed, the dramatic rise in environmental awareness in Europe in the 1990’s and the harmonizing thrust of Commission-led environment policy combined to give the EU what is now the most ambitious and rigorous environmental legislation in the world.

Reasons and Rationales behind Consistency in EU Environment Policy There can be no doubt that there is a “purist” stream in EU environment policy which has carried forward the battle for the greening of the environment. The green MEPs and Environment Committee in the European Parliament, the pressure groups, the ecological crusaders, the northern “troika”: all of these have genuinely supported efforts to green the EU and have helped to install an advanced sense of the dangers of pollution for future generations at the European level. There are nonetheless more pragmatic reasons for advances in EU policy. The environmentally-oriented northern countries have been allowed to pursue internal environment policy running in advance of the EU as a whole. Given the regulatory nature of environment directives, however, these countries have been wary of putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage to “free-riders” in a non-synchronised Europe. Indeed, it has been in their interests to impose their own standards on the others and thus to create a level playing field7, and they have logically been helped in this by the “purist” fringe. This paradigm has been transposed onto the global level by the EU. It has been in the international competitive interests of the organisation to support international agreements that pressure other jurisdictions to adopt its own environmental regulations. Promoting treaties that spread EU environmental norms internationally has served to legitimize EU rules and to shield them against legal challenges before world trade bodies such as the WTO (World Trade Organisation8), as well as helping to protect EU competitiveness. It can be seen as an example of the EU dealing with globalization proactively: rather than waiting for the latter to create “race to the bottom”9 conditions 7

This is known as regulatory competition. The logic here is that where EU member states resist race-to-the-bottom pressures and maintain stringent environmental standards, these may be struck down by the WTO as illegal non-tariff barriers to trade (Kelemen 2009, 4). 9 Involving Member States lowering their standards to find a lowest common denominator so as to maintain competitiveness. 8

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within the Member States, it has systematically and coherently pushed for international recognition of its own standards. As a way of exerting pressure on other parties, a regular EU tactic has been to declare that it will only improve its environment standards on condition that other parties do likewise. This was the case for the initial stage of the Carbon Roadmap in 2011, where the EU said it would decrease its emissions by 30% rather than 20% before 2020 if other major actors committed themselves to doing the same. Although the thrust to get EU environmental norms accepted by other jurisdictions is associated with basic concepts of competition and liberalisation of trade as well as “purist” regard for the environment, the overall effect has been the raising of standards or “ratcheting-up” of environment norms both within the EU and at a global level (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 209). Another reason for the impressive advance of EU environment policy has been the EU’s desire to enhance its regional and geopolitical credibility. As we have seen, the EU suffers from the fact that it does not have the attributes of a normal nation state, police force, customs officials etc., and has great difficulty in imposing fiscal constraints on its members. It also suffers from a lack of popularity for a variety of reasons, such as democratic deficit and structural weaknesses which hamper its operational capabilities. It has constantly sought to remedy these inherent weaknesses through active policy initiatives. To reinforce its regional credibility the EU has harnessed the dramatic rise in public support for environmental issues, and through a progressive ecological stance has sought to strengthen its position in the eyes of the peoples of Europe both as a concerned protagonist and as a credible and effective representative on the world stage. Zito puts forward the view that the carbon tax initiative of 1993 was a “foreign policy bid to project EU leadership in global environmental affairs” (Zito 1995, 432). This pragmatic rationale has been allied to the use of environment policy by the EU as something akin to a foreign policy tool beyond its borders, in line with The Dublin Declaration of the European Council of 1990 which states that the EU must use its position of moral, economic and political authority more effectively in advancing international efforts to promote sustainable development (Grant, Matthews and Newell 2000, 117). At the start of the ecological awakening in the West in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the United States was the undisputed leader in world ecological agreement-building. The abstention of the US from leadership ambitions gave the EU a window of opportunity to stake its claim to be the world’s foremost environmental player. It has relished this role, succeeded in projecting itself worldwide and has done its utmost to maintain the position. Indeed, it has become something of a

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reference to others in how to manage globalization through its role as interface between the regional and the international. By making itself an essential feature of world environment politics, the EU has not only reinforced its domestic image and given itself added value in terms of raison d’être, but it has also had an opportunity to project its own set of ethical and business values onto the world stage. Theorists have evoked the concept of “normative” power when alluding to EU foreign affairs, including the domain of environment policy. Manners describes normative power as a “power of ideas and norms rather than power of empirical force” (Manners 2002, 238). EU norms are closely linked to universal core norms such as democracy, peace and liberty, human rights and the rule of law, values which built the normative, identity creating basis of the EU. Through this medium the EU “acts” as a softly persuasive global law-making body which promotes the diffusion of its norms rather than relying on military strength or economic powers of persuasion. It is clear that the EU has rivals in the global promotion of “soft power”, not least the US itself, which shares the same fundamental values mentioned above. The leadership role of the EU in environmental issues relates to what Manners defines as the “minor norms”, including anti-discrimination, social solidarity, sustainable development and good governance, which are derived from the core values. The EU’s consistent and progressive line on the environment contrasts favourably with the US’s rogue behaviour concerning climate change agreement and, given that the EU is globally perceived as displaying less military or economic might that the US, the result has been that the EU has taken the moral and political high ground at the global level in environmental matters.

Contradictions in EU Environment Policy Perhaps overhasty in its desire to go forth and green, the EU has been accused of forsaking the very principle of sustainability that it has so steadfastly propounded. There is perhaps a phenomenon of overreach involved, which could be called “eco-overreach”. On the one hand the organisation has had to satisfy the domestic needs of industrial sectors and ensure apposite competitive conditions, whilst on the other it has had to deal with the harangues and demands of pressure groups and environmental interests. A further demand has been the EU’s long-term geopolitical objective of no longer being held hostage to oil producing countries for its fuel supplies. These conflicting pressures have led to policies which have sought to combine growth and sustainability in an

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effort to meet multiple expectations. In this light, the integration of Environment Policy Integration (EPI) into the mainstream of EU policy processes has had both positive and negative effects. The impetus for EPI, which involves the integration of sustainable criteria into policy-making in other sectors, first came through the UN, and the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development was adopted by the Council in June 200110. The strategy boldly states that, “Sustainable development should become the central objective of all sectors and policies” (European Commission 2001, 6)11. The long-term aim of the strategy is in fact to go beyond short-term cost-effectiveness to seek for pluralistic “win-win” situations, in which the needs of as many groups as possible are satisfied; environmentalists, business interests etc. While “win-win” opportunities may well be possible for achieving environmental and sector policy objectives together, they are likely to involve trade-offs. In all probability these trade-offs will be highly complex and controversial through the juxtaposition of economic, environmental and social stakes. EPI, then, has been globally beneficial for the environment through the espousal of principles of sustainability, but it has been complex and difficult to implement. As such, and on account of the wide range of interests needing to be satisfied in “win-win” situations, it has been a contributing factor to EU environmental overreach. EU Renewable Energy Directive of 23 April 2009 (Directive 2009/28/EC) illustrates many of the shortcomings in EU environment policy. Following Renewable Energy Directives in 2001 and 2003, the European Commission’s Draft EU Renewable Energy Directive, published in January 2008, proposed a 10% target for biofuel use in the transport sector by 2020. One basic objection of environmentalists to the Directive was that the target would cause expansion of monocultures, at great global cost to livelihoods and ecosystems. Some concessions were made when the final Directive of 23 April 2009 decreed that the 10% target is to be achieved from renewable sources as a whole, and not from biofuels alone, but the potential negative impact on the environment in certain parts of the world has remained an issue for many concerned with the environment.

10

This identified four priority action areas: limiting climate change and increasing the use of clean energy, addressing threats to public health, managing natural resources more responsibly, improving the transport system and land-use management (Persson 2004, 4). 11 The so-called “Cardiff process” had been initiated in the late 1990s in the UK to give more attention to EPI in EU sector policy-making processes (Persson 2004, 5).

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There was a groundswell negative reaction to the proposed biofuels Directives, from environment pressure groups and august bodies alike. In 2006 The European Union Committee of the House of Lords made a detailed study on the EU biofuels proposal and concluded that the policy was premature in that more research needed to be undertaken to seek more cost-effective and environmentally beneficial outcomes. It also noted that the question of biofuels needed to be viewed from a more global perspective (House of Lords 2006, 224). In July 2008 the Gallagher Review of the indirect effects of biofuels production, commissioned by the British Board of Trade, concluded that the EU threshold of 10% for biofuels in the transport sector was overambitious: “Current evidence indicates an achievable target for 2020 to be of the order of 1-2% by energy of road transport fuels” (Gallagher Review of the indirect effects of biofuels production, 13), and that EU biofuel policies would lead to a net increase in GHG (Greenhouse gases) emissions caused by displacement of existing agricultural production. In January 2008 the British Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), in a report entitled, Are Biofuels Sustainable? called for a moratorium on EU biofuel targets (House of Commons 2008, 76-I). Although it recognised that biofuels may be sustainable, the EAC concluded that the EU should not have pursued targets to increase the use of biofuels in the absence of robust sustainability standards and mechanisms to prevent damaging land use change. It also noted that the EU policy could lead to the destruction of rainforests and urged politicians to ensure that biofuels policy balances greenhouse gas cuts with wider environmental impacts so that biofuels contribute to sustainable emission reductions. The call for a moratorium was echoed by thirty environment groups, who insisted that the EU should apply its very own “precautionary principle” to its approach to biofuels, given the growing scientific and circumstantial evidence suggesting that its targets lack sustainability. The attacks on the Biofuels Directive, then, were based on claims that called sustainability into question. The basic objection was that the measures proposed would not ultimately lead to a reduction in GHG emissions. A report by the independent Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) commissioned by green groups and entitled “Anticipated Indirect Land Use Change Associated with Expanded Use of Biofuels in the EU–An Analysis of the National Renewables Energy Action Plans” estimated that EU biofuel policy would cause an extra 27 million tonnes of CO2 each year, or 12 million cars on Europe’s roads by 2020, and a conversion of land for biofuel roughly the size of Belgium. The land extension phenomenon is linked to what is known as indirect

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land use change12 (ILUC), which would be one of the unintended consequences of the policy. Other negative spinoffs of the massive expansion of monocultures were highlighted by environmentalist groups, who contended that most environmental issues (water use, soil degradation, etc.), and all social issues (land conflicts, loss of livelihoods, human rights abuses, working conditions, etc) were excluded from the proposed “sustainability criteria” covered by the Directive. Perverse side effects, such as increased food prices and land-grabbing have also been attributed to EU and other countries’ biofuels policies. The fact that other foods, such as corn, are being replaced by biofuels means that scarcity and replanting costs are likely to lead to a hike in their prices on the world market. Land-grabbing is a relatively well-documented phenomenon. An article in the British newspaper The Guardian relates the problem in Guatemala, where it is reported that the area given over to palm plantations to produce biofuel increased by 146% between 2005 and 2010 (The Guardian 2011). This huge expansion has been largely unregulated, and it has involved the destruction of protected tropical forests and increasing soil erosion. Furthermore, according to the article, unscrupulous “agribusinesses” force locals into selling land in their bid to grab land, wreaking havoc on local communities13. The palm oil rush is also taking place in Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia, where some of the world’s most carbon-rich ecosystems are being decimated. 12

Under European rules biofuels cannot be bought and imported from "new" agricultural lands such as forests. Existing agricultural land is thus converted to make way for biofuels, and in a subsequent knock-on effect forests or grassland are cleared to make way for the displaced crop. The demand for food and animal feed is certain to remain unchanged and cannot be assumed to fall, and this is why it is imperative to keep growing the original crop. Environmentalists estimate that the necessary land conversion (which includes deforestation) is on such a scale that the carbon released from the vegetation, trees and soil will be far greater than that given off by the fossil fuels that the biofuels are designed to replace, representing an overall increase in greenhouse gases. 13 The dubious role of agro-business interests in land-grabbing is also highlighted in the following passage: “Land-grabbing leads to dispossession and/or to ‘adverse incorporation’ of people into the emerging enclaves of the global agrofood-feedfuel complex. Land-grabbing is currently being carried out by domestic and transnational companies, often with encouragement and support from central governments. Most of the products produced – food, feed, fuel – are exported or are planned to be exported to other countries, within the circuit and logic of the global industrial agrofood-feed-fuel complex, with trade policies such as those by the EU having important implications” (Borras and Franco 2010, 5).

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Biofuels policy presents the EU with a prime opportunity for obtaining the kind of “win-win” end-game it is seeking with regard to sustainability, within the framework of Environment Policy Integration. In the preamble to the 2009 Directive, multiple potential beneficiaries of its biofuels policy are alluded to: “Those factors also have an important part to play in promoting the security of energy supply, promoting technological development and innovation and providing opportunities for employment and regional development, especially in rural and isolated areas.” The aim of sustaining market interests and domestic industries, of course, is not forgotten: “The opportunities for establishing economic growth through innovation and a sustainable competitive energy policy have been recognised.” The EU biofuels policy, then, aims to satisfy all parties. The policy rests upon arguments about societal benefits. It aspires to environmental protection, especially GHG savings. It also hopes to fulfil the long-term objective of energy security through import substitution, using imported biofuels to aliment the EU biofuel sector, itself worth $13 billion, which has been built up through subsidies, tax breaks and other encouragements. Thus the cherished goal of stimulating competition within the EU is assured and the biofuel sector is nurtured. Finally, rural development is promoted, especially in the global South, bringing wealth and employment to communities across the globe. The EU biofuels sector is growing substantially, with the two most powerful Member States, France and Germany, leading the way in terms of production. Biofuels are also being strongly promoted by industry. New corporate partnerships are being formed between agro-businesses, biotech companies, oil companies and car manufacturers. Billions of dollars are being invested in the agrofuel sector in a development often likened to a “green gold rush”, in which EU countries are turning land over to agrofuel crops and developing infrastructure for processing and transporting them. It is self-evident for environmentalists that the decision of powerful industrial blocs such as the EU and the US to build up their agrofuels sectors ultimately leads to negative impacts on developing countries. By inciting the latter to contribute, and producing legislation such as the EU Renewable Energy Directive, the powerful blocs are triggering speculation and investment in monoculture plantations around the world. Having invested so much in biofuels, it is hard for the EU to backpeddle in the face of negative scientific findings which challenge basic precepts of sustainability. The biofuels structure put into place is dependent on imports to meet rising demand, and changing the target set in the 2009 Biofuels Directive would inevitably lead to bankruptcies in the sector. The EU has little choice but to make a political compromise, and

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biofuel producers will be given time to realize a return on the massive investment of recent years. To its credit, the EU has taken notice of the scientific and pressure group opposition to its biofuels policy. As we have seen, it substantially altered the terms of the Draft Directive and it forbids the import of biofuels from environmentally sensitive sources of high biodiversity value, such as virgin forests, and wetlands (Article 17 of the 2009 Directive). Article 17 of the 2009 Directive also stipulates that the greenhouse gas emission saving from the use of biofuels and bioliquids shall be at least 35%. A certification system has also been put into place, whereby Member States deal with “economic operators” whose task it is to give reliable information on the data used to develop information on land use and greenhouse gas emission saving (Article 18 of the 2009 Directive). Environmentalists, however, have attacked this system as being insufficient on the grounds that it does not deal with indirect effects such as indirect land use change, that there is little provision for the consultation of indigenous people whose land will be affected, and that the development of agrofuels is proceeding far more quickly than certification can be implemented. Declarations of intention concerning the desire for sustainability concerning fishing are well-anchored in EU literature. Article 2 of Council Regulation 2371 set out new objectives for the Common Fisheries Policy in 2002: The Common Fisheries Policy shall ensure exploitation of living aquatic resources that provides sustainable economic, environmental and social conditions. For this purpose, the Community shall apply the precautionary approach in taking measures designed to protect and conserve living aquatic resources, to provide for their sustainable exploitation and to minimise the impact of fishing activities on marine eco-systems. It shall aim at a progressive implementation of an eco-system-based approach to fisheries management. It shall aim to contribute to efficient fishing activities within an economically viable and competitive fisheries and aquaculture industry, providing a fair standard of living for those who depend on fishing activities and taking into account the interests of consumers.

The Article, which proposes sustainability and the precautionary principle concerning fish stocks and marine eco-systems, also alludes to economic efficiency, viability and competition in the sector. Fishing, however, has been an area in which the EU has had difficulties, and the Common Fisheries Policy has been the subject of much controversy. The CFP is a victim of conflict of interest politics involving the EU and the Member States, and of sometimes bitter disputes between the Member States

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themselves. As a technical area, it has not met the predictions of neofunctionalists who envisaged the process of European integration as a matter for experts pooling policy problems in order to produce rational compromises (Lequesne 2005, 354). It comforts rather the liberal intergovernmentalist analysis, involving conflict and negotiations at the European and domestic levels. Within Member States, social actors include not only fishermen but manufacturers in the fish-processing industry, consumers and environmentalists (354). The key phase of supply side negotiation takes place in the Council of Ministers, where Total Allowable Catches or TACs are hammered out between the Member States. These divide catches of main commercial fish stocks between the Member States, supposedly on a sustainable basis and following scientific advice on available stocks from the Advisory Committee on Fishery Management (ACFM) of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES). The poor state of fish resources in EU waters has arisen from the fact that pressure from interested Member States has caused the Council to water down rigorous proposals based on ICES evidence. Original TAC quotas are proposed by the Commission, and even these have tended to be in excess of the scientific recommendations (WWF 2007, 19). Further down the line, the CFP suffers from the inherent weakness of dependency on the Member States for its implementation, and its failure has led to overfishing and overall monitoring and control have been erratic, with some countries implementing regulations more rigorously than others (Lequesne 2005, 367). The main losers, of course, have been the fish, and the net result has been little respect for the precautionary principle. There has been debate about dwindling fish stocks since the 1970’s through the initiatives of the UN and environmental groups. Technological advances and more intensive fishing methods such as deep-sea trawling and raking of the sea bed have led to stocks of certain types of fish, such as cod in the North Sea, being fished down to very low levels. Despite all this, lowest common denominator solutions have been found at Council meetings with little regard for marine life. Key elements taken into account have been the preservation of traditional fishing activities within each Member State, the particular needs of those regions most dependent on fisheries, and the loss of fishing possibilities in the waters of non-EU countries (366). A notably disturbing outcome of the TACs and quotas system is that 20-60% of all fish caught in EU waters are actually returned dead into the sea from fishing boats and wasted. This has disgusted many fishermen and ecologists and has led to black market selling of landed outside-quota fish, especially in the UK. The system of TACs and quotas has often been

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criticized for not making a strong impact on the conservation of resources, and despite the modifications to the CFP in 2002 and the introduction of sustainability as a key objective, institutional constraints, competition and Member State intransigence have continued to frustrate the ecological goals espoused by the EU. High demand and dwindling resources have meant that the EU consumes far more fish than it produces, and the logical, knock-on response has been to go further afield for fish. In 1976 the Member States gave the EU the power to conclude fishing agreements with third parties concerning access to resources. Agreements with African and South American countries have followed, with Spain benefiting most. Overfishing the third party waters, however, has displaced the ecological problem to poor countries which are ill-equipped to deal with such issues, and which have tended to accept EU “compensation” and turn a blind eye to the decline of domestic fishing activity. Unemployed fishermen may be tempted to turn to piracy or seek to emigrate, possible to Europe itself. We are a long way from the ideal of a balanced and sustainable EU fishing industry.

Conclusion The EU is the world leader in environmental matters. Left in the limelight through the defection of others, it staked its claim and has held on to its position. Today it fulfils an important role, assisting countries such as China in environment initiatives and continuing to spearhead climate change negotiations, as at Durban in 2011. Through its ideological aspirations and institutional structure, however, it has a tendency to be cumbersome and cannot backtrack easily, making it a less effective leader. Although laudable, the objective of taking environmental issues into account in all major policy decisions through EIP adds to the constraints of producing generally acceptable legislative instruments. The EU has practised a certain precipitation in environmental matters which has made it more difficult to fulfil its ambitious goals, to some extent because of its unique position in the world and the constraints placed upon it. In this regard it may be accused of getting trapped in its own ecological, industrial and institutional web, with climate change policy and the Common Fisheries Policy as examples of this. Given the heightened world and European profile of environmentalism, is it possible to say that profound changes have taken place? Does the horse of business interests still pull the cart of environmentalism in Europe or has environmentalism taken the driver’s seat? The basic problem as far

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as “pure” environmentalism goes is that the EU has sacred cows such as unemployment and economic growth which it cannot afford to sacrifice on the altar of environment policy. Indeed, it could be argued that in striving simultaneously for green solutions and objectives such as growth and employment it is pursing incompatible goals. Given these obstacles, and the institutional constraints we have examined, it is easy to see why EU environment policy tends to veer towards the acceptance of a suboptimal compromise in which citizens are consoled by the fact that the worst forms of pollution are publicly combated, but at the end of the day jobs and quality of life remain largely unaffected. And it may be that this is what most European citizens want. But the positive aspects of EU environment policy should nonetheless not be forgotten, and the EU must be commended for having taken the lead where big players such as the US and China have not wished to venture. The EU has been over-ambitious and has had to draw in its horns on some aspects of its environment policy, but in the tough context of world exchanges where trade and competition take precedence it is unreasonable to expect the EU to damage itself where others hesitate to tread. The current period of austerity and the big question mark over the Euro could logically lead to a period of EU introspection, with ecology taking a back seat, as in the second half of the 1970’s in the wake of the oil shocks. For reasons of geopolitical credibility and perhaps even survival, however, it is possible that the EU will need to pursue its dynamic environment policy both internally and internationally well into the future. Should this be the case, it is to be hoped that it will rigorously respect objective criteria of sustainability, thereby avoiding inconsistencies and deviations.

References Anon. 2010. “The Cancun Climate Change Conference. A Sort of Progress”. The Economist, December 16. Borras, Saturno M. and Jennifer Franco. 2010. “Political Dynamics of Land-Grabbing in Southeast Asia: Understanding Europe’s Role”. Transnational Institute. Paper presented at the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF). Brussels, 2-5 October. European Commission. 2001. “A Sustainable Europe for a Better World: A European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development”, 6, (COM (2001) 264. Commission communication.

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European Environmental Bureau. 2010. “Future of EU Environment Policy: Towards the 7th Environment Action Programme”. Annual Conference Report, http://www.eeb.org/index cfm, accessed April 2013. European Union. 2002. Council Regulation (EC) N°2371/2002 of 20 December 2002. —. 2009. Directive 2009/28/EC. Grant, Wyn, Duncan Matthews and Peter Newell. 2000. The Effectiveness of European Union Environmental Policy. London: Macmillan Press. House of Commons. 2008. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). First Report of Session 2007-08, “Are Biofuels Sustainable?” HC 76-I. London: HMSO. House of Lords. 30 Nov 2006. “The EU Strategy on Biofuels: From Field to Fuel.” 47th session 2005-06, Vol. 1: Report (House of Lords papers) by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: European Union Committee. Institute for European Environment Policy. March 2011. “’Anticipated Indirect Land Use Change Associated with Expanded use of Biofuels in the EU’–An Analysis of the National Renewables Energy Action Plans.” http: //www.ieep.eu, accessed April 2013. Kelemen, R. Daniel. 2009. “Globalizing European Union Environment Policy”. Paper presented at The European Union Studies Assocation, 11th Biennial International Conference, Marina Del Rey, California, April 2009. Lawrence, Felicity. 2011. “Global Food Crisis: Palm Rush Proves Costly for Guatemala's Small Farmers.” The Guardian, May 31. Lecherbonnier, Bernard. 2007. Les Lobbies à l’assaut de l’Europe. Paris: Albin. Lenschow, Andrea. 2005. “Environment Policy: Contending Dynamics of Policy Change.” In Wallace, Helen, William Wallace and Mark Pollack. Policy-Making in the European Union, 5th Edition, 305-324. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lequesne, Christian. 2005. “Fisheries Policy: Letting the Little Ones Go?” In Wallace Helen, William Wallace and Mark Pollack. Policy-Making in the European Union, 5th Edition, 353-374. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manners, Ian. 2002. “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?” In Journal of International Affairs, 81(4), 835–50. Persson, Asa. 2004. “Environmental Policy Integration: An Introduction”, Stockholm Environment Institute. http://www.sei-international.org/mediamanager/Policy/pints_intro.pdf, accessed April 2013.

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Rosamond, Ben. 2000. Theories of European Integration. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Trudelle, Alice. 2011. “Poland Sparks Controversy on EU Environment Policy”. Warsaw Business Journal, July 22. http://www.wbj.pl/article55118-poland-sparks-controversy-over-climate-vote.htlm, accessed April 2013. Vogler, John. 2005. “The European Contribution to Global Environmental Governance”. In Common Markets Studies 40(2), 235-258. World Wide Fund for Nature. 2007. “WWF Mid-Term Review of the EU Common Fisheries Policy”. October. Assets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_cfp_midterm_review_10_2007.pdf, accessed April 2013. Zito, Anthony. 1995. “Integrating the Environment into the European Union: The History of the Controversial Carbon Tax”. In The State and the European Union: Building a European Polity?. Rhodes, Caroline and Sonia Mazey (eds). Essex: Longman.

CHAPTER TWELVE CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE UK: POLICY AND POLITICS BRENDAN PRENDIVILLE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR RENNES 2 UNIVERSITY

Introduction The UK, as the rest of the (particularly Western) world, is in a “Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin 1968) situation. It is perfectly rational in the growth-inspired society we live in to consume as much energy as necessary in improving one’s material comforts. The dominant social norm is thus and to do otherwise is to risk being seen as marginal, indeed deviant. However, in terms of climate change, the cumulative effect of everybody acting in this rational way is to accelerate towards the tipping point of run-away climate change and to take society past the limit of a 2° centigrade rise in global temperatures, beyond which the planet ventures into uncertain but dangerous territory. In his article (“Tragedy of the Commons”), G. Hardin expressed the consequences of this human paradox by concluding that, “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all”. However, the issue of climate change is such a massive question that it produces a confusing mixture of fear, fatalism and denial and this shows up in surveys of the British public. In a July 2009 survey, for example, of 18,578 people in 22 different territories, Britain was in joint 3rd place in reply to the statement, “Thinks the government should place the highest priority on addressing climate change”. But in September of the same year, a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), revealed that many participants in the study were experiencing “climate fatigue” (Platt and Retallack 2009); that is, they felt saturated by the climate change discourse, be it at home or at work. For the political class, on the other hand, the environment is a “valence” issue (Carter and Ockwell

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2007), that is an issue for which broad agreement (i.e. a better environment) exists across the political spectrum. This could be seen as an advantage but in practical policy terms, where the “devil is in the detail”, such a general consensus can turn out to be a recipe for inertia. The growth of climate change as a social and political problem is a case in point. That the issue has grown in importance in recent years in the UK is clear and illustrated by the greater awareness of the British population to this question1, as we shall see. In turn, the attention paid to climate change by the political class has also increased with the two main parties vying with each other in the race to be greenest. In this paper, we will analyse the issue of climate change in the UK with a view to gauging the extent to which this rising interest in climate change has been reflected in political action. We shall do this by first reviewing the state of climate change in Britain and the public’s reaction to this. Secondly, we will study the climate change policy content of successive governments since 1997 with a view to assessing the obstacles to the formulation and implementation of this policy. Finally, we will consider the politics of climate change with particular emphasis on the question of leadership.

Climate Knowledge and Climate Awareness Indicators In this section, we will examine the indicators of climate change, Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and the rise in awareness the public on the question of climate change. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the British climate has evolved in different ways. It is not the object of this paper to present a detailed analysis of these changes but it is useful to have an overview of them. Here, we will give an outline of changes concerning warming, sea levels, rainfall and wildlife’s adaptation to climate change. 1

Alex Thornton, Public Attitudes and Behaviours towards the Environment – Tracker Survey: A Report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. London : TNS, DEFRA, 2009 (http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/report-attitudes-behaviours2009.pdf); DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), Survey of Public Attitudes to Quality of Life and to the Environment – 2001, London : DEFRA Publications, October 2002 (http://archive.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/pubatt/download/surve y2001.pdf).

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In terms of average temperature, the UK began warming in the mid1980s, reaching a peak in 2006 which was the hottest year since records began. Taking the example of Central England (Figure 2-1), records for which stretch back to 1659, the longest in the world, between the mid1980s and today, there has been a rise of c.1° centigrade which, given the aforementioned 2° centigrade safety limit on temperature rise, gives us an idea of what has already happened in the space of 2-3 decades. Figure 12-1: Central England Temperature (CET) from 1877 to 2006 Relative to the 1961-1990 Baseline

Source: http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/images/stories/Trends_images/T_ Fig1-122

The question of changes in sea temperature and sea levels as a consequence of climate change has been highlighted since the first IPCC report in 1990. In terms of the former (Figure 12-2), the UK coastal sea surface temperature rise is around 0,7° which is not far from the mean temperature rise we have noted in the UK as a whole.

2

The line emphasises decadal variations.

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Figure 12-2: Annual-Mean Sea-Surface Temperature Averaged Around the UK Coastline, for the period 1870–2006

Source: http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/images/stories/Trends_images/T_ Fig1.15.jpg

In terms of sea levels (Figure 12-3), it has risen by c.1mm/year over the 20th century but, according to UK Climate Projections, sea levels have risen more rapidly since the 1990s3. A study by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how the levels vary according to situation. In Lowestoft, Suffolk, for example, the rise was twice as large, rising to 2.01 mm between 1960-1996 while in Newlyn, Cornwall, it rose by 1.19. the CRU qualified these rises as “highly significant upward trends”4.

3 4

http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/content/view/758/500/. http://www.ecn.ac.uk/iccuk//.

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Figure 12-3: Change in Annual-Mean Absolute Sea Level Recorded by Tide Gauges at Selected UK Stations

Source: http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/images/stories/Trends_images/T_ Fig1.16.jpg

In terms of rainfall, there has not been a major rise in the number of rainy days in a year, nor in the amount of rainfall (Figure 12-4).

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Figure 12-4: Days of Rain Filtered by Region 1961-2006

However, it would appear that there has been an increase in its intensity. Looking at the 20th century as a whole, the CRU estimates that the “contribution of heavy rainfall has increased from c.7% around 1910 to c.12% in the last years” (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/ukrainfall/ ukrainfall.pdf). This is illustrated in Figure 12-5 which reveals the increase in the number of days per winter on which there is a risk of flooding. Figure 12-5: The number of days each winter that fell at the end of a 5-day spell of “very wet” weather, indicating the number of days per winter on which there is a risk of flooding

Index: Red bar =below average Blue bar = above average Black line = decadal variations Source : http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/ukrainfall/ukrainfall.pdf

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Precocious Wildlife A final indicator of a changing climate can be seen in the ways nature is evolving as seen in the examples of British birds’ adaptation to climate change. In the first instance, swallows, traditionally a sign of Spring, seem to be arriving earlier, particularly since the mid 1980s although the overall trend reaches back to the 1960s (Figure 12-6). Figure 12-6: Arrival of Swallows in Britain 1960-2000

Index: Julian day = number of days since beginning of the year, 1st January = Day 1 Source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/iccuk/

The second example of natural adaptation is that of egg-laying by robins which also appears to be happening earlier (Figure 12-7). Figure 12-7: Egg-Laying of Robins in Britain 1940-2000

Source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/iccuk/

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Green House Gas Emissions In December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was agreed between 37 countries, a number which has subsequently swelled to 191 (2010). It remains today the only binding, multilateral agreement on climate change and, as such, is the baseline for analysing GHG reductions. The British government played an important role in reaching an agreement in these laborious negotiations with J. Prescott, the new minister of the new ministry, the DETR5, being particularly prominent. The UK accepted a target of a 12.5% reduction below 1990 levels which was well above the average of the EU (8%), Japan (6%) or the USA (7%)6. On the face of it, since that time, the UK has been very successful at reducing its greenhouse gas emissions as by the year 1999, it had fulfilled its Kyoto commitment (Figure 2-8). Figure 12-8: UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions 800 750

12.5% Kyoto GHG basket target by 2008–2012

Emissions (MtCO2e)

700 650 600 550

20% CO2 target by 2010

500 450 400 1990 Baseline

1993

1996

Kyoto GHG basket

1999

2002

2005

Net CO2 emissions

Source: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/node/656

5

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. For further discussion of Britain’s role in these negotiations, see Prendiville, Brendan. 2000. “New Labour et l'environnement : une 3ème voie?”, Le New Labour : rupture ou continuité ?, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 6 The USA would later back out of the agreement and refuse to ratify it.

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The principal reason for this performance had little to do with the Labour government of the day but was rather the consequence of its Conservative predecessors in two respects. Firstly, in privatising the electricity industry in the early 1990s, the government instigated a “dash for gas” which totally transformed the British energy sector. The second reason was the consequence of the Thatcher governments (1979-1990) monetary policies in the early 1980s, the first victim of which was the industrial sector which contracted massively. This deindustrialisation had the knock-on effect of reducing GHGs which declined from 632.6 MtCO2e (Million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) in 1979 to 531.4 MtCO2e in 1984, a fall of 16%. As a result of privatisation and deindustrialisation, the production of coal declined rapidly, from 56.4 Mtoe (Million tonnes of oil equivalent) in 1990 to 19.6 Mtoe in 20007 while the production of gas increased respectively from 45.5 Mtoe to 108.4 Mtoe. Nevertheless, despite the motivations, or otherwise, for this decline in the UK’s GHGs, the record could be seen as a good one especially when compared to many other European countries. However, it is not so bright for three overlapping reasons. Transport Firstly, the overall decline in GHG emissions conceals a rise in the transport sector (Figure 12-9). According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), since 1990, while all other sectors have declined, domestic transport emissions in the UK have risen by 2.9%, international maritime emissions by 17.3% and by a massive 109.6% for international aviation. However, the aviation and shipping sectors are exempted from the Kyoto Protocol Agreement of 19978 which, given they represent the fastest growing source of emissions, appears somewhat of an anomaly.

7

In 2007, the figure had dropped to 17mt (http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file40592.xls). 8 They were not included because it was considered too difficult to apply controls internationally. However, opinion is changing on this subject, as the EEA pointed out in a 2007 article entitled “No technical obstacles to bringing international aviation and shipping under post-Kyoto Protocol” in which it was revealed that “EU carbon dioxide emissions from international aviation and navigation have increased by 96 % and 50 %, respectively, between 1990 and 2005.”

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Figure 12-9: UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Type 2009

Index : LULUCF = Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Source: European Environment Agency

Production and Consumption of Green House Gases The second, related, reason was highlighted by Dieter Helm & al. in their report of 2007 (Helm, Smale and Phillips, 2007). In the authors’ opinion, the UK’s impressive performance is due to accounting methodology rather than any national effort to reduce emissions. By basing calculation of national GHG emissions on production of these emissions, as opposed to their consumption, very different results appear. Production accounting only includes emissions produced on British territory9 whereas consumption accounting includes these national emissions as well as the emissions produced abroad but consumed in the UK. That means that this total calculation of the consumption of the UK’s 9 They sometimes include territories abroad but this does not fundamentally change the picture.

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GHGs includes goods and activities produced inside the country as well as outside along with the transport involved which is another way of saying that the ecological footprint (Rees 1992) should be the methodological basis for GHG accounting. If it was, it would capture consumption: -in a non-UK territory, for example during business trips and foreign holidays; -between countries, for example through international aviation and shipping; -of greenhouse gases embedded in imported goods (Helm, Smale and Phillips, 2007). In the final analysis, Helm & al. conclude that the difference between these two methods of calculation would have produced a difference of 23% in 1990, rising to 72% in 2003 (Figure 12-10). The consequence of this “discovery” is fundamental as it puts into question the whole basis of Kyoto’s accounting procedure as in the British example, the apparent decrease in its GHGs is simply due to the UK exporting its emissions to other countries. Figure 12-10: Greenhouse Gases (Consumption)

Greenhouse gas emissions (MtCO2e)

1,200

1,000

800

600

400

200

0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Kyoto emissions

Net emissions from tourism

Net imports of carbon

Source : Source: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/node/656

Bunker emissions

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Historic Emissions The third reason concerns the responsibility of the UK for accumulated GHG emissions. In planetary negotiations between rich and poor countries on emissions’ reduction, the debate often polarises between the desire of the Western, industrialised countries to share out the effort on a contemporary basis of planetary pollution and the desire of the poorer countries to take into account the historically produced emissions. Historical accounting would see the first industrial countries such as the UK as having to shoulder much more of the burden than developing countries as illustrated by the World Institute of Resources (WRI) which estimates that the UK is in 5th position behind the US, Russia, China and Germany in its table of “cumulative CO2 emissions, 1900-2004” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/co2emissions-historical). However, this period excludes the 19th century period of the industrial revolution and the vast expansion of the British Empire driven by this “workshop of the world” that the UK had become by 1900. Indeed, looking further back to 1850, the WRI estimates that the UK then produced 62% of the world’s CO2.

Public Awareness How does the information on climate change affect public opinion in Britain, if at all? For many years, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has commissioned regular surveys on people’s attitudes and behaviour concerning the environment in the UK and we will base our analysis on two of these reports (Thornton 2009 and DEFRA 2002). When asked which issues the Government should be dealing with, only 8% of respondents replied “Environment/Pollution” in 1986 as opposed to 35% in 200910 (Table 12-1). Table 12-1: Issues the Government Should be Dealing with Issue 1986 1989 1993 1996/7 Environment/Pollution 8 30 22 15 Source: DEFRA 2001, 108 and DEFRA 2009, 21

10

2001 25

2007 20

2009 35

In 2009, 2% of respondents replied Global warming/climate change so the 35% could be read as 37% (DEFRA 2009, 21).

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This rise has not been a smooth one for different, mainly contextual reasons. The 30% of answers in 1989, for example, is no doubt a reflection of the green tide that washed over the country that year, leading to the 15% green vote in the European elections of that year. The dying throes of the Conservative government in 1996-1997 amidst a sea of sleaze could also explain the relative lack of interest in environmental issues at that time. Whatever the explanations for this rise, it is clear that the British public’s perception of what the government should be doing in environmental matters has evolved considerably since the 1980s and this improved understanding of environmental problems in general ties in with its reported knowledge of climate change in particular. In recent years, the question of climate change has become increasingly visible in these surveys, as has the public’s perception of it and behaviour towards it. Between 1996/1997 and 2007, the percentage of respondents having heard of the term “climate change” rose from 79% (DEFRA 2001, 119) to 99%. More specifically, when asked in 2007 and 2009 about their understanding of certain climate change terms (carbon emissions, carbon footprint, global warming and climate change), respondents’ replies demonstrated a high degree of awareness. Over 60% knew either “a lot” or “a fair amount” about global warming and climate change and in 2009, 94% had also heard about carbon emissions with over half knowing either “a lot” or “a fair amount”. One interesting point in these responses to climate change vocabulary concerned the “carbon footprint” which, although having been used in academic circles for many years11, was not commonly known amongst the general public. Between 2007 and 2009, the change in the number of people who knew either “a lot” or “a fair amount” was a large one (2007: 25%, 2009: 48%) reflecting, no doubt, successful communication strategies from government and environmental organisations. In particular, it should be pointed out that much publicity was given to climate change during these 2 years with the 4th report of the IPCC appearing in 2007 and, in the UK, the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2008, the world’s first binding legislation on carbon reduction (Prendiville 2012). In terms of declared behaviour, the surveys demonstrate a similar trend towards environmental awareness in areas that are directly related to climate change12 such as energy use and transport. 11

The expression came from the term “Ecological footprint” which was first used by William Rees in 1992. 12 The aforementioned surveys of DEFRA surveys concerned the environment. We will analyse those replies concerning climate change.

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Energy Use Between 1993 and 2009, there would appear to be a substantial trend towards cutting domestic electricity and gas use. In 1993, 33% of respondents declared that, on a regular basis, they had reduced their use of electricity/gas in the previous 12 months, a figure that fell to 25%13 in the 1996/1997 survey and then rose again to 40% in 2001. In the 2009 survey, the authors report findings on domestic energy saving in a separate chapter which revealed that “There had been a significant increase in those respondents who reported cutting down on the use of gas and electricity at home from 58% in the 2007 DEFRA survey to 76% in 2009.” The 2009 survey also highlighted respondents answers to behavioural changes in other forms of reducing energy consumption such as “Only boiling the kettle with as much water as you need” (84%), “Washing clothes at 40 degrees or less” (77%), “Turning down thermostats (by 1 degree or more)” (66%) or “Cutting down on the use of hot water at home” (64%).

Transport The link between climate change and transport is a strong one and any behavioural change in terms of reduced car use is therefore welcome. During the period 1993-2001, the number of respondents who replied that they either “deliberately used public transport, walked or cycled instead of using a car” or “cut down the use of a car for short journeys (e.g. school, work, local shops etc.)” increased from 32% (1993) to 51% (1996/1997) and reaching 68% in 2001. In the 2009 survey, this trend continued (88%) albeit in response to a slightly different statements (“switching to walking or cycling instead of driving for short, regular journeys” / “switching to public transport instead of driving for regular journeys”). There has, therefore, been much climate related information published by different sources over the past 25 years in Britain, particularly since 1997. Be it official, government publications, academic research or fictional work stretching into films on environmental catastrophes, the public has had much information at its disposal. Whether this information has been heeded by the governments themselves is a question to which we now turn.

13 The rate fell because the 1996-97 questioned “1996/7 specified that this action was for environmental reasons.” (DEFRA 2001, 122)

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Policies In 2004, David King, the then chief scientific advisor to Tony Blair, declared that “global warming was our greatest threat - greater even than global terrorism”, a statement which “prompted George W. Bush to call Tony Blair, demanding a gag order be placed on” him (http://www. guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/28/david-cameron-climatechange-leadership, accessed in September 2011). More recently, Chris Huhne, the UK climate secretary, warned that “A world where climate change goes unchallenged will be a Hobbesian world, where life for far more people is ‘nasty, brutish, and short’.” (http://chimalaya.org/ 2011/07/11/chris-huhne-the-geopolitics-of-climate-change/, accessed in September 2011). Clearly, the awareness of the dangers of climate change has become more tangible for politicians over the last two decades but what has been done in policy terms? In this section, we will analyse the policies on climate change since the end of J. Major’s government in 1997 up to the present day (2011). The most ambitious policies appeared at the beginning and at the end of New Labour’s 13 year reign, in the euphoric wake of Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 victory and just before Gordon Brown’s 2010 electoral crash. Since the 2010 general elections, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government have taken up the climate mantle and we will examine the climate change measures of its first year in power.

Green Skies Ahead (1997-2000) In 1996, Tony Blair made a speech on “sustainable development” to the Green Alliance declaring that “the environment is actually at the heart of Labour's political agenda”, a statement that was repeated in so many words in the manifesto the following year (“We will put concern for the environment at the heart of policy-making…”, Labour Party Manifesto 1997). This desire to promote sustainability by integrating the environment into government was illustrated by two early decisions concerning environmental governance and environmental taxes. On the former, a super environment ministry, the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) was created with John Prescott, deputy Prime Minister, at its head. The DETR was proof that New Labour was going to apply “joined-up” thinking to the environmental question and indeed, this new ministry did bring together three interrelated dimensions of climate change—environment, transport and planning—in one structure.

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In terms of climate change, linking transport to the environment was seen as particularly important. The second important decision was to intensify the use of eco-taxes as illustrated by the “Government’s Statement of Intent on Environmental Taxation” on 2nd July 1997 which heralded New Labour’s greenest ever budget two years later. This budget, presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, was designed as the first step towards a value change in British society: How and what governments tax sends clear signals about the economic activities they believe should be encouraged or discouraged, and the values they wish to entrench in society. Just as work should be encouraged through the tax system, environmental pollution should be discouraged. (Pre-Budget Report 1999)

The 1999 Budget seemed to confirm this governmental desire for axiological entrenchment by introducing several important fiscal changes concerning the climate (climate change levy), recycling (aggregates levy), waste (escalator for landfill tax) and transport (company car tax reform, Vehicle Excise Duty). The biggest innovation was the creation of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) which became effective in 2001. The CCL is a tax on the over-consumption of energy in the business sector, the proceeds of which are used to lower employers’ national insurance contributions and finance energy efficiency measures or, as Carter and Ockwell put it: “In short, the CCL was a progressive attempt to tax an environmental ‘bad’—energy usage—and to encourage a social ‘good’— employment.” (Carter and Ockwell 2007) New Labour’s start, therefore, was welcomed by most of the environmental lobby which was, at this time, generally supportive of the government’s attitude towards sustainability. Things changed, however, even before the introduction of the CCL in 2001, when, in 1999, Gordon Brown decided to withdraw the fuel duty escalator, considered by “a spokeswoman for the Department of the Environment [as] unfair and clumsy” (McCarthy, 2000): The Chancellor has, therefore, decided that the appropriate level of fuel duties will be set on a Budget by Budget basis, taking account of the Government’s economic and social objectives as well as the UK’s environmental commitments. (Pre-Budget Report 1999)

The fuel duty escalator was a tax on fuel, the percentage of which was to be increased annually. Initially it was set at 3% per year, rising to 5% in

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November 1993 and increased again by Gordon Brown to 6% in 1997. In its six-year existence, it raised a considerable amount of money for the Treasury, estimated at £37.6bn in 2000. The inference behind the decision to abolish it was that this tax was costing too much for motorists as well as being inefficient in encouraging changes in driving habits. This decision followed increasing pressure from different quarters (Carter and Ockwell 2007) but its long term consequence was to damage New Labour’s ecological tax reform in the long term (Figure 12-11). Despite the abolition of the fuel duty escalator, the anger of motorists over rising fuel prices blew up in September 2000 in the form of fuel protests around the country led by truckers. These protests were particularly damaging for the climate change agenda for two reasons. Firstly, they did not produce the reaction from the green lobby that might have been expected in the form of a coherent argument in favour of fuel taxes14. Secondly, the government seemed equally reluctant to justify its environmental tax reforms in relation to climate change, thereby allowing the protests to grow in size. Even though the government eventually won the stand off with the truckers, it had been shaken by these protests and was subsequently extremely wary of offending motorists any further. The Chancellor confirmed this feeling in the following budget of 2001 when he appeased the motoring sector in general and the truckers in particular, by awarding them over £1.7 bn in tax cuts (The Guardian 2001)15. While the government was back-pedalling on eco-taxes it was also in the process of dismantling the DETR, its flagship reform in environmental governance designed to improve policy integration across government. After four years during which the environment had the ear of Whitehall as it had never had before or since, the “super-ministry” of the DETR was considered unwieldy and, ultimately, a failure in its aim to create more environmental policy integration, both horizontal and vertical16. In 2001, 14 One exception to this relative silence was Jonothan Porritt who wrote an article putting the case for higher fuel taxes entitled, Is this the Way Forward? (The Observer, 17 September, 2000). 15 The decision, also in 2001, to freeze the rate of the CCL was also seen as a sign that the Labour government’s environmental ambitions were on the wane. The CCL rate was frozen up to 2007. 16 These two forms are defined by Carter and Ockwell as: “Horizontal integration is the extent to which a central authority has developed a comprehensive strategy to deal with cross-sectoral problems like climate change and biodiversity. Vertical integration is the extent to which a ministry has adopted and implemented environmental objectives as a key feature of its portfolio.” (Carter and Ockwell 2007)

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therefore, the different parts went their different ways: transport back to Department for Transport (DFT), planning into the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the environment into DEFRA. This admission of failure was much regretted by many in the environmental lobby, given the loss of political power within government that it represented: With DETR environment was part of one of the biggest, wealthiest Departments in Whitehall. When we had rows everyone listened. Then it was put into one of the smallest, weakest and poorest Departments in Whitehall. It knocked the environmental agenda and the delivery on the environmental agenda for six. DEFRA has many fewer levers to pull17. Figure 12-11: UK Environmental Tax Revenue as a Percentage of Total Tax Revenue

Source: www.greentaxreport.co.uk/components/remository/func.../8/ 17

Peter Madden who, at this time was Ministerial Adviser at the DETR. Today he is CEO at the environmental magazine Forum for the Future, having been Head of Policy at the Environment Agency, and Director of Green Alliance, an environmental think-tank.

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Moreover, between 1999 and 2007, it also contributed heavily to the decrease in motoring costs as compared with public transport, making car transport more attractive than rail or bus travel and truck freight cheaper than rail. As a result of this dismantling, the departmental “silos” (Carter and Ockwell 2007) returned to the environmental debate making policy implementation more difficult. Perhaps the final symbol of Tony Blair’s change of heart on climate change is the question of nuclear power, a form of energy long combated by the environmentalist lobby which saw it as unsustainable. Following a report by the Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution (RCEP) in 2000, the government issued a White Paper on Energy in 2003 which “for the first time brought climate change to the heart of energy policy by setting the 60% carbon dioxide emission reduction target as one of four key goals.” (Carter and Ockwell 2007). It recommended a sustainable strategy based on improved energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy while keeping the previous target of 10% of renewable energy by 2010. At this time nuclear energy was not accepted for economic and environmental reasons (i.e. nuclear waste) but two years later the situation had changed completely. In 2005, the government announced another Energy Review on energy and this time nuclear power featured prominently. The short timespan between the two Reviews raised questions as to the rationale of this second review, notably in the Environmental Audit Committee’s report of 2006. Carter and Ockwell are of the opinion that this was a personal decision by Tony Blair: However, it is widely accepted that the primary reason was Tony Blair’s belief that the previous decision not to recommend nuclear new build had to be reversed—he had already stated that a decision on nuclear needed to be made during the current parliament, making little secret of his support for the nuclear industry. (Carter and Ockwell 2007)

When the Energy Review was published in 2006, it stated that: “Government believes that nuclear has a role to play in the future UK generating mix.” (DTI 2006)

Climate Change: The Comeback (2006-2010) The second significant period for climate change began in 2006 as the issue gained increasing importance for a variety of reasons, both international and domestic. Firstly, was the publication of the Stern report

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in 2006. This report had been commissioned by Gordon Brown with a brief to consider the financial costs of climate change. Nicolas Stern (now Lord Stern) was a respected economist of the British Treasury and his report18 became a reference for any discussion on climate change precisely because its analysis was economic, thereby making more sense for decision-makers. It also gave environmentalist arguments more credibility. In the foreword to Chapter One of this massive report (579 pages), Stern describes climate change as “the greatest example of market failure we have ever seen” (Stern 2006, Part 1, 1) and sets out to prove that the cost of clearing up the damage wrought by climate change if the planet remains on a “business as usual” course would be gigantic: Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the costs of action reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change—can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year. (Stern 2006, Summary of Conclusions vi)

The following year, the IPCC published its 4th report confirming the need to act more quickly on climate change but too late to integrate the Stern Review’s analysis. Reference to it, however, was quickly made in later IPCC meetings (http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session28/inf1.pdf) with certain members recommending that it be integrated into the 5th IPCC report. Within the UK itself, the issue picked up a lot of speed when D. Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party in December 2005 and decided to promote the environment in a way that his party had not done since Mrs Thatcher “discovered” the issue in 1988-198919. At the time, Conservative interest waned rapidly when the political ramifications of environmental policy became clearer and specifically the regulation it would entail. This time, Cameron stuck with the issue by setting up a Quality of Life Group in 2005 whose brief was to prepare “the ground for 18

Full title: Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. Mrs Thatcher made four speeches on the issue during these two years: 27 September 1988, Royal Society, London; 14 October 1988, Conservative Party Congress, Brighton; 7 March 1989 International Ozone Layer Conference, London; 8 November 1989, UN Assemby, New York; July 1989, Economic Summit, Paris. 19

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a fresh policy agenda on key issues including transport and housing, urban planning, the environment and countryside, and energy and climate change” (Conservatives 2005). The report Blueprint for a Green Economy was published two years later and received a favourable reception by many prominent green groups20. Subsequently, however little was heard of it but perhaps more important than this report was the effect D. Cameron’s interest in the environment had on the climate politics of the day. His success in attracting media coverage of his green credentials21, pushed the government to catch up with the green agenda he was setting. The result was good for climate change policy in that this opposition pressure was instrumental in accelerating the passage through parliament of the world’s first climate change legislation with legally binding targets: the Climate Change Act (CCA) of 2008. The legislation was the work of Tony Blair’s last minister for the environment, David Miliband who was principally responsible for the Climate Change Bill having enough legislative time, without which no bill gets through Parliament. The month before the CCA became law, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was created with Ed Miliband (David Miliband’s brother) in control of the finalising of the CCA. This established a fixed set of three carbon budgets for the period 2008-2022 (Table 12-2). Table 12-2: Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Carbon Budgets 2008-2022 (DECC 2013)

Carbon budgets (MtCO2e) Percentage reduction below 1990 levels

20

Budget 1 (2008-12) 3018 22

Budget 2 (2013–17) 2782 28

Budget 3 (2018–22) 2544 34

“Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, WWF, ChristianAid, the Green Alliance, the Renewable Energy Association and many others have issued highly supportive press statements about the report.” (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/green-party-nuclear-report, accessed in September 2011). 21 He used to cycle to work (with his chauffeur-driven car behind him carrying his shoes and briefcases); he made an expedition to the Arctic to witness the effects of climate change and he made an application to install a wind-turbine on his London home.

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The budgets are ambitious and some would say they are impossible to reach (Pielke 2009) but they exist and the government is on track for the first one.

The Greenest Government Ever Following the general elections 2010, a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government was formed on 12th May 2010 and two days later, the new PM, D. Cameron, made the pledge that his government would be the “the greenest government ever” (Guardian 2010). On 20th May, the coalition government made public a Programme for Government (PFG) within which was a section on “Energy and Climate Change” stating that the joint ambition of the two partners in government was “for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy” (HM Government 2010). To carry out this ambition, he appointed a Liberal Democrat (Chris Huhne) as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, at the head of the DECC. This was an important choice given C. Huhne’s record on pushing the climate change issue within his own party and one which sent out a message that the government was serious on making progress22. The first real signs of how serious the government was appeared in the 2011 budget by which time the coalition had had enough time to analyse the economic (and financial) situation. The centre piece of the PM’s claim to be the greenest government ever was to be the creation of a Green Investment Bank (GIB) which would kick start the plans to build a low carbon economy, a premise to any reduction in GHG emissions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) had been a supporter of this bank while in opposition and the idea had been favourably received by green groups since its announcement in the election manifesto23. The principal point of dispute was to how it would be financed. Chris Huhne wanted the GIB to be able to function as any other bank whereas the Treasury preferred it to be simply a fund backed by the government. The crucial point would be whether the bank could borrow and issue (green) bonds which would mean it was independent. This difference of opinion became a major bone of contention between Huhne and the Treasury and the budget announcement in March 2011 made it clear that the Treasury had won: 22 Within the DECC, the Conservative Gregory Barker was appointed Minister of State for Climate Change and was also seen as a supporter of environmental issues within his party. 23 This proposal appeared in the manifestos of each party (Labour/Conservative/ Liberal Democrats/Greens).

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The Government is committed to ensuring that the GIB has the resources to help the UK to move towards a low-carbon economy. This Budget announces that the initial capitalisation of the GIB will be £3 billion and that the GIB will begin operation in 2012-13 […] The Government will enable the GIB to have borrowing powers from 2015-16 and once the target for debt to be falling as a percentage of GDP has been met. (http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget_complete.pdf)

This decision to delay the borrowing powers of the GIB until 2015-16 was heavily criticised for three reasons. Firstly because it jeopardises the government’s own targets for the reduction of GHGs: “A Green Investment Bank operational in late 2012 may not have the time needed to grow and build its balance sheet sufficiently to provide the level of investment support needed to meet 2020 emission reduction and renewable energy targets” (Environmental Audit Committee, 2011). Secondly it gives the wrong signal to investors for low carbon technologies and this was a point made by John Cridland, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)24. Thirdly it ties the opening of the bank to the state of the national debt and this again discourages the levels of investment needed. Indeed, the budget as a whole was considered a black day by environmentalist commentators. George Monbiot called it the “the blackest budget in living memory” (Monbiot 2011), going on to list the anti-environmental measures: It provides a roaring incentive to use more oil, just as we might be heading towards an oil crisis. It has given the green light to the aviation industry to keep expanding, despite the government's promise to limit its impact. It has made a mockery of green investment. (Monbiot 2011)

Here, he is referring to three announcements. Firstly, the expected rise of 4p on a litre of petrol being transformed into a 1p tax cut. Secondly, the shelving of a PFG proposal25 to tax planes instead of people and the 24 “The green investment bank will play an important role in mitigating some of the risks for companies planning major low-carbon investments ... but it should have powers to borrow from the outset to give investors confidence.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/23/budget-2011-georgeosborne-green-bank?intcmp=239). 25 “We will replace Air Passenger Duty with a per-flight duty” (The Coalition: our Programme for Government, HM Government, 2010.). In his budget statement of 2011, G. Osborne claimed that replacing the Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty would be too difficult “given concerns over the legality and feasibility of this approach.” (p.39) but this seems to be in contradiction with a 2010 report from the

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postponement of a rise in Air Passenger Duty seen as a consolatory measure and, thirdly, the aforementioned GIB measures. Set aside this are the recent government changes to the renewable energy sector, a fundamental industry for the reduction of GHG emissions26. Given the weak state of this sector in the UK27, such a decision is surprising. There have, of course, been climate change positives. Measures such as the “Renewable Heat Incentive” (RHI), a scheme to encourage domestic renewable energy or the building of “smart grids”, accompanied by the installation of 30m “smart meters” between 2014 and 2019 will add much to the reduction in GHGs when accomplished. However, looking at the overall climate change picture after one year of coalition government, it does not seem as rosy as when D. Cameron made his green promise on arrival in office.

Politics The question of climate governance has a political as well as a policy dimension. During both Labour and Coalition governments, one of the principal weaknesses has been that of leadership. The climate change issue is one which affects every nook and cranny of government and which at different points in the system will come up against opposition. In the political domain, it is clear that the principal barrier to ambitious climate change policies is the Treasury. The Treasury is often viewed as a Policy Studies Institute (Simon Dresner, A New Basis for Aviation Taxation. A Briefing on the Introduction of an Aviation Tax Based on a Per-Plane Duty, Policy Studies Institute, June 2010). 26 On 9 June 2011, the DECC announced changes to the “feed-in tariff system that allowed owners of solar panels to sell their electricity at a fixed rate. This rate has been reduced for projects over 50KWs which threatens community groups, schools and social housing schemes that have pursued plans for solar PV above 50KW” (J. Porritt, “The Greenest Government Ever”: One Year On, A Report to Friends of the Earth, 2011). 27 The UK is committed to producing 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 (UK Renewable Energy Strategy, 2009). In 2010, the percentage of electricity derived from renewable sources stood at 6.8% (http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/publications/dukes/2309-dukes2011-chapter-7-renewable-sources.pdf). This year, the Pew Foundation revealed that the UK dropped from 5th to 13th place in the league table of countries investing in clean energy, adding the comment: “But 2010 brought a new government to Great Britain, and investors appear to believe that there is a high level of uncertainty about the direction of clean energy policymaking in the country” (Who’s winning the clean energy race?, The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2011).

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somewhat conservative institution which sees its role as keeping a tight rein on the public purse with orthodox, economically liberal budgetary policies. As such, it has always been much more at ease with Conservative governments, historically endowed—in the public imagination at least— with similar qualities. Moreover, the British economic system has long suffered from a form of endemic “short-termism”, incarnated by the interlocking links between the Treasury, the banking system and the Stock Exchange and illustrated by the historic preference for finance and commerce over industry (Hutton 1996, 114). This is a legacy that stretches back to the industrial revolution, a revolution which, though it confirmed Britain’s imperial rule, had to struggle against the “natural” instincts of the country’s élite (119) and which resurfaced in the 1980’s when M. Thatcher’s deregulation policies made “short-termism” a way of life: The Treasury and Bank became the guardians of a financial orthodoxy, trusting in the minimum state and the self-adjusting market system, that lasted from the late 1870s through to the early 1930s and then re-emerged in the 1980s. (124)

This historic situation poses a major problem for climate change policy which needs exactly the opposite, long-term vision if the low carbon economy espoused by both all the political parties is not to remain a political illusion. Given this important obstacle, very decisive leadership on climate change policy is needed by any government to overrule the orthodox reluctance of the Treasury to support public investment and regulation. Since the advent of climate change concern in the UK, such leadership has not been forthcoming. During the New Labour years, the “Granita deal” that divided power between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown hampered this decisive leadership, although it didn’t make it impossible for one of the two to take up the climate mantle. Tony Blair did just this on the international stage, promoting the UK as the world leader on the issue, particularly in 2005 when he presided over the EU and the G8 Summit in Gleneagles28. He was, however, virtually absent in the domestic climate change debate. Gordon Brown, for his part, had other concerns, poverty in particular, during the Blair years and even though it was he who commissioned the Stern Review (2006), no discernible increase in the domestic climate change debate resulted from it. He did, however, carry on the international role of Tony Blair on becoming PM in 2007. 28

It was also the UK, represented by the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, which put climate change on the agenda of the UN Security Council for the first time in 2007.

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On the Coalition side of the equation, D. Cameron has given out mixed messages on climate change. As we have seen, he largely set the domestic agenda on climate change in the period between becoming leader in 2005 and the election in 2010 and his interest was welcomed by the environmental lobby. Moreover, in actively pushing the climate change issue whilst in opposition, he came into government with greener credentials than his predecessors. In 2006, for example, he signed the petition for a Climate Change Bill and supported the campaign, “The Big Ask”, initiated by Friends of the Earth to force a Climate Change Bill through Parliament. In October, he even “published a model climate change bill for the government to adopt” (Friends of the Earth). Later, in the flush of electoral victory and on the same day as he made his “greenest ever government” promise, he pledged the Coalition would reduce the emissions of central government by 10% as a part of the 10:10 campaign, launched in 2009 and this promise was kept29. Less inspiringly, he has needed to step in twice to counter those parts of his party which are less enthusiastic about the targets set for GHG emissions. The first instance concerned the Fourth Carbon Budget for the period 2023-2027, that is the official domestic target of the British government as advised by the Climate Change Committee (CCC)30. The CCC published its targets in 2010 and the government was legally obliged to accept, or refuse, these targets set out in the “Domestic Action Budget” by June 2011: “It limits emissions over the period 2023-2027 to 1950 MtCO2e (average 390 MtCO2e a year). It embodies an emissions cut of 50% in 2025 below 1990 levels (32% below 2009 levels)” (Climate Group). Given the total amount of MtCO2e in 2009 stood at 556.3 MtCO2e , this would be a considerable achievement. This target became the subject of intense discussion and disagreement within the government as to the economic feasibility of such a stringent target in the context of the recent financial crisis and, as such, an example of the classic opposition between the environment and the economy. On the one side was the DECC (Chris Huhne), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (William Hague) and DEFRA (Caroline Spelman) against the Treasury (George Osborne), the BIS, or Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable) and the DFT (John Hammond). The positioning of Vince Cable, highly respected 29

On 9 July 2012 it was announced that this promise had been kept with government CO2 emissions declining by well over 10% (13.8%) leading to a £13 million reduction in energy bills. As a result of this, a new target of 25% reduction of CO2 has been programmed for 2015. 30 The CCC is the government’s official advisory body which was created by the CCA 2008. (http://www.theccc.org.uk/home)

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member of the Liberal Democrats, was a sign of this deep division on climate change policy within the Cabinet. The decision of D. Cameron was therefore seen as vital to the government’s credibility on the issue and when it was announced that the government would accept the CCC’s recommendations, the relief within the green lobby was palpable, albeit with caveats (WWF). The second instance illustrated the depth of climate scepticism31 in his party and particularly his MEP group within which it transpired there were several Conservatives reluctant to follow their leader on the climate issue. The question of climate scepticism within the Conservative Party is not new and was first championed by two Peers of the Realm, Lord Lawson of Blaby and Viscount Monckton of Brenchley32; the first an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer under M. Thatcher, the second an ex-Number 10 Policy Unit researcher, also under M.Thatcher. In 2005, Lord Lawson wrote an article criticising the Kyoto Agreement and demanded that the IPCC be “shut down” (Lawson 2005). In 2008, he informed the House of Lords that “there has been no warming so far this century at all”33, the year before he founded a climate sceptic think-tank, “The Global Warming Policy Foundation”. Lord Monckton is presently joint deputy leader of the UK Independence Party and has made similar radical statements, claiming global warming is the “largest fraud of all time” and a “sci-fi panic”34. More recently, in 2009, alongside an article by a prominent member of Cameron’s shadow cabinet (David Davis35) questioning the reality of global warming, an editorial in The Independent newspaper claimed that “there are a lot of sceptics about, and they are over-represented among Conservatives.”36 In 2010, however, such statements were more damaging as the Conservatives were the dominant partner in a coalition government and signed up to an ambitious climate change agenda. So when internal climate scepticism reared its head again, it was a great embarrassment to the PM. This happened on 5 July 2011, when the group of Conservative 31

http://www.u.tv/news/The-bloody-fight-for-the-green-soul-of-the-Conservativeparty/c03d3a9a-2385-4cb3-be93-3b94b7b67cb3. 32 Lord Monckton is deputy leader of the UK Independence Party since 2010 and is also the brother in law of Dominic Lawson, Lord Lawson’s son. 33 http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/81 117 -0006.htm. 34 http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/christopher-monckton. 35 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-davis-why-this-fero cious-desire-to-impose-hairshirt-policies-1832213.html. 36 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-cameronsclimate-conundrum-1832157.html.

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MEPs at the EU Parliament were instrumental in defeating a proposal to reinforce the targets for GHG reductions from 20% to 30% by 2020, a proposal already agreed upon between the Coalition partners37. Given the PM’s attempts to prevent such an outcome, his green credentials were tarnished even more. The partner in the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats, found themselves having to put their longstanding climate change ideas38 into practice in a position of political weakness. Not only did they have less MPs than the Conservatives but in the post-1997 Blair years when the Conservatives were in such disarray, they appeared to have missed the opportunity to replace them as the official opposition, a point made by C. Secrett, exdirector of Friends of the Earth, in 2007: But it looks as if the Liberal Democrats have blown their chance to fill the vacuum, and must watch from the sidelines as Cameron wraps himself and his resurgent party in their green policy clothes. (http://www.greenalliance.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Publications/AGreenerShadeOfBlue.pdf)

This meant that, on entering the Coalition, they were playing catch-up with Conservatives on their strongest subject. Moreover, they had to swallow some unpalatable decisions in various areas of government policy (tuition fees, spending cuts, aviation tax…), eating away at their credibility on climate change and on other matters. When it did come to climate change, their two most prominent representatives in the coalition, Chris Huhne and Vincent Cable were considerable disappointments to the party’s rank and file. In the field of energy, for example, the Liberal Democrats had always supported renewable energy as an environmental alternative to coal and gas while staunchly refusing the nuclear alternative of which Chris Huhne was particularly critical. When the same Chris Huhne began to support it as Secretary of State39, all the Liberal Democrats suffered from the fallout40. Vincent Cable was also a disappointment, as we have seen when he sided with the Treasury in opposing the CCC’s fourth carbon budget (see above) and in the face of 37

The Coalition: Our Programme for Government, HM Government, 2010. See B. Prendiville, 2010, op.cit. 39 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100050057/how-could-we-possibly -have-thought-chris-huhne-was-anti-nuclear/ 40 This U-turn was compounded with disturbing stories concerning a possible cover-up involving Chris Huhne over the reality of the nuclear accident in Japan at Fukushima. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/01/huhne-fukushima-emailscriticism) 38

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these U-turns, it seemed their leader, Nick Clegg, was incapable of providing any discourse on climate change policy that was different to that of the PM. All the parties therefore have had leadership problems in terms of the climate change agenda but for different reasons. The Liberal Democrats because of a gradual loss of identity within the coalition and the Labour Party because its two PMs were not over-concerned with the domestic climate policy agenda, preferring the international stage where commitments are few. The Conservative Party’s problem was more a question of the leader’s authority and ability to impose his will. It seems clear that Cameron is not a leader in the Thatcherite mould, that is one who leads from the front with others following, or falling by the wayside. His authority is of a softer kind, in public at least, only intervening when in need. Domestically, he has managed to win the argument on climate policy but he has found it more difficult with his party members in Europe. More widely, he too has been criticised for not fulfilling a leadership role, by the ex-chief scientific advisor to Tony Blair’s Labour government: There is, again, a leadership vacuum among heads of states on this issue, just as there was in the early 2000s. Will David Cameron step up to the plate, please? Prime minister, will you take your stated credentials as [wanting to lead] the “greenest government ever” into the global arena?41

Conclusion As we have seen, the indicators of climate change, in Britain as elsewhere, are becoming ever clearer and seem to be increasing public awareness of the consequences of climate change and the need for individual, behavioural change. The obstacles to collective, governmentled change are, however, not so clear and a parallel can be drawn here between the Blair-Brown governments and today’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. The New Labour governments of Blair and Brown were the first to show an understanding of the gravity of climate change and the initial policy responses (e.g. CCL) were sharp and decisive. However, in the face of opposition, the Blair government did not maintain this determination. Similarly, the present coalition government has retreated from the “greenest government ever” stance of the PM in the immediate aftermath of electoral victory. The most recent example of this

41

http://chimalaya.org/2011/07/02/david-cameron-must-speak-out-on-climate-change -says-top-scientist/.

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dampening of governmental desire is the attack by the Chancellor, George Osborne, on the environmental agenda as a whole: […] at the Tory conference in Manchester this week, George Osborne for the first time publicly attacked green laws and regulation as “piling costs on to energy bills” and appeared to abandon earlier aspirations of leadership for the UK in the low-carbon economy. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/06/david-camerongreen-agenda-fades?intcmp=122)

In environmental matters, all three major parties, it would seem, tend to buckle under the first signs of opposition, be it from the public, the Treasury or caucuses within their own parties. More fundamentally, when the chips are down, as they definitely are during the present financial crisis, the environment always loses out to traditional growth policies even if these same policies, as many environmentalists would maintain, represent a major contribution to greenhouse gas production. This creates a form of climatic double bind which each of the three parties, Liberal Democrats included, seem unable, or unwilling, to solve. That is, the dominant neo-liberal model of today feeds on economic growth which in turn accelerates the likelihood of the planet going beyond the 2° centigrade rise in global temperatures mentioned in the introduction. Moreover, the present financial crisis has pushed climate change concerns even further down the list of governmental priorities leaving the environmentalist lobby with a formidable challenge: how to remind the powers that be that global warming cannot be put on hold while the world leaders solve the financial crisis.

References Carter, Neil and David Ockwell. New Labour, New Environment? An Analysis of the Labour Government's Policy on Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss. http://celp.org.uk/projects/foe/docs/fullreportfinal.pdf). http://www.2020climategroup.org.uk/files/Executive_Summary_4thBudget_2-FINAL.PDF, accessed in September 2011. Conservative Party. 09-12-2005. “Cameron Launches Quality of Life Policy Group.” http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2005/12/Cameron_ launches_Quality_of_Life_Policy_Group.aspx, accessed in September 2011.

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—. September 2007. Blueprint for a Green Economy. Submission to the Shadow Cabinet, Quality of Life Policy Group (Chairman, Rt Hon John Gummer MP, Vice-Chairman, Zac Goldsmith) London: Conservative Party. DECC (Department for the Environment and Climate Change). www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/lc_uk/carbon_budgets/ carbon_budgets.aspx, accessed in September 2011. DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). October 2002. Survey of public attitudes to quality of life and to the environment – 2001. London : DEFRA Publications. http://archive.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/pubatt/dow nload/survey2001.pdf, accessed in September 2011. Department of Trade and Industry. 2006. The Energy Challenge: Energy Review Report. London. http://www.dtistats.net/ereview/energy_review_report.pdf, accessed in September 2011. Environmental Audit Committee. 2011. The Green Investment Bank, HC 505. London: The Stationery Office Limited. Friends of the Earth. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefing_notes/history_of_the_big_ask. pdf, accessed in September 2011. Helm Dieter & al. 2007. Too Good To Be True? The UK’s Climate Change Record. http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/sites/default/files/Carbon_record_2007.p df, accessed in September 2011. HM Government. 2010. The Coalition: Our Programme for Government. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/coalition-documents, accessed in September 2011. Monbiot, George. 23-03-2011. “Budget 2011: George Osborne’s Plans are a Disaster for the Environment.” The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/mar/23/b udget-green-fuel-duty-planning, accessed in September 2011. Lawson, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2005/11/againstkyoto/. Parliament UK. November 1999. Pre-Budget Report. Cm 4479. In Taxation of road fuels: the road fuel escalator (1993-2000), Standard Note: SN/BT/3015. http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN03015, accessed in September 2011. Pielke Jr, Roger A. 2009. “The British Climate Change Act: A Critical Evaluation and Proposed Alternative Approach.” In Environmental Research Letters 4.

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Porritt, Jonathon. 2011. “’The Greenest Government Ever’: One Year On, A Report to Friends of the Earth.” http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/greenest_gvt_ever.pdf, accessed in September 2011. Prendiville, Brendan. 2000. “New Labour et l'environnement : une 3ème voie?”, Le New Labour : rupture ou continuité ?”. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Prendiville, Brendan. 2012. “UK General elections 2010: The Environment”. In Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Quality of Life Policy Group. September 2007. Blueprint for a Green Economy. London: Conservative Party. Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution. 2000. Energy - The Changing Climate, 22nd report, Cm 4794. London: The Stationery Office. Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm, accessed in September 2011. The Guardian. 08-03-2001. “Green campaigners angry at £1.7bn ‘budget for truckers.’” The Guardian. 14-05-2010. “Cameron Wants the Greenest Government Ever.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/14/cameron-wantsgreenest-government-ever, accessed in September 2011. Thornton, Alex. 2009. Public Attitudes and Behaviours towards the Environment - Tracker Survey: A Report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. London : TNS, Defra. http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/report-attitudesbehaviours2009.pdf, accessed in September 2011. WWF. http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/?4939/WWFUK---reaction-to-4th-Carbon-Budget-decision, accessed in September 2011.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL WARMING IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE THE SUPREME COURT’S MASSACHUSETTS V. EPA RULING (2007) ELIANE LIDDELL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR PERPIGNAN UNIVERSITY

Introduction We French look disapprovingly at U.S. climate politics. As early as 1997 the United States notoriously refused to abide by the Kyoto protocol1 and has ever since conspicuously shown its lack of leadership in international climate negotiations. No wonder: nationally, climate legislation is almost non-existent. Paradoxically, the country has always been in the lead concerning climate science and in sounding the alarm. As early as 1977, President Jimmy Carter commissioned a report on climate disruption to the National Academy of Sciences. The Charney Report was published in 1979. It concluded that “a wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late” (Speth 2004, 3). The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was created in 1988, partly as a consequence of the official warning sent by NASA climatologist James Hansen, a top scientist who has tirelessly written about the dangers of anthropogenic global warming. Other prominent research organizations that sent early warnings include NOAA (the 1

The Senate voted a unanimous resolution to refuse to ratify the treaty in 1997. President Clinton signed it in 1998 without seeking ratification by the Senate. Finally President Bush withdrew completely from the negotiations in 2001.

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), NRC (National Research Council), and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The country is also prone to extreme weather events such as floods, huge storms, hurricanes and extreme droughts such as the one that gripped Texas in 2011, all of which have enhanced Americans’ awareness of the vulnerability of their natural environment. And the expression “dustbowls of the future,” now commonly used to allude to future storms and droughts, exerts a powerful hold on the American imagination, as a haunting reminder of the tragedy of the 1930s in the Great Plains. People are all too aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of climate disruption. So why does national climate action remain largely in gridlock today in the United States? The most obvious reason, often quoted, is that it is paralyzed by a real tug-of-war between industrial lobbies and would-be climate legislators. One need only observe the amount of disinformation present in the media. The “denialosphere,” or so-called contrarians, funded by powerful lobbies, is very active, spreading misleading information or even plain nonsense2. In an attempt to rein in contrarian media rhetoric, University of California science history professor Naomi Oreskes compiled hundreds of climate science articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1993 and 2003 and testified that not one rejected the basic consensus that warming is caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Following her study, Oreskes was violently attacked in the media3.

2

Here is an example: every scientist knows that CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, which is why forests are major carbon sinks, “digesting” the carbon in the atmosphere. But the process called “carbon starvation” is also well-known as being one of the reasons why climate change is so dangerous: photosynthesis shuts down in strong heat and drought and plant growth drops. But on Earth Day in April 1998, the Western Fuels Association formed a new front group called the Greening Earth Society to promote “positive environmental thinking” and reposition CO2 emissions not as a threat but as a boon to mankind. After all, CO2 was “a benign gas required for life on Earth” and “an amazing effective aerial fertilizer” so global warming would leave the planet healthier and happier by increasing crop yields and making trees, plants, and vegetables grow faster. “Every time you turn your car on and you burn fossil fuels and you put CO2 into the air, Palmer said, you’re doing the work of the Lord” (Pooley 2010, 43). 3 In 2010, she published an important book exposing the strategies employed to cast doubt on the most serious scientific research: Oreskes, Naomi & Conway, Erik. 2010. Merchants of Doubt. How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth

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Political ideologies are also involved. Climate action has turned politically polarized and has degenerated into a climate war between Republicans, especially free-market fundamentalists, and Democrats. It would be wrong though to put all the blame on the Republicans. Some Democrats from coal states are on the side of the climate deniers. And the Clinton era did not advance the cause much either: Bill Clinton certainly did not put his weight behind it. It was he who issued an executive order forcing administrative agencies to adopt a cost-benefit approach to any regulation. As a result, many agencies such as the Department of Transportation4, have tried to enforce regulations but have done a very poor job of it because the uncertainties surrounding climate change mean that it is hard to calculate its exact costs to society5. The issue is compounded by the fact that there is also a tug-of-war within the environmental movement itself. Some mainstream organizations based in Washington D.C. have embraced the idea of securing partnerships with industry and believe that only a market-based solution will put the fight against warming on the right track. They talk about win-win solutions, BAU (business as usual) and advocate carbon trading as the only sound policy, based on incremental progress. Their main organization, EDF, the Environmental Defense Fund, is strongly supported by Al Gore. EDF’s most fiery foe is the radical environmentalist movement, “the enviros” as they are called defiantly: the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and a myriad of green groups that adamantly reject “cap and trade,” the other name for emissions trading, which they simply call “the right to pollute.” Radical environmentalists believe in a confrontational fight with industry, strict regulations, closing down coal-fired power plants6 built without CO2 sequestration and taxing carbon emissions. They are supported by James Hansen and countless other top scientists. On all sides, the aggressiveness between the various protagonists knows no limits. In an apocalyptic book published in 2009, James Hansen, the scientist turned activist, writes: on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury Press. 4 It issues the CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) which are minimum requirements for a carmaker’s entire fleet. 5 See Masur, Jonathan S. and Posner, Eric A. 2010. “Climate Regulation and the Limits of Cost Benefit Analysis”. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1662147. 6 Coal is used for nearly half the production of electricity in the United States.

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Chapter Thirteen The stakes in the policy adopted for energy and climate are too great to be based on a sum of political compromises. The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism –the time for compromises and appeasement is over (Hansen 2009, 211).

This kind of gloom and doom rhetoric laced with political horror threats is obviously rejected by run-of-the mill politicians ensconced in a web of hard-won alliances. The core problem lies with the American system of government based on compromise and “checks and balances,” a timeconsuming process which at best leads to incremental progress, while climate hawks are calling for an urgent spiritual and structural revolution: “Working only within the system will, in the end, not succeed when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself” (Speth 2008, 86)7. In order to understand the entanglement of climate policies, this article will first review the chain of events starting from the ruling of the Supreme Court in 2007, Massachusetts v. EPA, considered a landmark decision: for the first time, the high court recognized the threat of humanmade global warming. The year 2007 held much promise: Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth had been released the year before; the IPCC published its landmark Fourth Assessment Report, and polls showed most Americans paying attention to the issue. A mood of optimism prevailed. Paul Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World, published that year, anticipated a time of transformation and peace. And yet, only five years later, public awareness is on the wane, and the mood among environmentalists has turned to disappointment tinged with cynicism and soul-searching8. Given the present state of disarray, the Massachusetts ruling appears all the more significant, leading us to wonder whether the American judicial branch could show the way out of the shambles. Can it fulfill the promise of being the branch that will shake Congress out of its inertia to address such a pressing issue at last?

7

See also, among a rich literature on the subject, Fagan, Brian. 2008. The Great Warming. Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. New York: Bloomsbury. 8 See Bomberg, Elizabeth & Schlosberg, David (eds). 2008. Environmentalism in the United States. Changing Conceptions of Activism. London & New York: Routledge.

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The Landmark Massachusetts v. EPA Ruling The Environmental Protection Agency, commonly called EPA, is a semi-independent executive agency created under President Nixon in 1970. It is one of the most important federal agencies in Washington D.C. and is headed by an administrator designated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The case started in 1999. Nineteen environmental organizations (including the Sierra club, Friends of the Earth, EDF and the National Resources Defense Council) petitioned, and then sued EPA, arguing that greenhouse gases should be classified as air pollutants and therefore regulated by the agency under the Clean Air Act. More specifically, according to the petitioners, EPA had the duty to control the emissions of new motor vehicles. When the DC district Court declined to review the case, it went on appeal. The petitioners were joined by the state of Massachusetts, soon followed by eleven other states, together with New York City, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Massachusetts was on the front line, arguing it had suffered an injury, as its coastline was being modified by the rise in sea level due to global warming. EPA was joined by ten different states intent on defending their economic interests based on oil, coal and car manufacturing, and some lobbies such as the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Under President Bush’s tutelage, the agency was very weak, regulating as little as possible. In fact “the agency was busy preparing a finding of endangerment but it was stopped at top level.”9 The Supreme Court delivered its decision in April 2007. Much to everyone’s surprise, since the Roberts court was known to be conservative, it held that EPA had the authority and obligation to determine whether CO2 was dangerous, and if it was indeed a danger, it had the duty to regulate Greenhouse gases (GHGs). It was a clear rebuke of Bush’s policy. But why was it a landmark decision? To begin with, for the first time it appeared that climate change was a federal problem, not just one left to the states or cities to deal with locally. One of the amici of the court supporting the petitioners had been the United States Conference of Mayors. They had argued that the federal

9

From author’s interview on August 15, 2011 with EPA climate change expert in Washington. EPA accordingly asserted in 2003 that it had no duty to regulate greenhouse gases, arguing that the latter could not be considered as pollutants since they were not directly dangerous to human health.

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government’s failure to regulate greenhouse gases was forcing local governments to bear the cost of responding to climate change. It also had a huge jurisprudential impact on other lawsuits pending at the time. In 2002, California had voted a law to drastically reduce their GHG emissions and launched a Clean Tech revolution: hybrid cars and massive investments in renewable energy. Seventeen states representing about half the American population followed their example. The car industry decided to sue these states, arguing that federal law preempted state laws, and that different binding emission standards were unmanageable for them. As a consequence of the Massachusetts ruling, all the lawsuits were nullified. Indeed, it was considered that if GHGs were soon to be declared dangerous by EPA, states had the right to protect their populations by regulating in advance. In December 2007, the EPA administrator, under the influence of President Bush, tried to put his veto on Californian regulations as being too far ahead of the federal regulations to come. But the backlash in California was forceful and immediate: Governor Schwarzenegger threatened to sue the Bush-controlled EPA if it interfered in Californian affairs. So, indirectly the role of the states in combating climate change was reinforced by the Supreme Court ruling. The strength of the ruling owed much to the language of the Court. The decision was split 5-4 and the ideas developed by the judges were to be a precious guide for future litigation concerning climate dilemmas and damage. The arguments against the petitioners were strong, almost irrefutable: under Article III of the Constitution (Cases and Controversies Clause in Article III of the Constitution ), the exercise of judicial power must follow the “standing” requirements based on injury, causation and redressability. Chief Justice Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion in which he stated that domestic automobile emissions were a tiny part of global greenhouse gas emissions and the linkage between those emissions and Massachusetts’ coastal loss was “far too speculative to establish causation.” Redressability was also at issue. As if mirroring the leading argument of the Senate when it had refused the Kyoto protocol, Justice Roberts wrote in his dissent: Developing countries such as China and India are poised to increase greenhouse gas emissions substantially over the next century, so the domestic emissions at issue may become an increasingly marginal portion of global emissions, and any decreases produced by petitioners’ desired

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standards are likely to be overwhelmed many times over by emissions increases elsewhere in the world.

Another dissenting opinion was written by Judge Scalia who challenged the notion of GHGs as pollutants in the traditional sense of the word, since heat-trapping gases exert their influence in the atmosphere, not near the earth. Undoubtedly the harm wreaked by GHGs is slow and mostly invisible, and the longevity of carbon means that it is spread evenly around the world and varies for each country according to the length of time considered. Furthermore, a country’s climate depends on the emissions of the world as a whole. Finding culprits, as the judicial system does, may appear completely inappropriate. Therefore, these dissenting arguments represented a tremendous challenge for the judges who had decided to vote in favor of climate action. Judge Stevens wrote the Opinion of the Court (opinion of the majority). He first astutely distanced himself from partisan politics by pegging his discourse to neutral scientific knowledge. He wrote: The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized. The Government’s own objective assessment of the relevant science and a strong consensus among qualified experts indicate that global warming threatens, inter alia, a precipitate rise in sea levels, severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems, a significant reduction in winter snowpack with direct and important economic consequences, and increases in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events. That these changes are widely shared does not minimize Massachusetts’ interest in the outcome of this litigation.

And then he delivered a firm rebuke to the dominant idea that the United States is morally entitled not to do anything about global warming because the real culprits are China and India: Reducing domestic automobile emissions is hardly a tentative step. Even leaving aside the other greenhouse gases, the United States transportation sector emits an enormous quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere— according to the MacCracken affidavit, more than 1.7 billion metric tons in 1999 alone. That accounts for more than 6% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. To put this in perspective: Considering just emissions from the transportation sector, which represent less than one-third of this country’s total carbon dioxide emissions, the United States would still rank as the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, outpaced only by the European Union and China. […] A reduction in domestic emissions would

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This was a clear break away from the moral complacency attached to the usual discourse heard in official forums. The judges were intent on delivering a message to Congress and the President. Indeed, a sense of urgency was present in the judicial opinion: “The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real. That risk would be reduced to some extent if petitioners received the relief they seek.” This firm language may well have been a way for the judges to tell Congress that something was amiss and that urgent solutions had to be found. As Eric Pooley recounts: Suddenly the argument on Capitol Hill was not over whether or not to confront the climate problem, but over how best to do so. If Congress didn’t come up with a purpose-built system featuring a mandatory declining cap and emissions trading, EPA would step in with regulation that industry wouldn’t like one bit. (Pooley 2010, 167)

The idea was that corporations would rather deal with a carbon trading law than face onerous command-and-control regulations devised by an administrative agency. And for environmentalists, the risk was that EPA working on its own could be tied up in the courts for years, either by being sued by corporations unwilling to abide by the rules or by having to sue them to obtain compliance10. In other words, the ruling had the effect of nudging Congress towards getting into action: a clear and robust climate law was urgently needed. But as it happened, not so urgently after all. For two years after the ruling, under President Bush, EPA prevaricated and didn’t budge. No finding of endangerment of GHGs was announced. And despite some goodwill on the part of some corporations, no climate bill was seriously considered in Congress. All the squabbling and disagreements among environmentalists didn’t help either11. But then a change occurred.

10

EPA has a long history of winning in courts. But its success has declined sharply. See E.Pooley 2010, 59. For a good summary of EPA’s action, see Andrews, Richard N.L. 2006. Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves. A History of American Environmental Policy. Yale University Press. 11 See for example “The Real Climategate: Why Are Some Environmental Groups Pushing Policies That Will Make Global Warming Worse?” by Hari, Johann. 2010. The Nation.

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A Glimmer of Hope for Environmentalists After his election in 2008, Barack Obama designated Lisa Jackson as head of EPA, a nomination that marked a reversal in the agency’s policy. An article published in the Wall Street Journal in October 2008 revealed the panic running through some of the business community: Obama plans to issue an ultimatum on Congress: either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.[…] The EPA hasn’t made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the US economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn’t exactly say it’d collectivize the farms – but pretty close. The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of “lawn and garden equipment” as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats. Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy. Coal-fired power and other fossil fuels would be ruled out of existence, while all other prices would rise as the huge economic costs of the new regime were passed down the energy chain to consumers. (Wall Street Journal 2008)

The journalist tapped into the American anti-tax, anti-big government theme and raised the fear of government overreach. Another tactic employed by the business lobbies consisted in reviving a spirit of resentment between the states, as shown in this other excerpt from the same Wall Street Journal article: The burden of a carbon clampdown will fall disproportionately on some states over others, especially the 25 interior states that get more than 50% of their electricity from coal. Rustbelt manufacturing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania will get hit hard too.

In other words, a rich elite is supposedly waging war against poor states, especially those belonging to the Rustbelt, the stricken car-manufacturing region with its struggling population and high unemployment. In the face of such arguments, the climate bill was doomed almost from the start, even under Obama’s charismatic guidance. Lisa Jackson courageously refused to be intimidated. In December 2009, EPA announced that it had classified GHGs as dangerous air pollutants and that new regulations would be implemented. Meanwhile, discussions were reactivated in Congress and in June 2009, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade climate bill, with Al Gore’s strong support. But the measures were the result of so much

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compromise that James Hansen described it as a counterfeit climate bill and a monstrosity. The bill never went ahead. The Senate, making full use of its arcane filibuster rules, would not vote it. Obama was by then embroiled in the health care issue and decided to keep a low profile on climate change. Following this legislative failure, EPA was left to its own devices, awkwardly relying only on the old Clean Air Act to seek to control heattrapping emissions. Lisa Jackson knew she was in for a great fight12. In June 2010, forty eight senators demanded the repeal of EPA classification of GHGs. The call was narrowly defeated by the Senate. In April 2011, this time it was the Republican-controlled House of Representatives that voted to halt the EPA program regulating industrial air emissions. But President Obama threatened to veto any measure restricting EPA’s authority. To many, these strategies looked like a maneuver to make Obama take the blame for the mess climate regulation was in. The Economist magazine commented: “In Congress, discussing global warming is no longer about legislating, it is electioneering.” (The Economist 2011, 47) In this incredibly conflictual atmosphere, where federal climate policy was teetering towards a near-total deadlock, a glimmer of hope unexpectedly appeared and it once again came from the Supreme Court. In June 2011, the Court reaffirmed its landmark Massachusetts ruling: it was EPA’s responsibility to address global warming. It said so in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, a case in which five electric utilities using coal were sued by six states and New York City for contributing to global warming. The Supreme Court indicated that forcing industries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions could not be a judicial decision per se. It was up to EPA, as an expert agency, to do so. At last EPA has started implementing new regulations, tightening fossil fuel rules. But whether this will go very far remains to be seen.

Desperately Looking for a Way to the Future Federal policy is in disarray, just at a time when scientists are warning that we are approaching the tipping-point beyond which dangerous global

12

In February 2011, Lisa Jackson was summoned before a Senate committee and aggressively interrogated (“grilled”) on her policies, by climate sceptical Republicans. See “Heated but hollow” in The Economist, February 12, 2011, p. 47.

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warming effects cannot be mitigated13. So what governance pattern could break through the deadlock? A first path evoked by many and cherished by Americans is to put our faith in the grassroots. States and cities have an aggressive approach and are now at the forefront of the climate battle, sending strong warnings that solutions have to be found anyhow. Here is a recent Washington Post commentary: After the federal government failed to pass legislation imposing nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions, several environmental groups have shifted more resources to the state and local levels. “We’re putting our faith in local communities to protect public health and promote clean energy,” Michael Brune (head of the Sierra Club) said. “Congress has failed to do the job on that. We’re confident local communities can do the job where Congress hasn’t.” (Washington Post 2011)

Indeed individual states like California, cities and regions are taking the lead, setting up carbon reduction programs. Local actions are in some areas quite remarkable. For example, 1015 city governments representing more than 80 million Americans have adopted the goals of the Kyoto protocol through the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. One might say that the bottom-up approach has often worked better in American traditions than ill-conceived federal laws. So the theory goes: it doesn’t really matter if Congress is unable to pass a climate law. True, but federal inaction also means a president who is weak in international negotiations, unable to bring serious proposals to the world table and pledge to reduce U.S. carbon emissions effectively. In view of the carbon legacy of the western world (see Table), America—the selfproclaimed “city upon a hill”—cannot expect China and India to make big efforts if the U.S. refuses to lead the way14. And local action is piecemeal and parochial. Because the effects of climate change are uneven, policies are likely to be tied to the gravity of local impact, which is very unfair since carbon emissions are dispersed throughout the entire atmosphere.

13 The main danger, almost invisible, comes from the feedbacks, or dangerous retroactions, that can cause snowball effects. 14 The atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide is in the order of 50-200 years (uncertainty remaining). CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today could influence the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for up to two centuries to come.

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Data sources: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and British Petroleum. http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/UpdatedFigures/

A second possibility of action is represented by the bully pulpit15: the president uses his charismatic authority in the media to force Congress into action or else take action himself. With its inherent principle of checks and balances, conducive of slow processes, the American political system is not well-suited to any problem of huge proportion and urgency. Strong leadership and a real political will are needed. A Rooseveltian New Deal ought to be embraced: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself, yes we can!” So why isn’t Barack Obama using his power of persuasion to stop the lobbies’ vested interests? It is claimed that the economic crisis and budget deficit preclude this option. But this short-sighted argument fails to take into consideration the huge extra costs of climate inaction. A more plausible answer is to be found in what could be called the Jimmy Carter syndrome. After a second oil crisis hit America in 1979, Jimmy Carter delivered a forceful TV address to the nation which came to be known as the Malaise Speech, or else “Crisis of confidence speech”: 15

From Merriam Webster Dictionary, “Bully pulpit” comes from the 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, who observed that the White House was a bully pulpit. For Roosevelt, "bully" was an adjective meaning "excellent" or "firstrate"—not the noun “bully” that’s so common today.

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I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.

This radical speech sent shockwaves through public opinion, angering oiladdicted Americans. The president’s approval rating then fell to a record low and he was not reelected. For presidents, the risk of delivering any kind of “malaise speech” is simply too high for their chance to be elected16. Climate change could indeed prove to be the most dangerous subject in political campaigns. Finally, a third possibility of action, expounded by many environmentalists, is to put one’s faith in the judicial branch, because federal judges are appointed for life and are thus independent. The Massachusetts ruling was a public nuisance case based on tort litigation. Two prominent class action lawsuits are pending in the courts: Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil seeking to recover the cost of relocation for the Alaskan community displaced by rising waters; Comer v. Murphy Oil against oil, coal and chemical companies, concerning the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, arguing that the companies had exacerbated climate change by not using “available mitigation technologies”. But other possibilities could be offered by the American judicial system. Let us just consider another strong form of litigation, namely civil rights actions. According to the Fourteenth Amendment, laws must provide equal protection to all persons. Environmentalists argue that this basic tenet gives protection to future generations. James Hansen, for instance, asks the question: “Are my grandchildren included in the “any person”17 of the Fourteenth Amendment? A positive answer is obvious.”18. Some legal scholars have also argued in favor of atmospheric trust litigation (ATL). Public trust is an ancient doctrine according to which government has a duty of care for shared natural resources such as waterways, beaches, or the air we breathe. In May 2011, a coalition of 16

See also The President's Proposed Energy Policy by Jimmy Carter (televised speech on April 18, 1977) as an example of a radical plan which fell on deaf ears 35 years ago. Will it be heard now? 17 Excerpt from the Fourteenth Amendment: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”. 18 Ibid., Storms… p. 293.

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groups called Our Children’s Trust started various public trust lawsuits against the federal government and all fifty states19, arguing that governments have a duty to hold the atmosphere in public trust for future generations. So far, the outcome of all these actions remains highly uncertain. And even if these lawsuits succeed, one may wonder whether declaratory and injunction reliefs issued by the courts will be followed by effective policies. The example of the Massachusetts ruling should serve as a sobering lesson: years later, EPA has only tentatively started implementing its new rules. However, Massachusetts can be interpreted in the light of another historic ruling, Brown v. Topeka Board of education. Racial integration was indeed started by the Supreme Court in 1954 but had to wait another decade before civil rights laws were passed by Congress. It took that long to mature in minds. Today civil rights are widely accepted and the Brown ruling has been elevated to the status of an icon of the social revolution, ignoring the fact that for many ensuing years, the ruling remained almost dead letter, as David M.O’Brien well explained: Brown’s moral appeal amounted to little more than an invitation for delay. […] With no federal leadership, implementation of Brown was deliberately slow and uneven. Ruby martin, an attorney for the U.S. Commission on Civil rights in the early 1960s, has recalled that ‘the work of the lawyers from 1954 to 1964 resulted in two percent of the Negro kids in the Southern states attending schools with white students’. (O’Brien 1990, 338)

Likewise, the full implications of Massachusetts could take years to come to light, an undercurrent eventually bringing broad social change20.

19 See Mank, Bradford C. 2008. “Standing and Future Generations: Does Massachusetts v. EPA Open Standing for Generations to Come?” in Columbia Journal of Environmental Law Vol. 34:1. 101-188. 20 This may seem too long but slow and profound change is better than artificial green washing. Let’s not forget that the gravity of climate change has only dawned in people’s conscience recently. In 2007, environmental historian Carolyn Merchant still defined global warming as just an idea: “the idea that the earth’s surface temperature is gradually rising, owing to industrial processes that raise atmospheric gas levels, trapping heat below.” In American Environmental History. An Introduction, Columbia University Press, 2007, p. 236.

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Conclusion While there does not seem to be any ready-made process for tackling the climate change issue, the judicial arena has come to stand in the United States as a promising forum. Unsurprisingly, many American environmentalists like to compare the fight against climate change to the epic struggle for civil rights. They see global warming as a tremendous spiritual awakening, questioning the roots of the American carbon intensive way of life. Such a reappraisal shatters old habits and may partly explain why Americans are taking so long to meet the challenge. Climate exceptionalism could indeed mean that American culture will have to reinvent itself, just as it did with racial integration21. Independent judicial bodies—the U.S. Supreme Court crowning them all—have lately assumed the role of beacons in the climate fog. They seem one of the most appropriate instruments to light the way to action requiring such a broad cultural shift.

References Andrews, Richard. 2006. Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves, a History of American Environmental Policy. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Bomberg, Elizabeth, and David Schlosberg (ed). 2008. Environmentalism in the United States. Changing Conceptions of Activism. London & New York: Routledge.

21

Americans are focused, probably more than Europeans, on industrial solutions. When Europeans think of climate change mostly as a personal habit-changing force, focusing on fuel saving in transport and home heating, most Americans externalize the problem and put the blame on corporations, demanding redress and accountability. This phenomenon is probably due to a combination of factors, among which: the fact that Congress is not moving, the sheer force of industrial lobbies to counterweigh, the importance of emissions by coal-fired plants. But the American approach is so far not yielding results. Why? True, vested interests are all-powerful but they derive their main power from the attitudes of their customers. Shouldn’t the two approaches, confrontational political action and soul-searching change of lifestyle, often depicted as at odds, reinforce each other? Americans cannot expect to win in courts, close down coal plants, stop oil drilling, have strong business regulations passed, if they themselves, in their daily life, are not yet prepared to hear and respond positively to any “malaise speech”.

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Fagan, Brian. 2008. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. New York: Bloomsbury. Hansen, James. 2009. Storms of my Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and our Last Chance to Save Humanity. London: Bloomsbury. Hawken, Paul. 2007. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. New York: Penguin Books. Mank, Bradford C. 2008. “Standing and Future Generations: Does Massachusetts v. EPA Open Standing for Generations to Come?” Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 34.1: 101-188. Merchant, Carolyn. 2007. American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press. O’Brien, David M. 1990. Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics. New York: Norton. Oreskes, Naomi and Erik Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury. Pooley, Eric. 2010. The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth. New York: Hyperion. Speth, James G. 2004. Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. —. 2008. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

CONTRIBUTORS

Etienne BOUREL Preparing a PhD with the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Anthropologiques (C.R.E.A.) in Lyon 2 University on forest workers’ everyday life in Gabon and on the transformations experienced by this economic sector of forestry in the context of sustainable development. He has already spent 14 months in Gabon to investigate on these questions. Chun-Chieh CHI Professor, has been teaching at the department of Ethnic Relations and Culture at National Dong-Hwa University in Taiwan since 1996, and served as the chair of the department between 2006 and 2009. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in USA.He is currently also the chairperson of the department of indigenous language and communications of the College of Indigenous Studies at his university. His research and teaching interests include ethnic relations, environmental sociology, and social movements. He has published many books, book chapters, and journal articles in environmental sociology, environmental justice, and indigenous issues in Taiwan. Jean-Daniel COLLOMB Assistant Professor in American civilisation, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, made his PhD on the life and work of nature writer John Muir. He currently works on the history of environmental radicalism in the United States, from the beginnings of this trend in the late nineteenth century until modern times. Etienne DURAND Preparing a PhD with the Centre d’Etudes Européennes, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, is working on the European market for electricity from renewables. He is interested in the growth, development and state support given to electricity production from renewables. He indeed worked as a legal adviser for the Société Hydraulique d’Etudes et de Missions d’Assistance (SHEMA), an EDF, the French electricity company, subsidiary, specialised in the production of hydroelectricity.

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Michael EDESSES Visiting Fellow at the Hong Kong Advanced Institute for CrossDisciplinary Studies, is affiliated with the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong. A mathematician and economist with experience in the investment, energy, environment, and sustainable development fields, Dr. Edesess has been a partner of financial industry firms, performed research in renewable energy, and chaired boards of nonprofit organisations focused on energy, environment, and international development. Simon ESTOK Associate Professor of English and Literary Theory at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea was named a Junior Fellow of the university in February 2011. He has published extensively on ecocriticism and Shakespeare in such journals as PMLA, Configurations, Mosaic, ISLE, English Studies in Canada, FLS, The Journal of Canadian Studies, and others. His book, Ecocriticism and Shakespeare: Reading Ecophobia, was published by Macmillan in 2011. His research involves the relationship between literary theory and everyday practice. Georges FOURNIER Assistant Professor in British civilisation, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, has published articles on the British media. Géraldine GADBIN-GEORGE Assistant Professor in legal English, Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II), worked as a solicitor for more than 10 years, as well as a magistrate in administrative courts for three years. Olivier GOUIRAND Assistant Professor in linguistics, Sud Toulon Var University, has chaired the English department since 2008. He worked on the linguistic assessment of computer assisted translation, especially on its syntaxic and semantic aspects. Since 2008, he has decided to concentrate on English semantics, particularly on the environmental speech and its scientific characteristics in specialised and common speech. Hélène LEDOUBLE Assistant Professor in linguistics, Sud Toulon Var University, is the director of the business and languages department. Until 2006, she dealt with the syntaxic and semantic analysis of specialised information in the

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Laboratoire d’Ingénierie Documentaire, Nice Sophia Antipolis. Since 2007, she has been working on the environmental speech and its semantic specificities, especially when turning a scientific speech into a general one. Eliane LIDDELL Assistant Professor in American civilisation, Perpignan University, she has a PhD on “Criminal processes in the United States, Democracy, Due Process of Law and ordinary justice”. She teaches American culture and history and works on the history of American environmentalism. Brendan PRENDIVILLE Assistant Professor in British civilisation, Rennes 2 University, studies contemporary Britain in general (political culture and systems, history, society) and the sociology of the environment in particular (movement, ideology, strategy). Robert SHERRATT Assistant Professor in British civilisation, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, since 2003 worked first on the problems of British integration into the European Union. His more recent research has concerned European studies, and he is currently preparing a paper entitled, “Understanding the Shortcomings of the European Union: the Balance of Power/Conflict of Interest Paradigm”. Moving from internal to external perspectives, his paper on European Union environment policy is an attempt to look at the impact of the European Union on the rest of the world. Ivan TACEY Currently a doctoral student at Lyon 2 University, his research is focused on the effects of globalization, rapid environmental change, development projects and religious proselytism amongst Malaysian aborigines (the Batek).

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Jacques COMBY (Professor, Jean Moulin-Lyon 3) Maria FRANCESCH-HUIDOBRO (Assistant Professor Hong Kong) Manuel JOBERT (Professeur Lyon 3) Gregory LEE (Professeur Hong Kong) Gilles LEYDIER (Professeur Université Sud Toulon Var) Alain SUBERCHICOT (Professeur Lyon 3) Susan TROUVE-FINDING (Professeur Poitiers) Marion CHARRET DEL BOVE (MCF Paris 13) Roy CARPENTER (PRAG Lyon 3)