If the environmental state is to move beyond addressing particular consequences of specific environmentally damaging activities to engage with broader environmental challenges it must encourage the emergence of a societal development trajectory that respects fundamental environmental limits. At a time when environmental policy faces perhaps the most difficult political and economic context for a generation – where politicians and electorates are preoccupied with financial turmoil, unemployment and budgetary retrenchment, and where progress on an international climate change agreement remains stalled -- it is worth considering possibilities for progress in this direction.
Over the past few years there have been renewed debates about sustainability, the nature of contemporary economic growth, and environmental limits. In the run up to the Rio+20 meeting UNEP launched its ‘Green Economy’ work program, while the OECD actively developed a ‘Green Growth’ agenda. Following on from the ‘green stimulus’ response to the 2008 economic crisis, these initiatives are intended to shift the thrust of economic activity onto less environmentally harmful lines. In this context the idea of ‘decoupling’ environmental burdens from economic activities (so that an increase in development ‘goods’ is compatible with falling environmental ‘bads’) has drawn both support and criticism. This paper investigates the relationships among these ideas, exploring the potential for the environmental state to deploy policy instruments to advance a ’decoupling’ or ‘green economy’ agenda, and considering the extent to which this may offer solutions to contemporary environmental problems. The paper spends time considering how ‘decoupling’, ‘green economy’, and ‘green growth’ are understood in the literature. It explores contrasts (but also affinities) among recent arguments associated with ‘green growth,’ ‘no growth’ and ‘de-growth’ perspectives. It then goes on to discuss the extent to which environmental states may be able successfully to deploy policy initiatives that engage with these challenges.
