Devolving climate change decisions from national governments The time has come for a dramatic change in approach to tackling climate change on a global level. Successive rounds of climate change talks under the auspices of the UN have failed to generate anything like the impetus necessary to make any headway into decelerating the increased production of greenhouse gases or other environmental damage, never mind reversing the trends of the past 100 years. The immensity of the task and the difficulties being encountered are understandable, given the diversity of political, social and economic positions that must all be weighed and considered. Thus, it is not surprising that a large inter-governmental organisation like the UN has had difficulty in reconciling the various view-points and interests of such diverse backgrounds. Take one step down the political hierarchy ladder, i.e. to national governments, and the possibility of making decisions of this nature does not improve. Multi-party systems and lobbying activity often result in the environmental decision-making process becoming bogged down in claim and counter-claim, proposals and revisions, green papers and successive pilot studies. Even when some legislation eventually is enacted, it can be revoked by a change in government (cf. the current political arguments in Australia on the carbon tax). So, it is perhaps becoming clearer that inter-governmental organisations and national governments are not best-placed to advance environmental legislation. Nor does it appear that we can expect the general public to rapidly change their environmentally-destructive habits of their own accord. Instead, maybe we should look to local government to lead the way in this regard. There are a number of reasons why devolving climate change decisions to this political level could be advantageous: sustainablebusinesstoolkit/devolving-climate-change-decisions-from-national-governments/
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 15:36:22 +0000