ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
governments is to balance competing interests, but this raises important
issues of equity and social justice between current and future generations.◗ Administrative fragmentation
The administrative structure of government is usually divided into distinct
policy sectors with specific responsibilities such as education, defence or
health care. A core group of economic ministries – typically finance, indus-
try, employment, energy, agriculture and transport – make policy decisions
affecting production, consumption, mobility and lifestyles that will fre-
quently have negative consequences for the environment. Yet these indi-
vidual ministries often engage in a blinkered pursuit of narrow sectoral
objectives with little consideration for their environmental impact. A trans-
port ministry might implement a massive road-building programme, or the
agriculture ministry might encourage intensive farming methods, while
responsibility for protecting the environment is typically given to a sepa-
rateministry. The instinct of bureaucrats is to break problems down into
separate units, but the interdependence of economic and ecological systems
does not respect these artificial administrative and institutional boundaries.
Many environmental problems are cross-sectoral and require co-ordinated
responses that transcend sectoral boundaries. An effective climate change
strategy, for example, will need the involvement of the ministries responsi-
ble for transport, energy, industrial emissions, livestock and forestry, as well
as for overall economic policy.◗ Regulatory intervention
Environmental damage is frequently a by-product of otherwise legitimate
activities; consequently, governments may have to intervene in the econ-
omy and society to regulate these damaging activities (Weale 1992 : 6). Reg-
ulatory intervention can involve a mix of policy instruments, not just legal
instruments: for example, setting factory emission standards or encourag-
ing the recycling of waste paper. The regulatory character of much envi-
ronmental policy contrasts with many other policy areas, notably welfare
policy, where taxes and public spending are used to alter the distribution
of resources. Although public spending is rarely the primary instrument
of environmental policy, regulatory interventions will usually impose some
kind of cost on key interests in society and may have significant distribu-
tive consequences. Consequently, regulatory proposals are likely to provoke
howls of outrage from businesses and trade unions about the dangers of
reduced competitiveness or jobs lost, or from consumers who have to pay
higher prices for cleaner or safer goods. Thus the effectiveness of regulatory
interventions may be limited by this historical tension between economic
growthand environmental protection.
This section has identified seven core characteristics of environmental
problems. The first five are intrinsic to the environment as a policy issue;