Ecological modernisation and climate change in Australia

Carbon Crime in the Voluntary Market: An Exploration of Modernization Themes Among a Sample of Criminal and Non-criminal Organizations

“…This idea is not new and several researchers outside criminology have made similar points. Schnaiberg (1980), for instance, suggested that market-based policy developments do not stimulate environmental and social action, it simply 'greens' capitalism, ensuring that it is immune from an ecological critique (see also Curran 2009). However, there is an important difference between our observations of the voluntary market and other critiques of ecological modernization.…”

Repositioning urban governments? Energy efficiency and Australia’s changing climate and energy governance regimes

“…First is Australia's current (unsettled) regime of climate governance, which reflects the political-economic conditions of its formation. From a climate policy perspective the country has a 'difficult economic profile' in that it derives its competitive advantage from plentiful cheap energy (especially coal) and from its location in the lucrative energy markets of the AsiaPacific (Curran, 2009). The nation's status as producer and net exporter of energy has shaped the fossil-fuel based energy production system that underpins the Australian urban-economic system.…”

“…The influential position of mining and energy interests in the political economy and in the climate policy community have presented formidable obstacles to significant energy transition. The national climate governance regime reflects both a reluctance to dislodge the country's fossil-fuel dependence (Bulkeley, 2001;Harrison, 2012) and a fractious climate politics in which, despite government discourses of ecological modernisation viii , environment and economy continue to be pitted against each other (Curran, 2009;Williams and Booth, 2013). Moreover in the arena of federal politics, positions on climate policy have been divided along party lines.…”

Adapting ecological modernisation to the Australian context

“…Elements of EM can be found throughout European environmental polices, for example, in the UK, Norway and Sweden, as well as the European Union itself (Weale 1998;Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000;Dryzek et al 2003;Howes 2005;Baker 2007;Baker and Eckerberg 2007). The distinctly European origins beg the question of how useful, and therefore effective, it might be in the Australian context (Curran 2009). Some work has been done on the problems of transplanting EM to the USA (Schlosberg and Rinfret 2008), China (Huan 2007), Brazil (Milanez and Buhrs 2008) and former socialist countries such as Hungary (Gille 2004), so what about Australia?…”