Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
be noted that Huber's specific case, as stated earlier, is not directly concerned with
the case of Kyoto Mechanisms. Rather it is explained as part of an illustration of
the preponderance of national regulation and national markets over the interna-
tional environmental regimes in environmental policy and technological innova-
tion. However, it is interesting to consider his rendering of the Kyoto Mechanisms
in general, to depict CDM as a prescriptive illustration of the EM perspective.
Huber primarily points out that the impact of this UN-organised multilevel ap-
proach to global environmental governance is more formative than effective, as it
is neither being supported by the newly industrialised countries, nor ratified by all
advanced countries; even those who did ratify have implemented it poorly. On the
eco-innovation front, Kyoto mechanisms are particularly uncertain in their effects
as they lack an explicit innovation strategy on how to curb GHGs - whether by
consumer sufficiency approach, by increasing the eco-efficiency within the exist-
ing production mechanisms or by improving metabolic consistency of production
and products. With regard to instruments like ET, JI and CDM, Huber opines that
while these economic instruments are thought to foster allocative efficiency, their
effects on technological innovation are not clear. He contends that the differential
national reduction targets set by the Kyoto Protocol do not represent general per-
formance standards. Further he points out that the free granting of emission rights
along with many exemptions made in the process of implementing ET is counter
productive. Similarly diverse political conditions, institutional arrangements and
the real world experiences in the cases of JI and CDM lead to the break down of
the model-worlds of the economists.
21.2.2 CDM within EM Framework
Notwithstanding Huber's points, which are particularly appropriate with regard to
eco-innovations strategies, this part of the article proposes to take up the case of
one of the Kyoto instruments - CDM - to argue that the underlying premises of
CDM are intrinsically fused to EM in conceiving the problem and devising the so-
lutions.
Basis on Liberal Capitalism and Market Mechanisms
One of the underlying tenets of the EM perspective, particularly articulated in the
first generation literature, is the emphasis on the institutional capacity of capitalist
liberal democracies to reform their impact on the natural environment to achieve
improved ecological outcomes (Buttel 2000). According to the EM perspective,
capitalism is sufficiently flexible to incorporate ecologically sustainable practices.
It postulates that the urge to modernise is an inherent compulsion in capitalist
market economies that leads to a continuous acceleration of technological innova-
tion. The task of EM is to change the direction of these technological innovations
into an ecologically sensitive path so as to facilitate 'ecological-economic “win-
win” solutions' (Jänicke 2008, p. 558).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search