5. ANTECEDENTES
5.3 TRABAJOS INVESTIGATIVOS A NIVEL INTERNACIONAL
ecologically sustainable development:
• Integrating economic and environmental goals in policies and activities • Ensuring that environmental assets are appropriately valued
• Providing for equity within and between generations • Dealing cautiously with risk and irreversibility • Recognising the global dimension
Box 3.6 Extracts from ESD Discussion Paper Concerning Definition and Principles of ESD 338
It went on to elaborate on the principles (discussed in 3.4) but their origin and connection to the goal of ESD is not identified; Cabinet was simply given the desultory advice that the paper ‘discusses some general principles that might inform the development of a
337 Australian Government, Cabinet Memorandum 7136, ‘Ecologically Sustainable Development: Discussion Paper, Process and Work Program 1990–1991’; decision contained in Cabinet Minute 13862, 25 June 1990 (NAA A14039, 7136) 2. Note that, again, the Environment Department did not provide a coordination comment.
338 Commonwealth of Australia, Ecologically Sustainable Development: A Commonwealth Discussion Paper (AGPS 1990) untitled preface, 2.
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sustainability strategy’.339 This is significant because, as discussed in chapter seven, in a legislative context most of these principles, intended to inform the development of strategy to advance the goal of ESD, would come to substitute for the goal itself, resulting in a loss of clarity about policy intent.340
The policy narrative of the discussion paper as published in 1990 was confused. The definition of ESD clearly aligns with Policy Tier 5.3, which would suggest that a key task is to identify biophysical constraints. However, the introduction adopts a relativist tone closer to the ‘policy integration’ model (Tier 2). The policy task was ‘to take better care of the environment while ensuring economic growth, both now and in the future’, with ESD:
provid[ing] a conceptual framework for integrating these economic and environmental objectives so that products, production processes and services can be … both internationally competitive and more environmentally compatible.341
The discussion paper then elaborates on the five principles. The narrative, summarised below, changes to imply the pursuit of economic efficiency (Policy Tier 3).
Integrating economic and environmental goals in policies and activities
The narrative is that economic growth and environment can often be pursued simultaneously, if an ‘integrated approach’ is taken, which uses resources efficiently, but there will be some cases where economic and environmental goals are incompatible, in which case ‘the choices will be clearer if they are based on the best available information and assessment of the full costs and benefits of alternative courses of action’.342 The underlying sentiment is to pursue welfare economics as far as possible, regarding any choice for environmental over economic values as an exceptional decision to pursue non-financial preferences rather than adopt ecological constraints generally.343
339Cabinet Memorandum 7136 and Cabinet Minute 13862, above n 337 2.
340 An accompanying memorandum from Treasury confined itself to the implementation issue of ‘how “best” to match policy instruments with policy objectives’; Cabinet directed that it be published, effectively making it an information paper on policy tools relevant to ESD: see Cabinet Minute 13862, 25 June 1990, endorsing Cabinet Memorandum 7128, ‘Economic and Regulatory Measures for Ecologically Sustainable Development: Strategies’ (NAA A14039, 7128). The memorandum was subsequently published as ‘Economic and Regulatory Measures for Ecologically Sustainable Development Strategies’ in Department of the Treasury, Economic Roundup: June 1990 (AGPS 1990) 6.
341 Australian Government, Ecologically Sustainable Development: A Commonwealth Discussion Paper (AGPS 1990), (‘ESD Discussion Paper’) 1.
342 Ibid 3–4, especially at 4. 343 Ibid.
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Ensuring that environmental assets are appropriately valued344
Again, the approach here is one of welfare economics, implying that the task is to ‘get the price right’ by valuing environmental inputs rather to recognise biophysical constraints, and to see limits on the ability to place an economic value on resources (in which case governments need to ‘arbitrate’, ie make a choice based on values rather than price) as an exception. Providing for equity within and between generations
This section acknowledges that IGE requires that the needs of future generations be incorporated into today’s decisions, to at least maintain future standards of living. However, as if this is too harsh a standard, the text then canvasses various reasons why this standard may not require significant departures from conventional approaches, because of sequential uses, technological improvements, acceptable short-term or localised reductions in natural stock, and substitution of (manufactured) capital for natural assets. In the latter case, if prices reflect environmental values, ‘it is doubtful whether these limits will be crossed’.345 Finally, ‘environmental preservation cannot be pursued exclusively’, without regard for impacts on the present generation, including on employment, indebtedness, interest rates and inflation; some of these factors had intragenerational implications, such a greater impacts on low-paid workers.346 The narrative then returns to consistency with the goal of ESD, arguing that future generations should not be saddled with debt, whether environmental or economic.347 This narrative is ambivalent: while it acknowledges the need to depart from mainstream approaches (welfare economics) to do equity to future generations, it also downplays the likelihood that this will be necessary in practice, because if resources are properly priced, most of the work will be done. The solution is a non sequitur, to satisfy all policy objectives simultaneously:
The task, therefore, is to integrate ecological and economic considerations so that processes and activities are both ecologically and economically sustainable.348
344 Ibid 4–5.
345 Ibid 6. 346 Ibid 6–7. 347 Ibid 7–8.
348 Ibid 8. The paper also discusses non-renewable resources, proposing that ‘the key challenges in managing the use of non-renewable resources are to ensure that their exploitation occurs in the most efficient manner possible, [while ensuring] that full account is taken of the importance of maintaining ecological systems and
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Dealing cautiously with risk and irreversibility
The narrative again displays an ambivalence, acknowledging the need to deal with risk and irreversibility, but then qualifying the policy responses: irreversible damage should be avoided ‘wherever possible’ and serious but uncertain adverse effects avoided through preventative action or research at ‘modest cost’.349 ‘Equally’, the discussion paper argues, the risks to economic prospects should be considered and:
In some cases it may be worthwhile paying the price of some environmental damage to ensure … economic benefits.350
Recognising the global dimension
The narrative here once again displays ambivalence to the point of qualifying a clear principle with wishful or woolly thinking. The proposition that ‘[w]e should not export our
environmental problems …’ is a straight application of intragenerational equity, but it is then qualified with propositions suggesting that some marginal greenhouse-related degradation domestically might improve global outcomes, including that energy-intensive industry might be moved to an energy-efficient country like Australia.351 Similarly, localised environmental degradation might be ‘sensible if, in the broader context, biodiversity and ecological processes are maintained’,352 though no explanation is given as to how this might address the global dimension.
What Does the Discussion Paper Reveal About Policy Thinking?
The narrative of the discussion paper suggests both confusion and a profound
ambivalence about ESD. The concept itself is defined consistently with an aspiration to ecological sustainability (Policy Tier Five), without explanation for this high policy
that exploitation occurs [with] minimal environmental damage. This is not explored here as this thesis focuses on renewable resources.
349 Ibid 9.
350 Ibid. The text goes on to say that ‘this will be particularly relevant in … development of non-renewable resources, where at least some transient impact on the environment is inevitable.’ This is tendentious. 351 Ibid 10.
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ambition. The discussion of the five principles accepts the policy implications of a high policy ambition superficially, but then implies that a lower-level policy ambition consistent with economic efficiency (Policy Tier Three) will achieve this outcome. Some allowance might be made for the fact that officials were grappling, not just with a new and complex issue, but one that placed government in a difficult position. The ambivalence evident in the discussion paper may reflect unresolved disagreements between officials. Hamilton argues that the inconsistency of approach in the paper may be the consequence of its committee authorship, which he sees as a form of incompetence.353 Another possible explanation is change of actors and perspective, as policy leadership on ESD issues had passed from PM&C, which had driven preparation of the 1989 Statement, to the Primary Industries and Resources portfolio.
Goal and Principles in the Finalised National Strategy on Ecologically Sustainable Development
The NSESD, finalised in 1992 after a difficult process which is the subject of the case study in chapter five, contained a statement of goal, objectives and guiding principles concerning ESD as shown in Box 3.7. The policy meaning of these principles is discussed in section 3.4. The point to be made at this stage is that the stated goal and thus its high policy ambition were unchanged, but the objectives and principles were much more coherent and display none of the ambivalence and much less attachment to mainstream policy approaches than were evident in the discussion paper two years earlier. As with the 1989 Statement, the NSESD was developed largely by the iteration of drafts between officials and so archival records shed little light on the intention or understanding of the drafters. It does seem however that official understanding of ESD concepts had waxed significantly even if, as discussed in later chapters, government commitment had waned.