Using the oecd to promote environmental protection policies

ISA 2012: San Diego
Charles Laffiteau
University of Texas at Dallas
Why has environmental policy
diffusion stalled within the
OECD?

diffusion stalled within the OECD?

The Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development is an international institution
whose mission is to promote policies to
improve the economic and social well-being of
people around the world.
Moreover, one of the most important self-
declared aims of the OECD is to cooperate
and harmonize policies among its members
while also ensuring that “the environmental
implications of economic and social
development are taken into account.”

In the environmental policy arena, the OECD
has been an agent of policy diffusion by
promoting regulatory schemes among its
member states to deal with a wide range of
environmental issues such as water and air
pollution, acid rain and pesticides like DDT.
On a global level the OECD was also very
instrumental in forging an international treaty
(1987 Montreal Protocol) to deal with ozone
depletion caused by CFC refrigerants and
aerosols.

Over the past 50 years the amount of
CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by
25%.
160,000 years of glacial ice core and
anthropological evidence shows that
CO2 levels and temperatures rise in
unison
Melting permafrost in Siberia, Canada
and Alaska has led to destabilization of
buildings and homes and costly tax
payer financed relocations of native
peoples.

Soot, methane & hydrofluorocarbons, or
HFCs, to contribute 30% of the human-
caused rise in global temperatures
25 % of the greenhouse gases released
into the atmosphere each year is caused
by deforestation.
CO2 gas emissions from coal, oil and
gas fossil fuel burning represent another
45%

Most of the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex 1 nations
(which are committed to reduce their CO2
emissions) are also members of the OECD.
Since the more technologically developed
nations of the OECD were expected to take the
lead in reducing their CO2 emissions, all most all
of the OECD nations agreed to meet specific
GHG emission reduction targets agreed to in the
Kyoto Protocol by 2012.
Mexico, South Korea, Chile and Israel are the only OECD nations that are not
Annex 1 nations while the former Communist nations of Belarus, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine and the Russian Federation as well
as the European principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco are the only Annex 1

Good News
Costs are known & technologies already
exist for cutting CO2 emissions and
adapting to higher temperatures
Farming in higher latitudes would also
improve
Bad News
But farmers in lower latitudes and in arid
regions of the world would suffer
More air conditioning = more CO2 energy
use
Shoreline communities have to be

Over the last twenty years virtually every
OECD nation has also promoted and
even subsidized the production of
biofuels as a way to reduce their CO2
carbon emissions. Yet in spite of the
abundant evidence that shows using
grain to produce biofuels has at best a
marginal impact on reducing overall CO2
emissions and a decidedly negative
impact on food supplies and prices,
biofuel policies persist in some OECD

So why have some OECD nations failed to
embrace other more effective types of
environmental policies to deal with climate
change such as building more nuclear power
plants, or the use of New Environmental
Policy Instruments (NEPI) like carbon taxes,
eco labeling, tradable CO2 emission permits
and industry wide environmental
management systems?
Why do some OECD nations still continue to
support biofuels made from grain as a policy

Why, given the strongly similar socio-
economic profiles of OECD member states
on some of the key issues that the policy
literature suggests would lead to policy
diffusion and convergence; such as economic
structures, levels of education, GDP and
styles of governance, has there been such a
wide variation in the types of environmental
policies OECD nations have adopted as well
as the effectiveness of these policies in
reducing the CO emissions of individual

The Climate Skeptic Perspective

Climate skeptics aside, the initiative for climate
change policy action stills lies with the OECD
states because no one expects a global deal
on CO2 emissions without a significant shift in
the policy position of the OECD states.
So in an attempt to answer this research
question, I have conducted a literature review
of environmental politics and policy literature
as well as the literature on policy diffusion,
transfer and convergence to see what, if any,
explanations might exist that explain why
environmental policy diffusion seems to be

Literature dealing with how national
cultures and values influence national
policies has also been reviewed to
determine what might be the key cultural
factors or values that explain the stalling
of environmental policy diffusion among
the states of the OECD in this policy
area.

Overall, the environmental politics and
policy literature suggests that complex
interactions between a number of
different elements influence
environmental policy at the global level.
Authors like Young, Schofer and
Hironaka contend it is international
institutions that have a substantial
impact on improving environmental
policy outcomes, while others like
Princen and Finger say it is the influence

But there appears to be no clear cut
answer to the question of what
influences environmental policy making
at the global level. It could be NGOs,
international institutions, national
(states) factors or public discourse. The
research problem is that the literature on
the development of climate change
policies is still immature and has
primarily been focused on following and
seeking to explain global negotiations

Based on a number of key factors cited in
the policy diffusion, policy transfer and
policy convergence literature such as;
international institutions and norms,
similarities in democratic governance
institutions, industrial development and per
capita GDP as well as membership in the
same trade (WTO, EU, NAFTA) and
economic (OECD) organizations, the policy
literature suggests that these nations’
environmental policies should also be

Marvin Soroos notes that the difficulty in
dealing with climate change is the fact that
“CO2 and some of the other GHGs are
generated by activities that are fundamental
to modern societies, in particular those of the
energy, manufacturing, transportation and
agriculture sectors.”
Marvin S. Soroos. The Endangered Atmosphere: Preserving a Global
Commons. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1997.): 277

But Tews et al also cite the influence of
regional ties, due at least in part to cultural
similarities, in their analysis of policy
diffusion writing that the “nearly
simultaneous policy adoption of
energy/carbon taxes in the Scandinavian
countries had been co-ordinated by the
Nordic Council.”
Kerstin Tews, Per-Olaf Busch and Helge Jorgens. “The diffusion of
new environmental policy instruments.” European Journal of Political
Research (Vol. 42 No. 3, 2003): 586

Lenschow et al concluded that new ideas,
principles and goals impinge first and
foremost on national culture. Therefore,
countries that share important aspects of
their cultural foundations might be
expected to more quickly adopt similar
ideas, principles and goals than countries
that are culturally less close to each
other.”
Andrea Lenschow, Duncan Liefferink and Sietske Veenman. “When
the birds sing: A framework for analysing domestic factors behind
policy convergence.” Journal of European Public Policy (Vol. 12

The first question one might ask regarding the
effect cultural values might have on
environmental policies is; “Why might culture
matter?
Culture matters precisely because of the
influence it has on the personal values and
views of citizens raised in a particular society.
“National and ethnic cultures are thus
distinguished in their degree of regulation of
behavior, attitudes, and values, the domain of
regulation, and the consistency and clarity of
regulation and tolerance of other cultures.”
David Tse, Kam-hon Lee, Ilan Vertinsky & D. Wehrung. “Does Culture
Matter? A Cross-Cultural Study of Executives' Choice, Decisiveness & Risk

Since variations in nations’ cultural values appear to
have an impact on policies, I would expect to see
national cultures which exhibit high levels of
individualism adopt environmental policies which
minimize the regulatory role of government and are
more sensitive to the potential negative economic
impacts their climate change policies might have on
certain economic sectors.
But in countries with national cultures which favor
collectivist cultural values, I would expect them to
adopt environmental policies which emphasize the
regulatory role of government and are less sensitive

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
GermanyGreece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Luxembourg
Chile
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
SlovakiaSouth Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
Reduct
in CO2
emison
from
2008
to
2009
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Individualism Cultural Dimension
Effect of Cultural Values on CO2 Emissions

(Cultural Dimension of Individualism)
(Un-standard. coefficient) (Standard. coefficient) (‘p’
Value) -.4879 .42
.0186
Constant 67.2
N 31
Adjusted R-square .1482

Therefore, based on this literature review, I
argue that the political conundrum that
confronts the policy makers of the OECD
states is not due to questions about what types
of climate change policies will be most effective
in reducing the CO2 emissions of OECD
nations.
I contend that the most likely reason why the
diffusion of environmental policies has stalled
in the OECD is due to the fact that certain
types of fairly effective environmental climate

Using the oecd to promote environmental protection policies

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