Where policy matters - Today’s troubles root in policy not principles

Shahab Sabahi

Energy and Environment for Development – Policy Analysis Research Group

In political and social science journals, a general consensus is advertised that human beings have reached to best fitted and an effective ideology and need not any longer to develop new ones to model a better life. They also provide further explanations that this matured ideology, however, is dynamics and in progress while its framework remains intact.

They conclude that today’s troubles relate more to policies than principles. It holds true for energy, environment and development policies.

Despite the disagreement between scholars in science and economics in HOWs, the necessity of preservation of environment and economic growth are generally conceded by both. Yet there are no common principles to agree upon for policies development. It leads, as evidence shown up to this date, to confusion and therefore introduces ineffective policies in the realm of energy, environment and development.      

Scientists often view resource depletion and pollution as irreversible and inevitable results of growth in economic output as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). In contrast economists, based on some evidence which indicate economic growth might be necessary before a modern society, generally hold optimism about human’s ability to protect environmental quality and to keep the preservation of natural. They put their faith in ingenuity and adaptability of homo economicus and its ability to extend that ingenuity to the protection of its environment.

With a sole scientist’s perspective, environmental policies should be devised with regulating tools which could implicitly fine tune the economic growth policies. Economies should pay off externalities and clean up their mess by expending at environmental friendly programs. Also the natural resources should moderately be exploited.

Economists believe incentives in markets are the key focus. Technology policy and price instruments in policies can be designed in ways to protect the natural resources, and environments in minimum costs and at least distortion in the market decisions. They view the economic growth along with optimum paths. In this sense one may tag economists, “idealist” rather than “realist”.

Neither scientists could bring global collective actions, nor has the economist’s practice shown any improvement in the environment protection in the global scale      

The fact is, as long as a society is free from the threat of starvation and war, resources can be devoted to protecting and improving environmental quality and preserving remaining wilderness. In a volatile and vulnerable context, when nations compete each others to secure their resources and assure the availability of their supply in future, even with the means of trade-investment policy or aggression to extend beyond their states’ boundary, an economic incentive and scientific consensus and morality seems working less effective.

We should posit SECURITY and STABILITY as the most chief elements that influence the behaviour of human beings in today’s context. The existing international environmental policy has failed to live up the requirements of security and stability through a genuine collective action in the global scale.

Perhaps policies with focus on security, stability, and an effective distribution of wealth doctrine (downgrade from the global level to regional level) would be promising and push our growth toward the quality of life within an environmental friendly atmosphere.