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"It is widely accepted that limiting climate change to 2ÀC will require substantial and sustained investments in low-carbon technologies and infrastructure. However, the dominance of market fundamentalism in economic thinking for the past three decades has meant that governments have generally viewed large spending programs as politically undesirable. In this context, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) represented a huge opportunity for proponents of public investment in environmental projects or 'Green Keynesianism'.This book examines the experience of Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea and the United States with Green Keynesian stimulus programs in the wake of the GFC. Unfortunately, on the whole the cases do not provide much optimism for proponents of Green Keynesianism. Much less funding than was originally allocated to green programs was actually spent in areas that would produce an environmental benefit. Furthermore, a number of projects had negligible or even detrimental environmental outcomes. While the book also documents several success stories, the research indicates overall that more careful consideration of the design of green stimulus programs is needed. In addition to concrete policy advice, the book provides a broader vision for how governments could use Keynesian policies to work toward creating an ecological state. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, environmental economics, political economy, and sustainable development. "--Provided by publisher.

AbstractThe concept of a 'green economy' has risen to prominence in recent years. However, little has been said about what actors could drive its widespread adoption at the global level. At present, global governance generally occurs in distinct policy domains or 'silos'; the global environment and the global economy are segregated. Within these domains, authority is highly fragmented among numerous institutions. However, two particular institutions have the broad scope and potentially the capacity to coordinate and steer green economy efforts: the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Group of Twenty (G20). This article examines why some (including UNEP itself) have called for the G20 to take a greater role in steering the green economy and assesses the extent to which it has done so. The article concludes that the G20 was ineffective in promoting a 'green recovery' from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and has similarly failed to stimulate 'green growth'. Reform of both the G20 and UNEP could improve global policy on the green economy, but changes to the G20 would likely have a greater impact.

The importance of law, and investment contracts in particular, has been noted in recent discussions around 'land grabbing'. This paper extends a legal analysis to what has been termed 'green grabbing' in this special issue and argues that the contracts that shape foreign investment in carbon sequestration projects can pose substantial material risks for governments, local communities and even the environment. Investment contracts also present a formidable obstacle to the implementation of initiatives aimed at recognising the rights of forest-dwelling peoples, particularly the right to participate in decision-making. The paper draws on the experience of developing countries with the negotiation of investment contracts in traditional natural resource sectors and a small number of contracts from Sub-Saharan Africa that specifically deal with carbon sequestration to illustrate the problems that may arise in this new area of foreign investment.

This article examines the relationship between foreign direct investment in the mineral sector and environmental regulation in developing countries. It argues that two major trends in global mineral investment have emerged in recent years: increased competition amongst developing countries to attract mineral investment, and the development and proliferation of a standard set of legal protections for mineral investors including access to international arbitration, prohibitions of expropriation without compensation, and commitments to stability of the regulatory regime. Both of these trends may have implications for environmental policy, which are examined in the paper both in general terms and in the context of a detailed case study concerning mineral exploitation in Ghana's forest reserves.

Recent years have seen a substantial increase in investor-state disputes. In many cases matters of public interest, including environmental regulations, are being tried. While it is crucial to assess the outcomes of investor-state disputes that involve matters of public policy, the procedures followed in investment arbitration make this difficult and, in some cases, impossible. This is relevant not only for researchers, but also crucially for regulators. This article focuses on how the lack of transparency in arbitration, and the lack of consistency of tribunal decisions, creates uncertainty for regulators. This uncertainty, when combined with the financial risk involved in proceeding to arbitration, may create situations in which the threat of an investment dispute is sufficient to convince a government to reverse, amend or fail to enforce an environmental regulation - a phenomenon referred to as regulatory chill. These issues are explored in an Indonesian case involving a dispute over mining contracts in protected forests.

Humanity is currently faced with two global crises, one financial and one environmental. Although ostensibly distinct, these crises are in fact interlinked. Unsustainable consumption, at the heart of the environmental crisis, is driven to a large extent by unsustainable debt, which creates financial instability. If these underlying issues are tackled, and investment is directed into environmental initiatives through a 'green new deal', then the ultimate outcome of the financial crisis could be the mitigation of the environmental crisis. If, conversely, economic hardship is used as a justification for delaying action on critical environmental issues and economic growth remains at the centre of government policy, then the ultimate outcome of the financial crisis could be the deepening of the environmental crisis. The relationship between the two crises therefore provides both opportunities and threats to achieving long-term economic and ecological sustainability.

The importance of law, and investment contracts in particular, has been noted in recent discussions around 'land grabbing'. This paper extends a legal analysis to what has been termed 'green grabbing' in this special issue and argues that the contracts that shape foreign investment in carbon sequestration projects can pose substantial material risks for governments, local communities and even the environment. Investment contracts also present a formidable obstacle to the implementation of initiatives aimed at recognising the rights of forest-dwelling peoples, particularly the right to participate in decision-making. The paper draws on the experience of developing countries with the negotiation of investment contracts in traditional natural resource sectors and a small number of contracts from Sub-Saharan Africa that specifically deal with carbon sequestration to illustrate the problems that may arise in this new area of foreign investment.

This article examines the relationship between foreign direct investment in the mineral sector and environmental regulation in developing countries. It argues that two major trends in global mineral investment have emerged in recent years: increased competition amongst developing countries to attract mineral investment, and the development and proliferation of a standard set of legal protections for mineral investors including access to international arbitration, prohibitions of expropriation without compensation, and commitments to stability of the regulatory regime. Both of these trends may have implications for environmental policy, which are examined in the paper both in general terms and in the context of a detailed case study concerning mineral exploitation in Ghana's forest reserves.

Recent years have seen a substantial increase in investor-state disputes. In many cases matters of public interest, including environmental regulations, are being tried. While it is crucial to assess the outcomes of investor-state disputes that involve matters of public policy, the procedures followed in investment arbitration make this difficult and, in some cases, impossible. This is relevant not only for researchers, but also crucially for regulators. This article focuses on how the lack of transparency in arbitration, and the lack of consistency of tribunal decisions, creates uncertainty for regulators. This uncertainty, when combined with the financial risk involved in proceeding to arbitration, may create situations in which the threat of an investment dispute is sufficient to convince a government to reverse, amend or fail to enforce an environmental regulation - a phenomenon referred to as regulatory chill. These issues are explored in an Indonesian case involving a dispute over mining contracts in protected forests.

Humanity is currently faced with two global crises, one financial and one environmental. Although ostensibly distinct, these crises are in fact interlinked. Unsustainable consumption, at the heart of the environmental crisis, is driven to a large extent by unsustainable debt, which creates financial instability. If these underlying issues are tackled, and investment is directed into environmental initiatives through a 'green new deal', then the ultimate outcome of the financial crisis could be the mitigation of the environmental crisis. If, conversely, economic hardship is used as a justification for delaying action on critical environmental issues and economic growth remains at the centre of government policy, then the ultimate outcome of the financial crisis could be the deepening of the environmental crisis. The relationship between the two crises therefore provides both opportunities and threats to achieving long-term economic and ecological sustainability.

The literature on environmental regulation of the upstream oil and gas sector in developing countries and economies in transition has focused largely on domestic legislation as well as a number of intergovernmental agreements and, more recently, voluntary industry initiatives. Much less notice has been taken of environmentally relevant content of contracts negotiated between international oil companies and petroleum producing states, which often have a significant if not dominant role in shaping the regulatory regime for oil and gas operations. The only major study on this subject, carried out by Zhiguo Gao, was published in 1994. Gao concluded that environmental issues had not received enough attention in the oil and gas contracts that he had reviewed. His conclusion raises two questions, one empirical and one normative, that this article aims to explore: (1) have environmental issues received greater attention in more recent oil and gas contracts? (2) should contracting parties give further consideration to environmental issues and, if so, in what areas and through what types of provisions? A limited survey indicates that oil and gas contracts negotiated and signed in the last fifteen years generally give greater attention to environmental protection than those signed previously, but the coverage of specific topics varies widely as does the strength of terms. Additionally, concerns that certain contractual provisions may actually undermine rather than bolster environmental protection efforts have become more prominent in the period since Gao�s study. Thus, there remains significant scope for oil and gas contracts to be improved from an environmental governance perspective.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, interest in the relationship between the economy and the environment substantially increased. Several proposals emerged between 2008 and 2012 for the creation of a 'Green New Deal', 'Green Stimulus', and a 'Green Economy'. These proposals are often conflated with one another under the rubric of 'green capitalism', but there are important distinctions to be made between them. Each suggests a different role for the state in regulating the market and the financial sector (i.e. they suggest different models of capitalism). The proposals can also be distinguished by the positions taken on ecological modernisation (i.e. they put forward different models of 'greenness'). Recognition that there are varieties of green capitalism being mooted increases the opportunities for more targeted critiques of each model and enables a more constructive debate about the options for creating sustainable economies in the developed world. Adapted from the source document.