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

2. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD?

3. Why has environmental policy 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.

4. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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.

5. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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.

6. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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%

7. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? Most of the Kyoto Protocols 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

8. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

9. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

10. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the 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

11. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

12. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? The Climate Skeptic Perspective

13. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

14. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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.

15. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

16. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

17. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

18. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

19. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

20. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

21. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

22. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

23. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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

24. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? (Cultural Dimension of Individualism) (Un-standard. coefficient) (Standard. coefficient) (p Value) -.4879 .42 .0186 Constant 67.2 N 31 Adjusted R-square .1482

25. Why has environmental policy diffusion stalled within the OECD? 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