Abstract
This chapter presents the steps undertaken by the European Union to add the well-being dimension to growth as an indicator and compass for its policies. First, it shows that despite the EU’s efforts to make sustainable development and the fight against poverty and inequality genuine political priorities, the assessment of the EU policy is quite severe: the efforts to protect the environment have not been really successful, while the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the incapacity of the EU to counter poverty, exclusion and inequality. Second, this chapter argues that environmental justice continues to be the poor relation of European policies and preoccupations, which is one of the reasons for the EU’s difficulty in achieving well-being for its citizens. The chapter goes on to propose a new legal framework, an Environmental Treaty, which would give top legislative priority to respect for nature rights and environmental rights and to respect for planetary boundaries while leaving no one behind—a proposal which could, finally, put an end to the constant incoherencies of EU policies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See EEA (2019) UNEP Global Environment Outlook 6 (2019).
- 2.
See UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), World Social Report 2020: Inequality in a rapidly changing world.
- 3.
See World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune.
- 4.
See European Communities (2009), Beyond GDP: Measuring progress, true wealth and the well-being of nations, Conference proceedings.
- 5.
See Hough-Stewart, Lisa and Trebeck, Katherine et al., (2019) What is a well-being economy?
- 6.
See EEA (2020), ‘Healthy environment, healthy lives’.
- 7.
See Robiou du Pont and Meinshausen (2018) Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges. Nature Communications 9, 4810.
- 8.
See UN GSP, UN High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, Report for the 2012 Rio+20 Earth Summit (2012) Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing, United Nations, New York.
- 9.
Article 73 of the Annex to Decision No 1386/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2013 on a General Union Environment Action Programme to 2020 ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’.
- 10.
See among others Hornborg and Martínez-Alier (2016).
- 11.
See Kelly F. Austin (2021), Degradation and disease: Ecologically unequal exchanges cultivate emerging pandemics.
- 12.
See Laurent (2011). Issues in environmental justice within the European Union, Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), 1846-1853.
- 13.
See Martuzzi et al. (2010), Inequalities, Inequities, Environmental Justice in Waste Management and Health.
- 14.
Global Carbon Project. Last data available date from 2014. Accessed 15 October 2020.
- 15.
Ganzleben and Kazmierczak (2020), Leaving no one behind—understanding environmental inequality in Europe, in Environmental Health.
References
Austin, K. F. (2021). Degradation and disease: Ecologically unequal exchanges cultivate emerging pandemics. World Development, 137, 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105163.
Blanchon, D., Moreau, S., & Veyret, Y. (2009). Understanding and building environmental justice. Annales de géographie, 665-666(1), 35–60. https://doi.org/10.3917/ag.665.0035.
Broad, R., & Cavanagh, J. (1999). The corporate accountability movement: Lessons and opportunities the corporate accountability movement: Lessons and opportunities. Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 23, 1.
Varga, C., Kiss, I., & Ember, I. (2002). The lack of environmental justice in Central and Eastern Europe. Environmental Health Perspectives, 110(11), A662–A663.
Den Elzen, M. G. J., & Lucas, P. L. (2005). The FAIR model: A tool to analyse environmental and costs implications of regimes of future commitments. Environmental Modeling and Assessment, 10(2), 115–134. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-005-4647-z.
Dorninger, C., Hornborg, A., Abson, D. J., von Wehrden, H., Schaffartzik, A., Giljum, S., Engler, J.-O., Feller, R. L., Hubacek, K., & Wieland, H. (2021). Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century. Ecological Economics, 179, 106824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106824.
Emelianoff, C. (2008). The issue of environmental inequalities: A new conceptual landscape. Ecologie and politique, 35(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.3917/ecopo.035.0019.
Environment European Agency. (2019a). The European environment—State and outlook 2020, https://www.eea.europa.eu/soer; and UN Environment Programme Global Environment Outlook 6 (2019), https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/global-environment-outlook-6
Environment European Agency. (2019b). Unequal exposure and unequal impacts: social vulnerability to air pollution, noise and extreme temperatures in Europe.
European Environment Agency, Indicator Assessment: Ecological Footprint of European Countries, SEBI 023, 20. (2020, April). https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/ecological-footprint-of-european-countries-2/assessment
Environment European Agency. (2020a). State of Nature in the EU, https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/state-of-nature-in-the-eu-2020
Environment European Agency. (2020b). Healthy environment, healthy lives. Retrieved November 21, 2020, from https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/healthy-environment-healthy-lives.
Environment European Agency. (2020c), Is Europe living within the limits of our planet?
European Communities. (2009). Beyond GDP: Measuring progress, true wealth and the well-being of nations, Conference proceedings. https://doi.org/10.2779/54600
European Commission. (2007). Summary notes from the Beyond GDP conference, https://ec.europa.eu/environment/beyond_gdp/download/bgdp-summary-notes.pdf.
European Commission, study carried out for the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. (2008). Addressing the social dimensions of environmental policy: A study on the linkages between environmental and social sustainability in Europe.
Eurostat. (2020). Statistics Explained, Greenhouse gas emission statistics—carbon footprint. Retrieved October 15, 2020, from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/10389.pdf.
Ganzleben, Catherine, & Aleksandra, Kazmierczak. (2020). Leaving no one behind—understanding environmental inequality in Europe, in Environmental Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-020-00600-2
Harper, K., Steger, T., & Filčák, R. (2009). Environmental justice and Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe. Environmental Policy and Governance, 19, 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.511.
Haut Conseil pour le climat. (2020). Maîtriser l’empreinte carbone de la France. https://www.hautconseilclimat.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/hcc_rapport_empreinte-carbone.pdf.
Häyhä, T., Cornell, S.E., Hoff, H., Lucas, P., van Vuuren, D. (2018). Operationalizing the concept of a safe operating space at the EU level—first steps and explorations. Stockholm Resilience Centre Technical Report, prepared in collaboration with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Hein, J., & Faust, H. (2014). Conservation, REDD+ and the struggle for land in Jambi, Indonesia. Pacific Geographies, 41, 20–25.
Höhne, N., den Elzen, M., & Escalante, D. (2014). Regional GHG reduction targets based on effort sharing: a comparison of studies. Climate Policy, 14, 122–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2014.849452.
Hornborg, A., & Martínez-Alier, J. (2016). Hough-Stewart, Lisa and Trebeck, Katherine et al., (2019) What is a well-being economy?, https://wellbeingeconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/A-WE-Is-WEAll-Ideas-Little-Summaries-of-Big-Issues-4-Dec-2019.pdf.
IDH. (2020). The urgency of action to tackle tropical deforestation. February 2020. Prepared for IDH by FACTS Consulting, COWI A/S and AlphaBeta Singapore. IDH: Utrecht, the Netherlands. https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/tacklingdeforestation.
Krausmann, F., Lauk, C., Haas, W., & Wiedenhofer, D. (2018). From resource extraction to outflows of wastes and emissions: the socioeconomic metabolism of the global economy, 1900–2015 Global Environmental Change 52 131–40, and OECD/IEA (2018) World Energy Outlook 2018. Retrieved from www.iea.org/weo2018/.
Laurent, É. (2011). Issues in environmental justice within the European Union. Ecological Economics, Elsevier, 70(11), 1846–1853.
Laurian, Lucie. (2008). Environmental injustice in France, Journal of environmental planning and management.
Laurian and Funderburg. (2014). Environmental justice in France? A spatio-temporal analysis of incinerator location, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.
Martuzzi, M., Mitis, F., & Forastiere, F. (2010). Inequalities, Inequities, Environmental Justice in Waste Management and Health. European Journal of Public Health, 20(1), 21–22.
Martínez-Alier, J. (2002). The environmentalism of the poor. A study of ecological conflicts and valuation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd..
Petric, Davor. (2019). Environmental Justice in the European Union: A Critical Reassessment 15 CYELP 215 200.
OECD. (2019). The Economy of Well-Being. Retrieved October 15, 2020, from http://www.oecd.org/social/economy-of-well-being-brussels-july-2019.htm.
Pichler, M., Schaffartzik, A., Haberl, H., et al. (2017). Drivers of society-nature relations in the Anthropocene and their implications for sustainability transformations. Current opinion. Environmental Sustainability, 26-27, 32–36.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a.
Robiou du Pont, Y., Jeffery, M., Gütschow, J., et al. (2017). Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Nature Climate Change, 7, 38–43. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3186.
Robiou du Pont, Y., & Meinshausen, M. (2018). Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges. Nature Communications, 9, 4810. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07223-9.
Steger, Tamara. (ed.) (2007). Making the case for environmental justice in Central and Eastern Europe. Brussels: Central European University, Center for Environmental Policy and Law (CEPL), (Budapest, Hungary) and the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL): 10.
Steger, T., & Filčák, R. (2008). Articulating the basis for promoting environmental justice in Central and Eastern Europe. Environmental Justice, 1, 49–53. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2008.0501.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., et al. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 1, 437.
Steininger, K., Lininger, C., Meyer, L., et al. (2016). Multiple carbon accounting to support just and effective climate policies. Nature Climate Change, 6, 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2867.
Temper, L., del Bene, D., & Martínez-Alier, J. (2015). Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: The EJAtlas. Journal of Political Ecology, 22, 255–278.
Utting, P. (2008). The struggle for corporate accountability. Development and Change, 39, 959–975. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00523.
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), World Social Report. (2020). Inequality in a rapidly changing world, https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/02/World-Social-Report2020-FullReport.pdf
Wiedmann and Lenzen. (2018). Environmental and social footprints of international trade, Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature.
Wolff, F., & Oko-Institut. (2019). Coherence between the 7th EAP, the Juncker priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals, https://ec.europa.eu/environment/action-programme/pdf/Issue_Paper_7th_EAP_Juncker_Priorities_SDGs_190125_final.pdf
World Bank Group. (2020). Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-prosperity
World Wildlife Fund, Sabag-Muñoz, O., & Gladek, E. (2017). One planet approaches—Methodology mapping and pathways forward. Swiss Federal Office for the Environment. Metabolic website (Netherlands), https://www.metabolic.nl/
Zierler, D. (2011). The invention of ecocide. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Toussaint, M. (2021). Integrating Environmental Justice into EU Policymaking. In: Laurent, É. (eds) The Well-being Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67860-9_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67860-9_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-67859-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-67860-9
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)