THE GREEN COLD WAR, THE 2012 RIO +20 CONFERENCE ACTIONS, AND THE FALL OF PERFECT ENVIRONMENTALISM

What is it about?

The idea of win-win economy-environment coalitions as the solution to the green cold war that started to gain relevance in the 1960s came forward; and it was widely accepted by governments and international institutions after the Brundtland Commission called in 1987 for the need to address the environmental issue, setting the stage for the Rio conference process to begin in 1992 with the first earth summit, and which culminated in the 2012 Rio + 20 conference where this green cold war was supposed to be scientifically settled. There were two solutions to the green cold war in 2012, a science based solution; and an arbitrary solution. As science was at the heart of the 2012 Rio + 20 conference before and during the conference, then a shift towards green market thinking, green economy thinking and green growth thinking was the expected solution as it is the only science based solution possible according to paradigm death and shift expectations so as to preserve the core principle or core values of the two merging paradigms the economy and the environment; and hence for the conference to say in 2012 they were going the green market way was not a surprise. At the heart of green markets is perfect environmentalism as environmental sustainability is a necessary condition for green markets to exist. That means that going the way of environmental externality management markets in practice after Rio + 20 instead of green markets when they said they were going green markets was and is an arbitrary decision, not a science based decision since at the heart of those markets is imperfect environmentalism and imperfect market thinking; and hence those markets do no require environmental sustainability to exist. In other words, the flipping of options to solve the green cold war then from perfect markets to environmental externality management markets has important implications both in terms of winner and losers in particular; and in terms of environmental sustainability in general, yet those implications are little understood as nothing as far as I know has been written about this from the sustainability angle. The discussion above raises questions such as how can the green cold war, the 2012 Rio +20 conference actions, and the fall of perfect environmentalism be linked? What are the implications of this in terms of winners and losers and of environmental sustainability? The main goal of this paper is to provide an answer to these questions using qualitative comparative means.

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Photo by vaea Garrido on Unsplash

Photo by vaea Garrido on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In 2012 Rio + 20 a win-win economy and environment coalition had gain steam to solve the environmental sustainability problem associated with traditional market thinking and the world seemed to be ready to leave it behind by going the way of environmentally friendly capitalism, and they had two solutions, a science based full solution a la green markets and an arbitrary solution a la dwarf green markets. The move to dwarf green markets means leaving perfect environmentalism thinking behind.

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