Over the last decades we have seen manifold ups and downs of environmental policies’ well-being. The environmentalism of the ‘60s and ‘70s, initially in the United States, and its subsequent implementation efforts, for example in the European Union, followed a setback in the ‘80s; driven by neoliberal thinking and governance.

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Subsequently, just in the European Union and Germany, we have been able to count on an essentially encouraging environmental policy and regulatory system since the ‘90s; we are all aware of major drivers like the Rio Summit in 1992, with its iconic sustainable development paradigm and the signature of the climate framework and biodiversity convention. We also witnessed an ambitious script of the EU in terms of nature conservation or, inter alia, environmental assessments for projects and plans. We have taken topics such as climate change mitigation nearly for granted, and even the USA and China finally signed on.

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However, just recently we have seen in the United Kingdom and the United States how fragile and arbitrary our missions, tools, and regulations seemingly may become overnight, mostly due to the impact of power shifts in governancy.

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Our intention with this project is to reach a better understanding on how vulnerable or resilient environmental policies are when facing impacts from all governancy levels, as well as from the citizens or other organizations. 
 

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