An environmental policy is a set of agreements and guidelines to ensure that society's actions do not negatively affect the environment. In this sense, it encompasses the set of proposals, agreements and actions that define the relationship of society with its environment..
Environmental policies include activities aimed at the search, exercise, modification, maintenance and preservation of environmental processes. It is intended to preserve biogeochemical cycles, biological diversity, environmental quality and the ecological balance in general..
For this, scientific knowledge is used as support and is based on the principles of sustainable development. Environmental policy can occur in the public or private field, as well as having a local, national or international impact..
The most specific expression of environmental policies are laws that guide positive actions and restrict negative ones regarding the environment. To create and develop environmental policy, legal, administrative, technical, economic, fiscal and social instruments are used..
Environmental policies are frameworks that guide action in matters related to the environment at a specific scale of social life. This in terms of how to relate to the environment and regarding the use of natural resources.
This scale can range from a small local institution to large international institutions, both in the public and private spheres..
Like all politics, they are based on the interaction of certain interests. In this case, the objective of which is to contribute to maintaining environmental balance within the framework of sustainable development..
In general terms, environmental policies are characterized by:
Every human society relies on a dynamic balance of powers and interests, which is why agreements are required to achieve social stability. These agreements are expressed in specific policies, which are based on a legal system (laws).
In this case, the environment is one of the least defended dimensions of human action. Therefore, environmental policies are required that guide society in favor of environmental conservation. Otherwise, economic interests and social needs end up pushing social development at the cost of environmental balance..
Environmental policy allows setting limits on human actions that may in one way or another affect the environment. As well as, promote the reestablishment of environmental balance where it has been altered..
Under the current approach to sustainable development, environmental policy is responsible for ensuring ecological balance. While guaranteeing harmony with the other two pillars of this development, the economic and the social.
According to the social scope of development and application, they can be public environmental policies and private policies. While depending on the geographical scope of its application, they can be national and international environmental policies.
Modern democratic society is made up of a public sector and a private sector, where the former includes all the institutions and activities under the direct control of the State. While the private sector encompasses all companies and institutions that are not directly controlled by the State, except for legal restrictions.
In this sense, there are environmental policies that are generated and executed by the State and therefore correspond to the public sphere. While there are environmental policies freely assumed by private companies.
An example of the latter is the decision of a certain company to apply a recycling policy in its production plants. On the other hand, a municipal or national government may decide to implement an environmental policy aimed at promoting recycling in its jurisdiction..
The aforementioned leads to another approach to define the types of environmental policies. In this case, it refers to the geographical scope of application of said policy, which can be from local to global, passing through different levels..
Thus, an environmental policy can have an effect only at the level of a small company, or of a municipality, state, region, district or nation..
In the same way, it can cover the international sphere, if two or more national states subscribe to the environmental policy in question. Even global character if it corresponds to the majority of nations through organizations such as the UN.
An environmental policy, like any policy, does not remain in its promulgation, but requires the means to become effective. Therefore, the instruments that come into play to develop an environmental policy are diverse..
They are all the laws, norms and regulations that support the execution of the environmental policy, as well as the institutions that promulgate and sanction them. This is what is called environmental legislation and includes environmental quality standards, national environmental laws and international agreements..
They include the instruments aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the plans, the current environmental legal order and the institutions that execute and evaluate them. Among them are environmental impact studies, environmental management plans, permits, supervision and control mechanisms, among others..
Included here are the set of scientific and technical resources that provide the basis for generating environmental policy. Both to prevent negative environmental impacts, and to remedy the damage caused. As well as those technical models that allow projecting possible environmental impacts and their consequences.
Any application of an environmental policy entails economic costs that must be contributed from various sources. These include national budgets, contributions and private investments and international contributions in the support of environmental agreements..
Likewise, the resources derived from environmental taxes, fees, fines and other charges resulting from the application of the environmental policies themselves. Similarly, economic incentives for the conservation and improvement of the environment are a powerful instrument of environmental policy. For example, by reducing taxes in exchange for implementing environmental policies.
This includes all the mechanisms and institutions aimed at promoting social participation in the conservation of the environment. Its center is environmental education for the promotion of an awareness in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.
Since its foundation, the European Union has included environmental policy among its bases of creation. This is how the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty established the protection of the environment as an objective, linked to sustainable development..
On the other hand, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union includes the principles of caution, prevention, and "whoever pollutes pays", as bases for its environmental policy..
However, there is no such thing as an environmental policy that is the exclusive competence of the European Union as a body. Rather, it is a set of environmental policies shared by its member states, protected by a general environmental political framework. This framework defined in the Treaty of the European Community establishes "the conservation, protection and improvement of the quality of the environment".
Environmental policies are expressed, among other things, in environmental management standards, such as the EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) standards. That is, the European Program for Eco-management and Eco-audit, a set of standards to improve environmental quality in companies and other organizations..
Mexico's environmental policy has gone through three general stages throughout its history, which are similar to those of many other countries. In the first place, an environmental policy that was restricted to the health field, that is, guaranteeing the improvement of environmental health conditions..
Later, it advanced towards a comprehensive policy with the enactment of the Federal Environmental Protection Law in 1982. In addition to the creation of the Secretariat for Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE) the following year.
Finally, in the third stage, environmental policy focused on sustainable development. To this end, in 1995 the Ministry of the Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries and the Environment Program were created..
At the global level, environmental policies have taken shape through international conventions and agreements. As well as through the various programs and institutions to which these agreements have originated.
Among them is, for example, the Kyoto Protocol that entered into force in 2005. This defines the agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to avoid global warming.
Likewise, the Paris Agreement for climate change, and the 2030 Agenda where the 17 sustainable development goals are established. Environmental institutions have also been established at the international level such as UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).
As well as international bodies in charge of defining environmental quality standards such as ISO 14001, established by the International Organization for Standardization.
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