Dr Umberto Mario Sconfienza

The Post-Sustainability Trilemma

The purpose of the research project is threefold: first, to propose a new theoretical framework to describe and understand current global environmental politics; second, to heuristically use this framework to analyse and criticise current approaches to environmental governance; and third, to explore alternatives approaches. The first part of the research introduces what can be called the Post-Sustainability Trilemma (PST). This is the idea that the three policy goals of (i) economic growth, (ii) political participation - along the lines of liberal democracies -, and (iii) environmental protection cannot be simultaneously attained. Only two of these three policy goals can be attained at any one time. The second part of the research analyses the three possible combinations or binaries of PST, which give rise to three different governance approaches:

• business as usual/ecomodernism: economic growth + political freedoms (without environmental protection);
• post-growth approaches: participation + environmental protection (without economic growth)
• environmental authoritarianism: economic growth + environmental protection (without political freedoms).

Finally, the research questions whether and under what conditions PST truly stands. PST assumes that at least two policy goals can always be obtained. This is, in itself, a debatable, and debated, claim. In this sense, PST, as a description of current approaches to environmental governance, might be considered an over-optimistic framework. These considerations open up a space to argue that, given the set of policy possibilities offered by PST, global governance of environmental policy - especially climate change - might be more difficult to achieve than previously thought.

• The Post-Sustainability Trilemma
• Framing environmental policy: the role of European think-tanks

• Environmental politics
• Political philosophy
• Climate change  
• Environmental governance