This Paper focuses on the limits of the environmental state. It starts from three fundamental structural constraints on actually existing environmental states: first those imposed by its capitalist economic foundations; second, the existence of an international system where each state is but one among many; and (iii) the politics of the 'representative' democratic polity. It asks how each of the constraints bears on the current operations of environmental states, and how far in principle they might be overcome by a more consequent applications of environmental rationality within existing structures. Some time will be spent on contrasting the gulf between this hypothetical reform potential and the very limited gains environmental states have actually delivered to date. The paper does not postulate how one could go beyond the environmental state. Rather it concentrates in establishing the limits of the imaginary within the structural horizons of the environmental state in developed countries.
Two particular issues are examined in order to 'stress test' the potential of the environmental state: first, the ability to secure rapid decarbonization of the energy system to respond to the pressing problem of climate change; and second the ability the manage environmental and socio-economic impacts of just-over-the horizon techno-economic developments (including manipulation of the human genome, artificial ecosystems, artificial intelligence, robotization, nano-technology, extending the human lifespan, etc. It will draw on a variety of literatures including those relating to the environmental state, democratic theory, capitalism and the welfare state.
