Neoliberal Environmental Policy

Neoliberal environmental policy comprises a critical component of contemporary nature-society interactions. Neoliberalism is most simply defined as a political philosophy that promotes a greater reliance on markets and less reliance on government for the provision of nearly all goods and services, including environmental services. Invoked by powerful multinational institutions and many national governments to justify their approaches to trade and investment, it has fundamentally shaped the evolution of international governance, development, and environmental regulation over the past 25 years or so. Environmental aspects of neoliberalism include not only explicit, direct policies, such as those creating new environmental markets through privatization schemes of various kinds, but also the indirect environmental effects of market liberalization.