The catalyst for Environmental Action
Climate Policy began to take the stage during the 1970s with a focus placed on the impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the consequences of their increased usage on rising global temperatures [4]. Yet despite such revelations, it took until 1977 for ‘The Greenhouse Effect’ – a review, delivered initially to Exxon Corporation by James Black – to be released [5]. The paper shed light on how ‘man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical’ [5].
The 1972 Summit marked a monumental policy adaptation towards an action programme for environmental protection. The policy prioritised the need to increase environmental strategies surrounding growing economic expansion with how environmental pollution did not stop at national borders and had to be addressed by cross-border measures instead [6,7]. Despite the focus on attempting to reduce the impacts of global economic expansion, the focus on environmental policy was neither broad nor specific.
Environmental action throughout the 1970s
The 1973 Environmental Action Programme marked its focus on implementing proactive change, rather than offering recommendations to do so. It placed limitations on vehicle emissions for the content of lead within petrol, however, without a common economic policy it threatened the free trade within the Economic Community of Europe [8]. This led to the creation of the Directorate-General for the Environment 1974 (DG Environment). The DG was created to improve and preserve Europe’s environment for current and future generations, with the establishment of lobby groups placed across member states that called for action to be taken regarding sanctions on air quality and carbon emissions [9]. Furthermore, the DG Environment aimed to resolve the issue of environmental policy cross-border trade relations with ‘the elimination of technical trade barriers’ [2].
Climate Policy in the 1980s, a turn for the better?
The environmental policies in the 1980s were focused on protecting and sustaining the environment. This led to the development of the Environmental Defense Fund, and the further establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 1988 [10, 11].
The main priority of the IPCC was ‘to provide policymakers with regular assessments of climate change, its impacts and future risks’ [11]. The first assessment set the framework for the negotiations that led to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and it became ‘the authoritative source of information on the science and impacts of climate change’ [10,12]. With this increased sense of immediacy, the focus of climate policy remained largely around greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions and rising global temperatures. The IPCC Task Forces for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories’ main focus is to ‘develop and refine a methodology for the calculation and reporting of national greenhouse gas emissions and removals’ [11].
Conclusion
The 1970s marked the beginning of Environmental Policy across Europe, the 1972 Paris summit acting as the catalyst for a broader focus and attention on the environment. Although physical positive action did not occur until the late 1970s, the foundations had been established. As a result, the policies and summits placed greater emphasis on the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. The policy began to evolve into an action plan through the creation of the specialised task force of the IPCC that attempts to mitigate against the climate crisis and provide solutions towards the problems we still face.
