Environmental concerns in Brazil, China, Africa and Australia

This paper intends to unveil some of the main backgrounds and current tendencies of environmental policies in Brazil, China, Africa and Australia, especially climate policies.

We are mainly interested in providing a historical reconstruction of the societal internalization of environmental concerns in Brazil, China, Africa and Australia ,on both state and civic levels, with an emphasis on the transformations that took place over the 1970–2000’s period.

In the Brazilian case we argue that environmental civil associations do not find either a legal idiom or public forums by means of which they could turn their demands and moral concerns into a binding juridical code. This is so because, on the one hand, their moral concerns, even when based on de-traditionalized and abstract principles, are not paralleled with an autonomous legal framework, strong enough to set limits to the functioning of both the political-administrative apparatus as well as to economic actors. As we contend, this helps to explain why the environmental legislation in Brazil is rhetorically manipulated on a regular basis—and, hence, set aside whenever it contradicts other priorities. On the other hand, environmental concerns have always met with difficulties to become a priority in the Brazilian polity.

We also have analysis of these issues in China, Australian and Africa through the study of official documents, recent papers and visit some important institutions that have a traditional work with environmental issues in these countries.