ABSTRACT
The politics of the environment have transformed the practices of nations and our understanding of state sovereignty and the international system. However, the question remains whether states, nations and the international system can support the practices of environmental politics. At the heart of the matter are the limitations of the state as a mechanism for delivering environmental policy. It is diffi cult for national governments to respond to global environmental change because their political obligations are defi ned by pre-existing perceptions and expectations of the state and assumed national priorities, particularly economic ones. Furthermore, established administrative structures of the state engage with the relatively novel politics of the environment with some diffi culty, such that policies based on effi ciency may actually increase overall consumption and ecological degradation. To some extent this has been addressed by bureaucratic reorganization (or just rebranding) around environmental issues with energy and climate appearing together in the titles of governmental departments, agencies and programmes.
