The Role of Ethics and Targets in Environmental Governance and the Enduring Importance of New Public Management

This article examines the importance of new public management in environmental governance. In order to explain what makes new public management such a robust framework for environmental governance, the article draws on the key themes of individual and collective responsibility in responding to climate change, examining the role of new public management in response to ecological and environmental change, resource scarcity, focus on global energy sources and politics. The article discusses the role of three aspects of environmental governance in turn: the theoretical understandings relating to individuals and society in response to climate change, the politics of these responses and governance arrangements, and how these are formed by the hastening paucity of certain energy resources. The article then moves on to examine these themes in the context of new public management, arguing that the responses we see to climate change in environmental governance are driven by measurement and targets, as these can be universally set and communicated. This shows the enduring nature of new public management in political and policy responses to the challenges of climate change