What Can the Environmental State Actually Do? Three Critiques and Their Limits

Abstract Three critiques of the environmental state shape the discussion of its possibilities and limits. First, states are deemed structurally unable to mitigate climate change due to the “glass ceiling” of systemic transformations. Second, governments play contradictory roles in sustainability transitions because of the manifold societal demands they are facing in an age of overlapping crises. Finally, state bureaucracies and agencies are often branded “lame ducks” that prefer to uphold the status quo and stall sustainability transformations. We argue that those critiques describe important but not ultimate limits for the environmental state to reach at least Paris-aligned decarbonization targets by mid-century. On the contrary, bureaucratic agency, specialization, and coordination offer real possibilities for state-led decarbonization beyond the limits of existing environmental governance. We describe these possibilities and propose a research outlook for global environmental politics that emphasizes the importance of empirically dissecting the environmental state and its various apparatuses and functions.