[craftyguy]

> Here governments take decision for the short term because they have to please the common (& uneducated) men for the next election. Hence the agenda of environment doesn't get much attention. That's why have poor plastic management.

No, it's pretty much like this in the US too. It's very difficult to get legislation that takes >2 years to start paying off to pass at the federal level. If it takes > 2 years for constituents to realize any benefit from it, politicians generally have little to no incentive to push for it. You get the occassional rarity, but you need consensus, and the current system is built to reward short term gains, often times with the expense of long term losses.

[jacobolus]

For example, in the USA the Democratic Party’s passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 (which took a few years to show its effects) was initially so unpopular vs. a barrage of negative propaganda and an opposition that rallied against it for political gain that the backlash knocked the party out of power in the House of Representatives for the next 8 years.

And that’s for something (healthcare) with very clear and direct effect on people’s lives, where the remedy was a centrist approach first proposed by Republicans.

Taking larger-scale action against an even longer-term threat where the only visible benefit is “see we prevented calamity” and where some of the richest multinational corporations’ short-term future is directly threatened will be much harder still.