At its founding in 1957 the European Union had no environmental dimension, but today it has some of the most progressive environmental policies in the world. Before environmental protection and sustainable development became fundamental objectives in EU treaties, environment policy was mainly developed through the environment action programmes. Today binding environmental regulations are one of the more extensive areas of European legislation. The Lisbon Treaty which entered into force 1st of December 2009 marks the end of the confusion brought about by failure to ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Like the Constitution before, the environmental implications of the Treaty are not immediately obvious. Articles 191 and 193 of the Treaty deal specifically with the Environment, Climate Change and Energy and they deserve some consideration by anyone concerned with these issues.