This book provides original critical insights into climate politics and new directions for society's response, for researchers, advanced students and policy makers.
Climate change governance is in a state of enormous flux. New and more dynamic forms of governing are appearing around the international climate regime centred on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They appear to be emerging spontaneously from the bottom up, producing a more dispersed pattern of governing, which Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom famously described as 'polycentric'. This book brings together contributions from some of the world's foremost experts to provide the first systematic test of the ability of polycentric thinking to explain and enhance societal attempts to govern climate change. It is ideal for researchers in public policy, international relations, environmental science, environmental management, politics, law and public administration. It will also be useful on advanced courses in climate policy and governance, and for practitioners seeking incisive summaries of developments in particular sub-areas and sectors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Today's most pressing environmental problems are planetary in scope, confounding the political will of any one nation. How can we solve them? Global Environmental Governance offers the essential information, theory, and practical insight needed to tackle this critical challenge. It examines ten major environmental threats-climate disruption, biodiversity loss, acid rain, ozone depletion, deforestation, desertification, freshwater degradation and shortages, marine fisheries decline, toxic pollutants, and excess nitrogen-and explores how they can be addressed through treaties, governance regimes, and new forms of international cooperation. Written by Gus Speth, one of the architects of the international environmental movement, and accomplished political scientist Peter M. Haas, Global Environmental Governance tells the story of how the community of nations, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, and multinational corporations have in recent decades created an unprecedented set of laws and institutions intended to help solve large-scale environmental problems. The book critically examines the serious shortcomings of current efforts and the underlying reasons why disturbing trends persist. It presents key concepts in international law and regime formation in simple, accessible language, and describes the current institutional landscape as well as lessons learned and new directions needed in international governance. Global Environmental Governance is a concise guide, with lists of key terms, study questions, and other features designed to help readers think about and understand the concepts discussed.
An overview of the forms of agency in urban climate politics, including their strengths, limitations and the power dynamics between them. Written by renowned scholars from around the globe, it is ideal for researchers and practitioners working in the area of urban climate politics and governance.
Since 2009, a diverse group of developing states that includes China, Brazil, Ethiopia and Costa Rica has been advancing unprecedented pledges to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, offering new, unexpected signs of climate leadership. Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that these targets are now even more ambitious than those put forward by their wealthier counterparts. But what really lies behind these new pledges? What actions are being taken to meet them? And what stumbling blocks lie in the way of their realization? In this book, an international group of scholars seeks to address these questions by analyzing the experiences of twelve states from across Asia, the Americas and Africa. The authors map the evolution of climate policies in each country and examine the complex array of actors, interests, institutions and ideas that has shaped their approaches. Offering the most comprehensive analysis thus far of the unique challenges that developing countries face in the domain of climate change, Climate Governance in the Developing World reveals the political, economic and environmental realities that underpin the pledges made by developing states, and which together determine the chances of success and failure.
The idea of building an economy which supports sustainable development without degrading the environment has been widely debated and broadly embraced by politicians, civil servants, the media, academics and the public alike for several decades. This book explores the measures being trialled at various levels of governance in the European region to reduce the adverse impacts of human behaviour on the environment whilst simultaneously addressing society's economic and social needs as part of the intended shift towards a 'green' economy. It includes European case studies that scrutinise the efforts being undertaken at sub-national, national and regional tiers of governance to facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy. This book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers working in environmental governance, European studies, environmental studies, political science, and management studies.
How to progress climate science to be policy-relevant and actionable? This book presents a novel framework to give a positive vision and structuring approach to guide research and practice on transformative climate governance, to shift the narrative from apathy and stalemate to action and transformation. Our vision contrasts existing climate governance and associated lock-ins that signify the institutional resistance to change. To effectively address climate change, climate governance itself needs to be transformed to foster sustainability transitions under climate change. The book brings together a collection of case studies to investigate how capacities for transformative climate governance are developing at multiple scales and how they can be strengthened vis-à-vis existing governance regimes. Specifically, it sheds light on the following questions: What are key overarching conditions, actors and activities that facilitate governance for transformation under climate change? Given persistent climate governance lock-ins, what needs to happen in research and policy to build-up the capacities that transform climate governance and ensure effective climate action?