Great Powers Climate Change And Global Environmental Responsibilities

This book is the first of its kind to examine the role of great powers in the international politics of climate change. It develops a novel analytical framework for studying environmental power in international relations, what counts as a great power in the environmental field, and what their special environmental responsibilities are. In doing so, the book connects International Relations (IR) debates on power inequality, great powers and great power management, with global environmental politics (GEP) scholarship. The book brings together leading scholars in IR and GEP whose contributions focus on major environmental powers (United States, China, European Union, India, Brazil, Russia) and international institutions and issue areas (UN Security Council, multilateral environmental agreements, international climate leadership, coal politics). The contributors to this volume examine how individual great powers have responded to the global climate challenge and whether they have accepted a special responsibility for stabilizing the global climate. They place emerging discourses on great power responsibility in the context of wider debates about international environmental leadership and climate change securitization. And they provide new insights into how international power inequality intersects with the global ecological crisis, and what special role great powers could and should play in the international fight against global warming.

This book is the first of its kind to examine the role of great powers in the international politics of climate change. It develops a novel analytical framework for studying environmental power in international relations, what counts as a great power in the environmental field, and what their special environmental responsibilities are. In doing so, the book connects International Relations (IR) debates on power inequality, great powers and great power management, with global environmental politics (GEP) scholarship. The book brings together leading scholars in IR and GEP whose contributions focus on major environmental powers (United States, China, European Union, India, Brazil, Russia) and international institutions and issue areas (UN Security Council, multilateral environmental agreements, international climate leadership, coal politics). The contributors to this volume examine how individual great powers have responded to the global climate challenge and whether they have accepted a special responsibility for stabilizing the global climate. They place emerging discourses on great power responsibility in the context of wider debates about international environmental leadership and climate change securitization. And they provide new insights into how international power inequality intersects with the global ecological crisis, and what special role great powers could and should play in the international fight against global warming.

As American leadership over climate change declines, China has begun to identify itself as a great power by formulating ambitious climate policies. Based on the premise that great powers have unique responsibilities, this book explores how China’s rise to great power status transforms notions of great power responsibility in general and international climate politics in particular. The author looks empirically at the Chinese party-state’s conceptions of state responsibility, discusses the influence of those notions on China’s role in international climate politics, and considers both how China will act out its climate responsibility in the future and the broader implications of these actions. Alongside the argument that the international norm of climate responsibility is an emerging attribute of great power responsibility, Kopra develops a normative framework of great power responsibility to shed new light on the transformations China’s rise will yield and the kind of great power China will prove to be. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, China studies, foreign policy studies, international organizations, international ethics and environmental politics.

Explains how environmentalism became a fundamental norm in international relations and explores the impact of the greening of international society.

Global Environmental Politics provides a fully up to date and comprehensive introduction to the most important issues dominating this fast moving field. Going beyond the issue of climate change, the textbook also introduces students to the pressing issues of desertification, trade in hazardous waste, biodiversity protection, whaling, acid rain, ozone-depletion, water consumption, and over-fishing. . Importantly, the authors pay particular attention to the interactions between environmental politics and other governance issues, such as gender, trade, development, health, agriculture, and security.

To deal with the climate crisis we need a new paradigm of technological and social development aimed at the restoration of ecological systems--the bio-digital energy paradigm--and China is the world power best positioned to lead this change. The climate and energy crisis requires a strong state to change the direction, speed, and scale of innovation in world capitalism. There are only a few possible contenders for catalyzing this governance of survival: China, the European Union, India, and the United States. While China is an improbable leader--and in fact the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses--Peter Drahos explains in Survival Governance why this authoritarian state is actually more likely to implement systemic change swiftly and effectively than any other power. Drawing on more than 250 interviews, carried out in 17 countries--including the world's four largest carbon emitters--Drahos shows what China is doing to make its vast urban network sustainable and why all states must work toward a "bio-digital energy paradigm" based on a globalized, city-based network of innovation. As Drahos explains, America is incapable of reducing the power of its fossil fuel industry. For its part, the European Union's approach is too incremental and slowed by complex internal negotiations to address a crisis that demands a rapid response. India's capacity to be a global leader on energy innovation is questionable. To be sure, China faces hurdles too. Its coal-based industrial system is enormous, and the US, worried about losing technological superiority, is trying to slow China's development. Even so, China is currently urbanizing innovation on a historically unprecedented scale, building eco-cities, hydrogen cities, forest cities, and sponge cities (designed to cope with flooding). This has the potential to move cities into a new relationship with their surrounding ecosystems. China--given the size of its economy and the central government's ability to dictate thoroughgoing policy change--is, despite all of its flaws, presently our best hope for implementing the sort of policy overhaul that can begin to slow climate change.

The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe. In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.

Shows readers how we can all help solve the climate crisis by focusing on a few key, achievable actions.