The book features several Earth System Governance Scholars and is specifically intended to provide useful input to the COP26 process.
Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action.
Composed of twenty-eight essays—a combination of new and republished texts—the anthology is organised around seven main themes: paradigms; what counts?; extraction; dispatches from a climate change frontline country; governance; finance; and action(s). Through this multifaceted approach, the contributors ask pressing questions about how we conceptualise and respond to the climate crisis, providing both ‘big picture’ perspectives and more focussed case studies.
This unique and extensive collection will be of great value to environmental and social scientists alike, as well as to the general reader interested in understanding current views on the climate crisis.
This work by eminent scholars from around the world offers a provocative and deeply insightful analysis of “the politics of paralysis and self-destruction” that have long hindered effective and equitable climate policy over the past 20 years. The book is very timely, and I hope will help to increase the sense of urgency for a deal that will save the planet and billions of poor people around the world that bear a disproportionate impact of climate change.
Prof Chukwumerije Okereke, Director Center of Climate Change and Development, Alex-Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Nigeria
Every person of good will must work to make COP26 a decisive moment in the history of the world. This rich and eclectic collection offers a range of critical perspectives into the destructive role played by the coal, oil and gas sectors, and other crucial issues that will underpin the conference, as well as providing ideas for how we can yet secure a world of future flourishing.
David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific
This book presents perspectives from the Global South, highlighting voices from communities and sharing their daily lived experiences of climate change. These voices are often missing from international platforms such as COPs. The contributions included in the book are valuable for countries such as Namibia and others where the impacts of climate change are severe. Namibia strongly advocates for knowledge production regarding climate change and its impact on livelihoods, the coping mechanisms of vulnerable communities and their capacity to adapt.
Hon. Heather Mwiza Sibungo, Deputy Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Namibia
Bringing a wide range of social scientists together, this volume provides a much needed critical analysis of why meaningful action on climate change has been so elusive and what we can do about it. It asks the difficult questions and provides some promising answers.
Prof. Harriet Bulkeley, Durham University
One of the key challenges in responding to climate change is taking into account multiple perspectives across various theories and methods of research. Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis is a clear and thoughtfully organized anthology that rises to that challenge. Unlike some social science writing, this book is readily accessible to any generally interested reader. The contributors succeed in presenting a comprehensive, state-of-the-art report about social science perspectives on the climate crisis.
Sam Mickey, University of San Francisco
