Climate change as a global test for contemporary political institutions and theories

2011 ◽  
pp. 131-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Global Test

Global Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Caney
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Fair Trade ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
World Trade ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
The World ◽  
Dangerous Climate Change

In recent years, a number of powerful arguments have been given for thinking that there should be suprastate institutions, and that the current ones, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United Nations Security Council, need to be radically reformed and new ones created. Two distinct kinds of argument have been advanced. One is instrumental and emphasizes the need for effective suprastate political institutions to realize some important substantive ideals (such as preventing dangerous climate change, eradicating poverty, promoting fair trade, and securing peace). The second is procedural and emphasizes the importance of political institutions that include all those subject to their power in as democratic a process as possible, and builds on this to call for democratically accountable international institutions. In this chapter, the author argues that the two approaches need not conflict, and that they can in fact lend support to each other.

scholarly journals The ECB's conundrum and 21st century monetary policy: How European monetary policy can be green, social and democratic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens van 't Klooster
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Government Debt ◽  
European Monetary ◽  
European Monetary Policy

The ECB’s mandate was drafted 30 years ago and focuses narrowly on preventing inflation. As a consequences, the ECB lacks clear democratic guidance concerning the challenges it faces today: how to deal with government debt and what to do to fight climate change. This lack of guidance undermines the legitimacy of its choices and the effectiveness of its programmes. The EU’s political institutions can solve the ECB’s conundrum by providing it with renewed democratic authorisation.

Philosophy and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Independent Interest ◽  
The Social

Climate change is poised to threaten, disrupt, and transform human life, and the social, economic, and political institutions that structure it. In light of this, understanding climate change, and discussing how to address it, should be at the very center of our public conversation. Philosophy can make an enormous contribution to that conversation, but only if both philosophers and non-philosophers understand what it can contribute. The sixteen original articles collected in this volume both illustrate the diverse ways that philosophy can contribute to this conversation, and ways in which thinking about climate change can help to illuminate a range of topics of independent interest to philosophers.

scholarly journals The Comparative Politics of Climate Change

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Harrison ◽  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Change Leaders ◽  
Abatement Policies ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change

The authors use a comparative politics framework, examining electoral interests, policy-maker's own normative commitments, and domestic political institutions as factors influencing Annex 1 countries' decisions on Kyoto Protocol ratification and adoption of national policies to mitigate climate change. Economic costs and electoral interests matter a great deal, even when policy-makers are morally motivated to take action on climate change. Leaders' normative commitments may carry the day under centralized institutional conditions, but these commitments can be reversed when leaders change. Electoral systems, federalism, and executive-legislative institutional configurations all influence ratification decisions and subsequent policy adoption. Although institutional configurations may facilitate or hinder government action, high levels of voter concern can trump institutional obstacles. Governments' decisions to ratify, and the reduction targets they face upon ratification, do not necessarily determine their approach to carbon emissions abatement policies: for example, ratifying countries that accept demanding targets may fail to take significant action.

scholarly journals Changing climate change: The carbon budget and the modifying-work of the IPCC

2020 ◽  
pp. 030631272094193
Author(s):  
Bård Lahn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Carbon Budget ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Global Carbon Budget ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Global Carbon

Over the last 10 years, the concept of a global ‘carbon budget’ of allowable CO2 emissions has become ubiquitous in climate science and policy. Since it was brought to prominence by the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the carbon budget has changed how climate change is enacted as an issue of public concern, from determining the optimal rate of future emissions to establishing a fixed limit for how much emissions should be allowed before they must be stopped altogether. Exploring the emergence of the carbon budget concept, this article shows how the assessment process of the IPCC has offered scientific experts the means to modify how the climate issue is problematized, and discusses the implications of this ‘modifying-work’ for the politics of climate change. It finds that the ‘modified climate issue’ must be seen as an outcome of the ordinary work within established scientific and political institutions, and the agency these institutions afford scientists to enact the issue differently. On this basis, it argues that the case of the carbon budget holds important insights not only for the relationship between climate science and policy, but also for the pragmatist literature on ‘issue formation’ in STS.

Political Institutions and Intergenerational Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Karnein
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
The Face ◽  
Intergenerational Ethics ◽  
Change Mitigation

This chapter reviews two prominent debates about institutions and intergenerational ethics, one held at the time of the founding of America and the other held today in the context of climate change. These two debates have more in common than may, at first, appear. On the face of it, the historical debate was about whether institutions, specifically the constitution, may bind future generations or whether the latter should be left maximally unencumbered. By contrast, proponents of climate change mitigation today would like institutions to be more inclusive of future generations’ interests. But, this chapter suggests, the new debate ought to be understood along the same lines as the old one, namely as being about avoiding disenfranchisement, that is, about preventing a situation in which previous generations determine too much of the context of future generations’ choices.

scholarly journals Populist Attitudes and Climate Scepticism: It's all about Science and Political Institutions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Huber ◽  
Esther Greussing ◽  
Jakob-Moritz Eberl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Institutional Trust ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
The People ◽  
Attitudes Towards Science ◽  
The Relationship

Why do populists oppose climate change? While initial research established the relationship between populism and climate attitudes, data constraints limited the ability to test different causal pathways against each other. We argue that populist attitudes affect climate attitudes through two distinct channels, namely institutional trust and attitudes towards science. The former argument focuses on political institutions as the central actors in implementing climate policy. If one is to distrust these institutions, individuals are more likely to believe that climate change does not exist, is less dangerous than often portrayed, and/or that it isn’t attributable to humankind. The latter argument claims that populists deny climate change because they distrust the underlying climate science. According to this view, populists would view climate scientists as part of the self-serving elite that betrays the people. Utilising new data from the Austrian National Election Study and structural equation modelling, we find strong support for the relationship of populism and climate attitudes via attitudes towards science. The relationship via institutional trust is substantially weaker. Populists systematically hold more negative attitudes towards science and consequently deny climate change.

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