The Politics of the Earth

Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek

The Politics of the Earth provides an introduction to thinking about the environment, through investigation of related political discourses. The text analyses the various approaches which have dominated environmental issues over the last three decades and which are likely to be influential in the future, including survivalism, environmental problem solving, sustainability, and green radicalism. This new edition includes more on global environmental politics, as well as updated and expanded examples including more material on China. The text looks at the most modern discourses, including discussions surrounding climate change, and reworks the material on justice and green radicalism to include more on climate justice and new developments such as transition towns and radical summits.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nicholas Chan

Abstract The Paris Agreement is increasingly being used as an analogy in global environmental politics to discuss issues beyond climate change. This Forum article explores the two main ways in which this analogy has been discursively employed: as a symbol of diplomatic success to be emulated and as a model for institutional treaty design. It illustrates the broader meanings associated with the Paris Agreement, reflecting its preeminent public and political profile among environmental issues just a few years into its history and its potential significance in shaping subsequent global environmental negotiations.


Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric Morin ◽  
Amandine Orsini ◽  
Sikina Jinnah

This introductory chapter presents global environmental politics as an important area of international and transnational cooperation and as a distinct field of study. First, as an area of cooperation, global environmental politics emerged out of the need to work together internationally and transnationally to address some pressing environmental problems, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the rapid reduction of global fish stocks. Independent state action at the local and national levels is not sufficient to address global environmental issues: these issues require cooperation through global governance. Second, as a field of study, global environmental politics investigates the various dimensions of emerging actions on global environmental issues. It is a diverse field of study from both theoretical and disciplinary perspectives.


2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (02) ◽  
pp. 473-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica F. Green ◽  
Thomas N. Hale

ABSTRACT Despite the increasing urgency of many environmental problems, environmental politics remains at the margins of the discipline. Using data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project, this article identifies a puzzle: the majority of international relations (IR) scholars find climate change among the top three most important policy issues today, yet fewer than 4% identify the environment as their primary area of research. Moreover, environmental research is rarely published in top IR journals, although there has been a recent surge in work focused on climate change. The authors argue that greater attention to environmental issues—including those beyond climate change—in IR can bring significant benefits to the discipline, and they discuss three lines of research to correct this imbalance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Yumie Aoki Inoue

Many socioenvironmental struggles around the globe involve trying to protect the disappearance of other “worlds.” Along with biological diversity, human languages, traditions, understandings, and the intimate relationships between peoples and their lands are under attack through various forms of colonization, capital expansion, or simply the globalization of lifeways. Scholars of international relations have recently come to appreciate that the world is made up of many worlds, and that great pressures threaten to reduce its diversity. This work has been essential for understanding the struggle of maintaining many worlds on a single Earth. Such scholarship has yet to penetrate fully studies of global environmental politics (GEP). This article extends such sensitivity and scholarly effort to GEP by dialoguing with Indigenous ways of knowing. It argues that Indigenous struggles are struggles for the survival of many worlds on one planet and that we could learn from this. The intention is not to generalize Indigenous knowledge but rather to make a call for engagement. Through Creative Listening and Speaking, a worldist methodology, the article focuses on the Yanomami’s forest-world and presents a few perspectives to illustrate how relational ontologies, stories of nonhierarchical and dialogical divinities, make ways of knowing and being from which we could learn how to relate to the Earth as equals.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mason

Transboundary and global environmental harm present substantial challenges to state-centered (territorial) modalities of accountability and responsibility. The globalization of environmental degradation has triggered regulatory responses at various jurisdictional scales. These governance efforts, featuring various articulations of state and/or private authority, have struggled to address so-called “accountability deficits” in global environmental politics. Yet, it has also become clear that accountability and responsibility norms forged in domestic regulatory contexts cannot simply be transposed across borders. This special issue explores various conceptual perspectives on accountability and responsibility for transnational harm, and examines their application to different actor groups and environmental governance regimes. This introductory paper provides an overview of the major theoretical positions and examines some of the analytical challenges raised by the transnational (re)scaling of accountability and responsibility norms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 217 ◽  
pp. 11004
Author(s):  
Galina Semenova

Air pollution is an environmental problem that is familiar to residents of absolutely all corners of the earth. It is especially acutely felt by residents of cities where enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, energy, chemical, petrochemical, construction, pulp and paper industries operate. In some cities, the atmosphere is also severely poisoned by vehicles and boiler houses. These are all examples of anthropogenic air pollution. The subject of the study is the emissions of carbon dioxide into the environment. The purpose of the study is to solve the problem of environmental pollution by harmful substances and preserve the ecology in the world. Methodology. The main indicators characterizing the impact on the environment - CO2 emissions in the global energy sector - have been systematized; two indicators have been identified that determine the level of atmospheric pollution. Results - the scale of the influence of atmospheric air pollution on human health and the entire ecosystem as a whole was revealed.


Author(s):  
Kim Reimann

This chapter examines the evolution of environmental politics in Japan over the postwar period and identifies the main factors and actors shaping environmental policy. The literature on Japanese environmental politics has shifted its focus over time from domestic to global environmental issues, mirroring transformations in Japan’s political economy and international status. After successfully confronting the domestic problem of severe pollution in the 1970s and early 1980s, Japan became one of the world’s largest donors of environmental foreign aid, starting in the early 1990s and continuing today. Throughout all periods, there have been continuities as well as changes. In terms of representation and democracy, the Japanese state has consistently prioritized concerns of business and local governments in the policymaking process. In addition to having greater voice, these constituencies have also benefited materially from policies through their access to various green funds. In contrast, NGOs and citizens have tended to be left out of policy discussions and have exercised voice largely through protest and critiques of government policies. The chapter ends by examining the case of climate change to explore these patterns in more recent years.


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