Green Industrial Policy and the Global Transformation of Climate Politics

The rise of green industrial policy has injected purpose and competition into global environmental politics. Efforts to build green industry have raised the economic and geopolitical stakes of environmental issues as states seek to position their firms in global value chains and reshore strategic industries. This could help to generate the technologies and political momentum needed to accelerate global decarbonization. At the same time, these green interventions confront status quo interests and a variety of brown industrial policies. To help make sense of this new landscape, this introduction to the special issue defines green industrial policy and situates it within domestic political economy, social policy, and global geopolitics. We present six new studies that demonstrate and explore the global politics of green industrial policy. To illustrate the kinds of effects and implications of green industrial policy we are interested in exploring, we show how green industrial policy has transformed climate politics. Changes in state practice, ideas about the environment and economy, and technological cost declines came together to produce a new opportunistic and competitive climate politics. We then identify areas for further investigation as we call for a new climate politics research agenda, integrating green industrial policy more intentionally into studies of global environmental politics.

The Paris Agreement as Analogy in Global Environmental Politics

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.

Invasive Species in Post-2020 Global Environmental Politics

As goods and people more rapidly traverse our interconnected world, invasive alien species (IAS) are increasingly frequent, ecologically damaging, economically significant, and culturally concerning. Through examinations of IAS, global environmental politics (GEP) scholars can more deeply engage long-standing and newly emerging research problems within the three areas of global governance, global political economy, and environmental security. First, GEP scholars can use IAS research to further develop insights about the impact of problem structure on global governance. Second, examining IAS dispersal risks and associated costs, as well as intercountry variation in management responses, can generate insights about North–South power dynamics in the global political economy and how distributive conflict is likely to shape future invasion risk. Third, notions of environmental security in GEP scholarship can be challenged and further developed by examining the conceptualization and operationalization of “biosecurity” amid increasingly diverse multispecies assemblages. Greater research attention to IAS in GEP is long overdue, and we intend for this article to open novel pathways for GEP interdisciplinary research on IAS.

Climate Crisis

International relations scholarship on climate change exists primarily in the field of Global Environmental Politics (GEP) and outside the substantive purview of mainstream International Political Economy (IPE). This chapter argues that the climate crisis is fundamentally an IPE problem, and it requires attention from IPE scholars as a primary subject of interest. To facilitate engagement, the chapter reviews a diverse literature at the intersection of IPE and climate across three substantive areas: the global climate regime, trade, and renewable energy transitions. Each section offers avenues for research, and provides ideas on how to put concepts and ideas from IPE to work in climate crisis scholarship.

Making Representations: The SDG Process and Major Groups’ Images of the Future

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) process aimed to be more inclusive, transparent, and participatory than prior United Nations processes. This article traces the practices of representation that were performed by civil society actors during the SDG process. In doing so, we advance a performative approach in which the very process of making representation is examined. Its aim is to conceptualize and study representation as an aesthetic and political practice. This leads to the two central research questions of this article: How do civil society organizations in global environmental politics make representative claims by picturing their envisioned future? How are future representations (that is, the representation of futures or future beings) related to actor positions during the SDG process? Special emphasis is given to representations of “the future” as an ever-present frame of reference in environmental politics. Based on a systematic content analysis of the statements of two Major Groups—Children, and Youth and Farmers—we discuss the variety of future representations between the Major Groups and how especially more radical future representations are connected to rather precarious actor positions in representative claims.

11. Global Politics in the Anthropocene

This chapter studies how the scope of global politics has been extended over the last half century or so to include the impact of human industrial activity on the environment. The environmental movement and ‘green theory’ have grown out of concerns with the deleterious impact of this activity and the capacity of the planet to carry the burden of ‘business as usual’ in a world driven by the imperatives of endless growth. Many now believe that the impact on the earth’s systems is so significant that the present geological period should be recognized as the ‘Anthropocene’. Climate change is probably the most prominent issue associated with the Anthropocene at present, but it is not the only one. The chapter examines a range of issues in global environment politics, starting with the reconceptualization of the present period. It then moves on to an account of the environmental movement, the emergence of various ‘green’ ideologies and theories, and the politics of science. This is essential background for considering the role of the state and its sovereign powers in the context of global environmental politics.

Public–Private Inquiries: Institutional Intermediaries and the Transparency Nexus in Global Resource Development

Privately commissioned public inquiries in extractive industries are an enormously rich source of data for scholars of global environmental politics. This untapped arena comprises a series of unconventional inquiries in response to contentious socioenvironmental events and incidents, whereby large resource companies commission studies, relinquish control over the process, and publicly release findings. These inquiries are an episodic but persistent feature of the resource governance landscape in the global mining industry—one of the world’s most contentious, environmentally disruptive, and influential sectors. We argue that there is a certain independence or autonomy associated with these inquiries, justifying their analytical separation from internal corporate governance. Above all, these inquiries provide opportunities for scholars of global environmental politics to consolidate their activist roots and connect local realities to global debates. We offer a set of preliminary of research questions and describe points of access for future research.

Embracing the Darkness: Methods for Tackling Uncertainty and Complexity in Environmental Disaster Risks

Environmental systems are complex and often difficult to predict. The interrelationships within such systems can create abrupt changes with lasting impacts, yet they are often overlooked until disasters occur. Mounting environmental and social crises demand the need to better understand both the role and consequences of emerging risks in global environmental politics (GEP). In this research note, we discuss scenarios and simulations as innovative tools that may help GEP scholars identify, assess, and communicate solutions to complex problems and systemic risks. We argue that scenarios and simulations are effective at providing context for interpreting “weak signals.” Applying simulations to research of complex risks also offers opportunities to address otherwise overwhelming uncertainty.