Global Politics and the Environment
| Author | Hayley Stevenson |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12142 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
Global Politics and the Environment
Hayley Stevenson
University of Sheffield
Climate Governance in the Developing World edited
by David Held, Charles Roger and Eva-Maria Nag.
Cambridge: Polity, 2013. 272 pp. £55 hardcover,
978 0 7456 6276 3; £17.99 paperback, 978 0 7456
6277 0
Globalization and the Environment: Capitalism,
Ecology and Power by Peter Newell. Cambridge: Polity,
2012. 224 pp. £55 hardcover, 978 0 7456 4722 7; £16.99
paperback, 978 0 7456 4723 4
China’s Environmental Challenges by Judith Shapiro.
Cambridge: Polity, 2012. 200 pp. £50 hardcover, 978 0
7456 6090 5; £14.99 paperback, 978 0 7456 6091 2
Recent decades have seen environmental concerns
migrate from the margins of political and public discus-
sion to the mainstream. The pages of text devoted to
multilateral environmental negotiation could probably
now circle the globe multiple times. Yet even though the
environment has been successfully implanted in local,
national and international political agendas, we are still a
very long way from ensuring a habitable planet for
future generations. Political will and capacity often seem
to be in very short supply indeed. This set of recent
books on environmental politics together help us to
understand why the chasm between political perfor-
mance and ecological imperative is so vast. Nevertheless,
these are not tales of despair. Reading these impressive
works together rewards the reader with nuanced insights
into the political, economic, social and environmental
tensions that emerge at multiple scales across the world.
While these reveal deeply institutionalised forms of un-
sustainability, faint optimism can be found in their docu-
mented cases of leadership and ambition from political
leaders, and of resistance and struggle from civil society
groups. By exploring the actions of different actors and
their conflicting and compatible preferences and capaci-
ties, these books reveal the deeply political nature of sus-
tainability. Of course, they are not the first to do so. The
body of literature on environmental politics is strong and
growing. Yet each of these contributions does provide
something original and insightful by shedding light on
relatively neglected countries and issues (Held et al.,
2013; Newell, 2012), bringing clarity and nuance to a cru-
cially important yet poorly understood country (Shapiro,
2012), synthesising disparate literatures and disciplinary
approaches (Newell, 2012; Shapiro, 2012) and speaking
to an audience beyond the research community (Held
et al., 2013; Newell, 2012; Shapiro, 2012).
In negotiations on climate change, the argument of
historical responsibility once provided a buffer between
developing countries and demands for emission reduc-
tion. Yet this point has slowly lost its grip on interna-
tional negotiations as it has become increasingly
undeniable that global efforts to maintain a stable cli-
mate will fail unless emissions growth is curbed in devel-
oping countries. The extent of existing action in
developing countries is assessed in Held et al.’s (2013)
volume. An excellent cast of contributors provides a
comparison of 12 countries: China, India, Indonesia,
South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Egypt,
Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa. This selection
represents 50 per cent of the world’s population, 25 per
cent of global GDP and almost 40 per cent of global
annual emissions. Despite their significance, few of these
countries have attracted much attention in the climate
governance literature. Understanding of climate-related
policies in these countries has been further impeded by
their own reluctance to publicise domestic efforts and
thereby detract attention from historical responsibility in
international negotiations. Therefore, scholars and policy
makers alike will find this volume valuable.
The quality of research is consistently high across all
chapters, and the editors have ensured an admirable
degree of analytical cohesion. The policy trajectory in
each country is carefully traced to identify the main
actors, and the factors that have either hindered or
enabled action. What emerges is a pattern of climate pol-
icy leaders and laggards in the developing world. The
volume doesn’t provide a single concise answer to the
question of why some developing countries have been
laggards and others leaders, but the editors do tease out
some of the common factors that either facilitate or
undermine ambitious action by these countries. These
include the availability of climate finance; the linkage of
sectors and concerns; socialisation efforts of epistemic
communities; interministerial dynamics; domestic inter-
ests; and capacity. All of this is insightful and important
for filling gaps in our practical and theoretical knowledge
of global climate governance. Nevertheless, one impor-
tant dimension of climate governance has been over-
looked in this volume: that of justice and legitimacy.
©2014 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2014) 5:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12142
Global Policy Volume 5 . Issue 3 . September 2014
388
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