The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society

About this book

Climate change presents perhaps the most profound challenge ever confronted by human society. This volume is a definitive analysis drawing on the best thinking on questions of how climate change affects human systems, and how societies can, do, and should respond.

Key topics covered include the history of the issues, social and political reception of climate science, the denial of that science by individuals and organized interests, the nature of the social disruptions caused by climate change, the economics of those disruptions and possible responses to them, questions of human security and social justice, obligations to future generations, policy instruments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and governance at local, regional, national, international, and global levels.

Contents

PART I: INTRODUCTION;
1. Climate Change and Society: Approaches and Responses;

PART II: THE CHALLENGE AND ITS HISTORY;
2. A Truly Complex and Diabolical Policy Problem; 3. The Nature of the Problem; 4. The Poverty of Climate Economics; 5. The Development of the Concept of Dangerous Anthropogenic Climate Change; 6. Voices of Vulnerability: The Reconfiguration of Policy Discourses; 7. Environmentality;

PART III: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND PUBLIC OPINION;
8. The Physical Sciences and Climate Politics; 9. Cosmopolitan Knowledge: Climate Science and Global Civic Epistemology; 10. Organized Climate Change Denial; 11. Communicating Climate Change: Closing the Science-Action Gap;

PART IV: SOCIAL IMPACTS;
12. Economic Estimates of the Damages Caused by Climate Change; 13. Weighing Climate Futures: A Critical Review of the Application of Economic Valuation; 14. Global Change Vulnerability Assessments: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities; 15. Health Hazards; 16. Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Losses;

PART V: SECURITY;
17. Climate Change and "Security"; 18. Human Security; 19. Climate Refugees and Security: Conceptualizations, Categories, and Contestations;

PART VI: JUSTICE;
20. From Efficiency to Justice: Utility as the Informational Basis for Climate Strategies, and Some Alternatives; 21. Climate Justice; 22. International Justice; 23. Intergenerational Justice;

PART VII: PUBLICS AND MOVEMENTS;
24. Public Opinion and Participation; 25. Social Movements and Global Civil Society; 26. Transnational Climate Justice Solidarities; 27. Climate Denial: Emotion, Psychology, Culture, and Political Economy; 28. The Role of Religions in Activism;

PART VIII: GOVERNMENT RESPONSES;
29. Comparing State Responses; 30. Climate Change Politics in an Authoritarian State: The Ambivalent Case of China; 31. Cities and Subnational Governments; 32. Issues of Scale in Climate Governance; 33. Decarbonizing the Welfare State; 34. Discourses of The Global South;

PART IX: POLICY INSTRUMENTS;
35. Economic Policy Instruments for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions; 36. Policy Instruments in Practice; 37. Carbon Trading: A Critique; 38. Redesigning Energy Systems;

PART X: PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS;
39. Corporate Responses; 40. Is Green Consumption Part of the Solution?;

PART XI: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE;
41. Selling Carbon: From International Climate Regime to Global Carbon Market; 42. Improving the Performance of the Climate Regime: Insights from Regime Analysis; 43. Reconceptualizing Global Governance; 44. The Role of International Law in Global Governance;

PART XII: RECONSTRUCTION;
45. The Democratic Legitimacy of Global Governance After Copenhagen; 46. New Actors and Mechanisms of Global Governance; 47. Resilience

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Biography

John S. Dryzek is the author of a number of books on democracy and environmental politics. He is Professor of Political Science in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Australian National University, and Australian Research Council Federation Fellow.

Richard B. Norgaard is an eclectic ecological economist and Professor of Energy and Resources at the University of California, Berkeley.

David Schlosberg's work focuses on environmental political theory, environmental justice, and environmental movements. He is Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney.