It is increasingly clear that the world of climate politics is no longer confined to the activities of national governments and international negotiations. Critical to this transformation of the politics of climate change has been the emergence of new forms of transnational governance that cut across traditional state-based jurisdictions and operate across public and private divides. Transnational Climate Change Governance provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge account of the world of transnational climate change governance. Co-authored by a team of the world's leading experts in the field and based on a survey of sixty case studies, Transnational Climate Change Governance traces the emergence, nature and consequences of this phenomenon, and assesses the implications for the field of global environmental politics. It will prove invaluable for researchers, graduate students and policy makers in climate change, political science, international relations, human geography, sociology and ecological economics.a
1. Introducing transnational climate change governance
2. Mapping the world of transnational climate change governance
3. Theoretical perspectives on transnational governance
4. Origins, agency and the forms of transnational climate change governance
5. Constructing transnational climate change governance issues and producing governance spaces
6. The uneven geography of transnational climate change governance
7. Understanding authority and legitimacy in transnational climate change governance
8. Making a difference? Tracing the effects and effectiveness of transnational climate change governance
9. Conclusions – looking beyond transnational climate governance
Harriet Bulkeley is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Durham University. Her research is concerned with the processes and politics of environmental governance, with particular expertise in the areas of climate change, energy and urban sustainability. She has published more than 50 books and articles, including Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance (2003, with Michele Betsill), Governing Climate Change (2010, with Peter Newell) and Cities and Low Carbon Transitions (2011, edited with others).
Liliana Andonova is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Political Science/International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. She has been appointed a Giorgio Ruffolo Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University, and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute. Her research and publications focus on institutional institutions, public-private partnerships, European integration, environmental cooperation, transnational governance and climate change. She is the author of Transnational Politics of the Environment: EU Integration and Environmental Policy in Eastern Europe (2003).
Michele Betsill is a Professor of Political Science and the founder and co-leader of the Environmental Governance Working Group at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Her research investigates the multiple ways in which climate change is governed from the local to the global level, across both public and private spheres. She is co-author of Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance (2003, with Harriet Bulkeley) as well as numerous articles and book chapters on climate change governance. Professor Betsill is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Global Environmental Politics and Environment and Planning C: Policy and Government and is on the Scientific Steering Committee for the Earth System Governance Project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.
Daniel Compagnon is a Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po Bordeaux, where he teaches globalisation and global environmental issues. His work is focused on understanding the dynamics of global environmental governance from a transcalar perspective, with a particular concern for southern countries and the impact of North/South international relations. His books include A Predictable Tragedy: Robert Mugabe and the Collapse of Zimbabwe (2010), which was ranked best book of the year on Africa by Foreign Affairs.
Thomas Hale is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His research seeks to explain how political institutions evolve – or not – to face the challenges raised by globalization and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental and economic issues.
Matthew J. Hoffmann is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs. He is the author of Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response after Kyoto (2011) and Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response (2005) and co-editor of Contending Perspectives on Global Governance (2005, with Alice Ba).
Peter Newell is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex. His current research interests lie in the political economy of climate change, especially in relation to carbon markets, ideas about a 'just transition' to a lower carbon economy and the governance of North-South clean-energy investment. He is co-author of the following books (amongst others): Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2010, with Matthew Paterson), Governing Climate Change (2010, with Harriet Bulkeley) and Globalization and the Environment: Capitalism, Ecology and Power (2012).
Matthew Paterson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the political economy of global environmental change. His publications include: Global Warming and Global Politics (1996); Understanding Global Environmental Politics: Domination, Accumulation, Resistance (2000); Automobile Politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and, most recently, Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2010, with Peter Newell). He is a lead author for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Charles Roger is a PhD student in political science and Liu Scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on global environmental politics and international political economy, especially as related to the governance of climate change in developing and emerging economies. He is a contributing author to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is the co-editor of Climate Governance in the Developing World (2013, with David Held and Eva-Maria Nag) and Global Governance at Risk (2013, with David Held).
Stacy D. VanDeveer is a Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author or co-author of more than 70 articles, book chapters, working papers and reports. He has co-edited six books, including Comparative Environmental Politics (2012), Changing Climates in North American Politics (2009) and Transatlantic Environment and Energy Politics (2009).
"International climate policy is desperately in need of a serious re-boot, but can the agents of transnational governance step in and take up some of the slack? For Harriet Bulkeley and her team of experts, their activities offer a window into a complex and fascinating netherworld in which critical issues of authority, legitimacy and effectiveness are continually worked through. This is imaginative and reflexive environmental social science at its best."
– Andrew Jordan, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, University of East Anglia
"[...] provides essential lessons for all those who are looking to find solutions to the current climate crisis. This a must-read for anyone who is involved in so-called bottom-up climate change initiatives and, in fact, for anyone who is interested in finding workable solutions to the climate crisis."
– Mark Kenber, CEO, The Climate Group
"[...] an ambitious work at the cutting edge of scholarship on global governance. [...] brings together some of the most well-known scholars of environmental governance [...] This volume is powerful conceptually and empirically, and is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the changing nature of governance at the global level."
– Virginia Haufler, University of Maryland
"This excellent volume offers the first comprehensive assessment of the countless transnational initiatives that have emerged in recent years in climate change governance. The author team of ten prominent scholars in the field has intensively collaborated over several years in scrutinizing a large dataset of 60 transnational climate governance initiatives from three major theoretical perspectives. In an area that has drawn so far largely on single case studies or smaller comparisons, Transnational Climate Change Governance now finally takes the debate a fundamental step forward. This crucial and timely volume is a must-read for all those interested in climate governance."
– Frank Bierman, VU University Amsterdam, Lund University, and Chair, Earth System Governance Project