Researching global environmental politics: trends, gaps, and emerging issues

Abstract

This book comes at a time of both promise and peril for the global environment. Environmental problems have never been more prominent on the agendas of states, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. Each seems to recognize that they have a role to play in staving off ecological crisis, leading to a proliferation of private, public, and hybrid governance mechanisms. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, despite its flaws, for the first time committed all countries to setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More and more multinational corporations are voluntarily pledging to pursue zero carbon emissions, zero waste, and fully sustainable supply chains. And increasing numbers of environmental activists are pushing for more ambitious protection of the oceans, forests, and biodiversity.

Environmental Governance and International Relations: A Systematic Review of Theories, Methods, and Issues in Latin American Publications

“…Finally, global economic governance regards decisions about trade, foreign investment, short-term capital flows and development flows, and arrangements with environmental consequences. More recently, Alger & Dauvergne (2018) have proposed a classification that adds two other groups. Thus, their five categories include 1) global political economy, 2) international institutions and non-state governance, 3) ecological crisis, 4) climate politics, and 5) scholar activism and engaged research.…”

“…They may also be agnostic due to the complex linkages between the global economy and the environment. Nevertheless, most researchers agree that the global political economy needs to be fundamentally transformed if we are to achieve environmental sustainability with substantial reductions in consumption and production of goods and services and with increases in sustainable business and technologies (Alger & Dauvergne, 2018).…”

“…Some of the key questions within this category are related to agenda formation, non-state actors' influence in governance processes, and how emerging economies and the global South have asserted themselves in global environmental governance. There is also a space for research questions on the effectiveness of voluntary corporate sustainability commitments, activist networks, and subnational actors (Alger & Dauvergne, 2018).…”

“…The category that Alger & Dauvergne (2018) call "ecological crises" regards issue-specific studies, excluding climate. Climate has its own category because a review by Dauvergne & Clapp (2016) found it encompassed roughly one-third of the publications on global environmental politics.…”

“…Climate has its own category because a review by Dauvergne & Clapp (2016) found it encompassed roughly one-third of the publications on global environmental politics. According to the authors, studies that have investigated causes, impacts, and challenges to prevent environmental problems related to food and agriculture, water, and energy have received more attention than others, such as topics like fracking, geoengineering, marine biodiversity conservation, pesticides, plastic pollution, and space pollution (Alger & Dauvergne, 2018).…”