Environmental Governance

by Evans; James

• ISBN13: 9780415589826
• ISBN10: 0415589827
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced and changing society to cope with it is its greatest challenge. This realisation is prompting an unprecedented questioning of the fundamental bases upon which society is founded. Is continuous economic growth sustainable? Should population growth be controlled? Is it possible to save the environment and end poverty? While it clear that we need to change the ways that we use the environment, it is less clear how to achieve such change. Businesses claim that technology can save the environment, while governments champion the role of international environmental agreements to secure global action. Economists suggest that we should pay developing countries not to destroy their forests, while environmentalists question whether we can solve environmental problems with the same thinking that created them and exhort individuals to take direct action. As the study of how we manage the relations between society and the environment, Environmental Governance is central to these debates. This book considers '¬Ügovernance'¬" in a broad sense, to explore how the environment is controlled, manipulated, regulated, and contested by a range of actors and institutions. It highlights how the different approaches currently in play frame environmental problems in distinctive ways, privileging different solutions and types of change. Drawing on cutting edge debates, the question of change forms a core concern that runs throughout the book. The book is unique in navigating the reader through the tangled undergrowth of often overlapping and competing approaches. The format offers an unprecedented overview of dominant and emerging approaches to Environmental Governance, forging critical links between them and using diverse case studies to highlight their various advantages and disadvantages. This book is essential reading for students of the environment and anyone concerned changing society in order to prevent global environmental crisis.

Author Biography

J. P. Evans is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance in the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. He has an abiding interest in how environmental research underpins urban sustainability, and is currently leading two projects exploring this question in relation to resilience and living laboratories.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Acronyms and abbreviations	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Governing the environment	p. 21
Institutions, rules, and actors	p. 45
Global governance	p. 76
Networks	p. 104
Markets	p. 123
Transition management	p. 148
Adaptive governance	p. 170
Participation and politics	p. 187
Conclusions	p. 210
Bibliography	p. 220
Index	p. 246
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