Description: Combating climate change and transitioning to fossil-free energy are two central and interdependent challenges facing humanity today. Governing the nexus of these challenges is complex, and includes multiple intergovernmental and transnational institutions. This book analyses the governance interactions between such institutions, and explores their consequences for legitimacy and effectiveness. Using a novel analytical framework, the contributors examine three policy fields: renewable energy, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing. These fields are compared in terms of their institutional memberships, governance functions and overarching norms. Bringing together prominent researchers from political science and international relations, the book offers an essential resource for future research and provides policy recommendations for effective and legitimate governance of the climate-energy nexus. Rooted in the most recent research, it is an invaluable reference for researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders in climate change and energy politics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Brief description: Fariborz Zelli is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Lund University. He is also a Principal investigator and board member at BECC (Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate). His research focuses on international institutions, global environmental governance, and political theory and philosophy. He has edited four volumes: Environmental Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene (2016, Routledge); Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Governance and Politics (2015, Elgar); a special issue with Global Environmental Politics (2013); and Global Climate Governance Beyond 2012 (2010, Cambridge University Press).
Review Quotes: 'Far too little work looks at climate change or energy studies from an interdisciplinary social science perspective, and far less than that does so effectively. This book is a notable exception, expertly tracing the governance dynamics and dilemmas of climate change as well as its twin partner in crime, the global energy system. In doing so, it covers a range of exciting topics, from subsidy reform to institutional complexity, from renewable energy to policy coherence, through a compelling milieu of different perspectives. The book is truly important reading for anyone who professes to take the study of climate governance seriously.' Benjamin K. Sovacool, University of Sussex, and author of Global Energy Justice (Cambridge)