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What are the roles of national and subnational states in environmental policy-making and enforcement, especially in the Global South, and how do international environmental treaties affect domestic environmental politics, including design and enforcement of domestic policy?
Posted on August 9th, 2009Categorized as Interdisciplinary, Social Science Tagged as governance, governments, international agreements, policy, politics
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Currently, environmental social science scholarship is dominated by studies of the impact of environmental degradation on communities and modes of resistance (sociology, anthropology) or processes of agreeing upon and signing international treaties (international relations). Comparatively, there is too little scholarship on the roles of national and subnational states in environmental politics. Given that international treaties are currently insufficient to ensure responsible environmental governance, an understanding of the interplay of conflicting domestic interests and the state in national environmental politics, especially in the Global South–which contributes ever more greatly to climate change and biodiversity loss–is essential to comprehending the possibilities for, and limits to, effective international cooperation and enforcement of treaties.
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How do we develop the tools to ensure the changes in societal behavior needed to achieve a sustainable socio-environmental dynamic within the short timeframe available?
Posted on August 15th, 2009Categorized as Biodiversity, Earth System, Human Health, Interdisciplinary, Other, Social Science, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as culture, economy, human behavior, politics, sustainability
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In essence, solving the environmental issues we face is to be done by society, and is therefore a social challenge. We know much more about its natural and environmental dimensions than about the social ones. How do we remove the political, economic, cultural, social and other obstacles to sustainability, and how do we most efficiently leverage the human capacity to learn and change?
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How can we build global and national consensus for energy transitions?
Posted on August 17th, 2009Categorized as Climate, Interdisciplinary, Social Science, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as energy transition, global consensus, national consensus, politics, socio-economic factors
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Most questions deal with the technical side of climate change mitigation. Can we do it technically and with what techniques. They do not inquire into the socio-economic and political factors that explain why we have not done it thus far. There will certainly be obstacles along the way, but identifying and dealing with these is part of this research project.
