"This book is a lucid, concise, yet comprehensive primer on how environmental science and policy interact in the governing process and how that interaction can be improved." "--Book jacket.

Through theoretical discussions and case studies, this volume explores how processes of contestation about knowledge, norms, and governance processes shape efforts to promote sustainability through international environmental governance. The epistemic communities literature of the 1990s highlighted the importance of expert consensus on scientific knowledge for problem definition and solution specification in international environmental agreements. This book addresses a gap in this literature – insufficient attention to the multiple forms of contestation that also inform international environmental governance. These forms include within-discipline contestation that helps forge expert consensus, inter-disciplinary contestation regarding the types of expert knowledge needed for effective response to environmental problems, normative and practical arguments about the proper roles of experts and laypersons, and contestation over how to combine globally developed norms and scientific knowledge with locally prevalent norms and traditional knowledge in ways ensuring effective implementation of environmental policies. This collection advances understanding of the conditions under which contestation facilitates or hinders the development of effective global environmental governance. The contributors examine how attempts to incorporate more than one stream of expert knowledge and to include lay knowledge alongside it have played out in efforts to create and maintain multilateral agreements relating to environmental concerns. It will interest scholars and graduate students of political science, global governance, international environmental politics, and global policy making. Policy analysts should also find it useful.

DIVClaims that the problematic communication gap between experts and ordinary citizens is best remedied by a renewal of local citizen participation in deliberative structures./div

Incorporating historical, sociological, and philosophical approaches, Changing the Atmosphere presents detailed empirical studies of climate science and its uptake into public policy.

Drawing on an extensive range of political, legal and sociological materials, the author presents and evaluates environmental policy-making in France at a time when environmental problems are growing in complexity and gravity. He highlights the range of inputs to the policy process - including popular movements, green parties, interest group representation, EU legislation and international treaties - and evaluates the diverse nature of the outcomes which lead him to conclude that because new developments involve not only changes in policy content but also adaptation of policy style, environmental demands are progressively changing the shape of politics itself.

Some have argued that the rate and scale of human-induced global environmental change is so significant that it now constitutes a new geological epoch in the Earth’s history called the Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz et al, 2011; Steffen et al, 2011). More than ever, there is a need to have appropriate and effective environmental policies that address the challenges of climate change, biodiversity, food, water and energy insecurity, environmental pollution, poverty alleviation and environmental equity. The short guide to environmental policy provides a concise introduction to post-war environmental policies, bringing together perspectives from a range of fields including economics, sociology, politics and social policy. It covers a broad range of issues, including causes and effects of contemporary environmental issues, policy approaches to addressing environmental problems, challenges to implementing environmental policies and future environmental challenges. This book is an essential introduction to all those interested in how policies can address environmental problems.

The relationship between economic growth and the environment is at the forefront of public attention and poses serious challenges for policymakers around the world. Economic Analysis of Environmental Policy, a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, provides a rigorous and thorough explanation of modern environmental economics, applying this exposition to contemporary issues and policy analysis. Opening with a discussion of contemporary pollution problems, institutional players and the main policy instruments at our disposal, Ross McKitrick develops core theories of environmental valuation and optimal control of pollution. Chapters that follow cover issues like tradable permits, regulatory standards, emission taxes, and polluter liability as well as advanced topics like trade and the environment, sustainability, risk, inequality, and self-monitoring. Throughout, McKitrick uses clear, intuitive, and coherent analytical tools, so that students, academics, and practitioners can develop their policy analysis skills while comprehending the debates and challenges at the frontier of this exciting and rapidly-developing field.