Global environmental change will be with us forever, but how it happens in the future, and with what effect on the planet and its peoples depends to a large extent on how the international agreements, national politics and local actions play out. This collection provides a comprehensive assessment of these critical interconnections, and reveals how social scientists are making an invaluable contribution to the creation of more science and just livelihoods in a future world.

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity. By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people’s actual activities as policy is generated and contested. Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.

Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action. Composed of twenty-eight essays—a combination of new and republished texts—the anthology is organised around seven main themes: paradigms; what counts?; extraction; dispatches from a climate change frontline country; governance; finance; and action(s). Through this multifaceted approach, the contributors ask pressing questions about how we conceptualise and respond to the climate crisis, providing both ‘big picture’ perspectives and more focussed case studies. This unique and extensive collection will be of great value to environmental and social scientists alike, as well as to the general reader interested in understanding current views on the climate crisis.

"International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. However, decisions on policies to address key issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste transport, and numerous other planetary challenges require individual countries to adhere to international norms. Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements provides an accessible narrative on understanding the geopolitics of negotiating international environmental agreements and clear guidance on improving the current system. Authors Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali expertly observe international environmental negotiations to effectively inform the reader on the geopolitics of protecting our planet. This second edition offers an additional perspective from the Global South as well as providing a broader analysis of the role of science in environmental treaty-making. It provides a unique contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty-making"--Unedited summary from book cover.

In this thought-provoking new book, career U.S. State Department negotiator Richard J. Smith offers readers unprecedented access to the details about some of the most complex and politically charged international agreements of the late and immediate post Cold War era. During his nine years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Smith led U.S. negotiations on many significant international agreements. In Negotiating Environment and Science, Smith presents first-hand, in-depth accounts of eight of the most high-profile negotiations in which he was directly involved. The negotiations Smith covers are wide-ranging and include the London agreement to amend the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the international space station agreement, the U.S.-Soviet (eventually, U.S.-Russian) agreement on scientific cooperation, the U.S.-Canada acid rain agreement, the negotiations in Sofia, Bulgaria that established a first link between human rights and the environment, and a contentious confrontation with Japan over driftnet fishing. Smith chronicles the development of these negotiations, the challenges that emerged (as much within the U.S. delegations as with the foreign partners), and the strategies that led to substantive treaties. Smith infuses his narrative with unique historical insight as well as astute observations that can guide U.S. strategies toward productive international agreements in the future. His book also highlights the shift in diplomatic focus over the past 25 years from arms control and other security-related agreements to international and trans-boundary agreements that address global environmental threats and promote cooperative approaches in science and technology. Written for an audience with a general interest in environmental issues as well as international relations, Negotiating Environment and Science will also be an important resource for historians, political scientists, and students in international law and diplomacy.

Publication of the Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation marks a milestone in the evolution of the group decision and negotiation (GDN) eld. On this occasion, editors Colin Eden and Marc Kilgour asked me to write a brief history of the eld to provide background and context for the volume. They said that I am in a good position to do so: Actively involved in creating the GDN Section and serving as its chair; founding and leading the GDN journal, Group Decision and Negotiation as editor-in-chief, and the book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” as editor; and serving as general chair of the GDN annual meetings. I accepted their invitation to write a brief history. In 1989 what is now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) established its Section on Group Decision and Negotiation. The journal Group Decision and Negotiation was founded in 1992, published by Springer in cooperation with INFORMS and the GDN Section. In 2003, as an ext- sion of the journal, the Springer book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” was inaugurated.

This book examines how an error in global meta-policy set climate change negotiations on an unproductive course. The decision to base negotiations on the Montreal Protocol and overlook the importance of interests, it argues, institutionalised an approach doomed to fail. By analysing interests, science and norms in the process, and the neglect of ‘interactive minilateralism’, learning was delayed until the more promising Paris Agreement was finally concluded, only to encounter a Trump Presidency, which (ironically) might offer further learning opportunities.