Explores the growing role of global civil society and local environmental activism in the management and protection of the environment worldwide.

Why have national governments created different international rules and institutions to address global environmental issues? Alexander Ovodenko argues that this variation can be explained by looking to a dynamic that has been thus far downplayed by the literature on global environmental governance: the structures of industries regulated by environmental rules. Regulating the Polluters inverts the literature on regulatory capture and collective action by presenting empirical evidence of the irony of market power in global environmental politics.

Annotation This paper, a cooperative effort by the World Bank Institute and the Development Bank of Japan, seeks to further discussion of the connection between environmental concerns and national development policies.

Published to coincide with the Fourth United Nations Environmental Assembly, UN Environment's sixth Global Environment Outlook calls on decision makers to take bold and urgent action to address pressing environmental issues in order to protect the planet and human health. By bringing together hundreds of scientists, peer reviewers and collaborating institutions and partners, the GEO reports build on sound scientific knowledge to provide governments, local authorities, businesses and individual citizens with the information needed to guide societies to a truly sustainable world by 2050. GEO-6 outlines the current state of the environment, illustrates possible future environmental trends and analyses the effectiveness of policies. This flagship report shows how governments can put us on the path to a truly sustainable future - emphasising that urgent and inclusive action is needed to achieve a healthy planet with healthy people. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth’s natural systems—the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate—are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves provides a readable introduction to this new paradigm. With an interdisciplinary approach, the book addresses a wide range of health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, dislocation and conflict, and mental health. It also presents strategies to combat environmental changes and its ill-effects, such as controlling toxic exposures, investing in clean energy, improving urban design, and more. Chapters are authored by widely recognized experts. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic overview of a growing field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world. Students of public health will gain a solid grounding in the new challenges their profession must confront, while those in the environmental sciences, agriculture, the design professions, and other fields will become familiar with the human consequences of planetary changes. Understanding how our changing environment affects our health is increasingly critical to a variety of disciplines and professions. Planetary Health is the definitive guide to this vital field.

Today's most pressing environmental problems are planetary in scope, confounding the political will of any one nation. How can we solve them? Global Environmental Governance offers the essential information, theory, and practical insight needed to tackle this critical challenge. It examines ten major environmental threats-climate disruption, biodiversity loss, acid rain, ozone depletion, deforestation, desertification, freshwater degradation and shortages, marine fisheries decline, toxic pollutants, and excess nitrogen-and explores how they can be addressed through treaties, governance regimes, and new forms of international cooperation. Written by Gus Speth, one of the architects of the international environmental movement, and accomplished political scientist Peter M. Haas, Global Environmental Governance tells the story of how the community of nations, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, and multinational corporations have in recent decades created an unprecedented set of laws and institutions intended to help solve large-scale environmental problems. The book critically examines the serious shortcomings of current efforts and the underlying reasons why disturbing trends persist. It presents key concepts in international law and regime formation in simple, accessible language, and describes the current institutional landscape as well as lessons learned and new directions needed in international governance. Global Environmental Governance is a concise guide, with lists of key terms, study questions, and other features designed to help readers think about and understand the concepts discussed.