This book examines the political themes and policy perspectives related to, and influencing, climate change adaptation. It provides an informed primer on the politics of adaptation, a topic largely overlooked in the current scholarship and literature, and addresses questions such as why these politics are so important, what they mean, and what their implications are. The book also reviews various political texts on adaptation.

Drawing on concepts in political economy, political ecology, justice theory, and critical development studies, the authors offer the first comprehensive, systematic exploration of the ways in which adaptation projects can produce unintended, undesirable results. This work is on the Global Policy: Next Generation list of six key books for understanding the politics of global climate change.

This book compares how the social consequences of climate change are similarly unevenly distributed within China and the United States, despite different political systems. Focusing on the cases of Atlanta, USA, and Jinhua, China, Julia Teebken explores a set of path-dependent factors (lock-ins), which hamper the pursuit of climate adaptation by local governments to adequately address the root causes of vulnerability. Lock-ins help to explain why adaptation efforts in both locations are incremental and commonly focus on greening the environment. In both these political systems, vulnerability appears as a core component along with the reconstitution of a class-based society. This manifests in the way knowledge and political institutions operate. For this reason, Teebken challenges the argument that China’s environmental authoritarian structures are better equipped in dealing with matters related to climate change. She also interrogates the proposition that certain aspects of the liberal democratic tradition of the United States are better suited in dealing with social justice issues in the context of adaptation. Overall, the book’s findings contradict the widespread assumption that developed countries necessarily have higher adaptive capacity than developing or emerging economies. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate justice and vulnerability, climate adaptation and environmental policy and governance.

This book provides the first systematic critique of the concept of climate change adaptation within the field of international development. Drawing on a reworked political ecology framework, it argues that climate is not something ‘out there’ that we adapt to. Instead, it is part of the social and biophysical forces through which our lived environments are actively yet unevenly produced. From this original foundation, the book challenges us to rethink the concepts of climate change, vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity in transformed ways. With case studies drawn from Pakistan, India and Mongolia, it demonstrates concretely how climatic change emerges as a dynamic force in the ongoing transformation of contested rural landscapes. In crafting this synthesis, the book recalibrates the frameworks we use to envisage climatic change in the context of contemporary debates over development, livelihoods and poverty. With its unique theoretical contribution and case study material, this book will appeal to researchers and students in environmental studies, sociology, geography, politics and development studies.

A revelatory study of how climate change will affect individual economic decisions, and the broad impact of those choicesSelected by Publishers Weekly as one of its Top Ten books in Business and Economics for Spring 2021 It is all but certain that the next century will be hotter than any we’ve experienced before. Even if we get serious about fighting climate change, it’s clear that we will need to adapt to the changes already underway in our environment. This book considers how individual economic choices in response to climate change will transform the larger economy. Using the tools of microeconomics, Matthew E. Kahn explores how decisions about where we live, how our food is grown, and where new business ventures choose to locate are impacted by climate change. Kahn suggests new ways that big data can be deployed to ease energy or water shortages to aid agricultural operations and proposes informed policy changes related to public infrastructure, disaster relief, and real estate to nudge land use, transportation options, and business development in the right direction.

"Climate change differs from any other problem that, as collective humanity, we face today. If it goes unchecked, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic for human life on earth. Yet for most people, and for many policy-makers too, it tends to be a 'back of the mind' issue. ... [This book] argues controversially, we do not have a systematic politics of climate change. Politics-as-usual won't allow us to deal with the problems we face, while the recipes of the main challenger to orthodox politics, the green movement, are flawed at source." - cover.

This book compares how governments in 192 countries perceive climate change related health risks and which measures they undertake to protect their populations. Building on case studies from the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Korea, Japan and Sri Lanka, The Politics of the Climate Change-Health Nexus demonstrates the strong influence of epistemic communities and international organisations on decision making in the field of climate change and health. Jungmann shows that due to the complexity and uncertainty of climate change related health risks, governments depend on the expertise of universities, think tanks, international organisations and researchers within the public sector to understand, strategize and implement effective health adaptation measures. Due to their general openness towards new ideas and academic freedom, the book shows that more democratic states tend to demonstrate a higher recognition of the need to protect their populations. However, the level of success largely depends on the strength of their epistemic communities and the involvement of international organisations. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change and public health. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers from around the world to learn from best practices and thus improve the health adaptation work in their own countries.