Climate Politics

By exploring the dynamic relationships between politics, policymaking, and policy over time, this book aims to explain why climate change mitigation is so political and why politics is also indispensable in enacting real change. It argues that politics is poorly understood and often sidelined in research and policy circles, which is an omission that must be rectified because the policies that we rely on to drive down greenhouse gas emissions are deeply interconnected with political and social contexts. Incorporating insights from political economy, sociotechnical transitions, and public policy, this book provides a framework for understanding the role of specific ideas, interests, and institutions in shaping and driving sustainable change. The chapters present examples at global, national, and local scales, spanning from the 1990s to 2020s. This volume will prove valuable for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers interested in the politics and policy of climate change mitigation. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Caroline Kuzemko is Professor in Political Economy of Climate Change at the University of Warwick. Her work explores the roles of politics and policy in enabling, constraining, and shaping sustainable energy transformations at international, national, and local governing scales. She is an award-winning author, a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, and a co-founder and co-lead of the Energy Policy, Politics and Governance standing group of the European Consortium for Political Research. Her publications include the books The Energy Security-Climate Nexus: Institutional Change in the UK and Beyond (2013, Springer) and The Global Energy Challenge: Environment, Development, and Security (2018, Bloomsbury); and a journal special section on New Directions in the International Political Economy of Energy in the Review of International Political Economy (2019). Prior to her academic career, Caroline was Director at the Union Bank of Switzerland, where she worked in Latin American equities.