ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book takes stock of and explores the ways in which International Relations (IR) has confronted and contributed to understanding how a divided world deals with and manages the environment. The environment is thought to have emerged onto the international scene as a result of the Great Acceleration: the dramatic post–Second World War surge in human impact on the Earth. IR has tackled environmental politics in a number of ways. Realist examinations of international environmental politics have fallen largely into two camps: those focusing on environmental conflict, and those exploring institutional environmental regimes established through hegemonic power. Environmental multilateralism remains a central feature of international efforts to address environmental change. The shift from environmental multilateralism to global environmental governance has been accompanied by a theoretical diversification from problem-solving to critical approaches, particularly from around the late 1990s.
