ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a parallel account of how climate change emerged as a problem in the realm of science before becoming a preeminent issue for international governance. It tells the story of how we gradually came to be worried about climate change between the 1850s and the 1980s, and how growing scientific understanding of the physical processes of the Earth’s atmosphere interacted with the political world. It traces the history of international climate policy since the 1980s, the struggles between climate science and activism, on the one hand, and climate change denial, on the other, and explains the international climate commitments that now provide the context for the UK’s approach to its food, farming and land-use system.
