Routledge Research in Global Environmental Governance

Global environmental governance has been a prime concern of policy-makers since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Yet, despite more than 900 multi-lateral environmental treaties coming into force over the past 40 years and numerous public-private and private initiatives to mitigate global change, human-induced environmental degradation is reaching alarming levels. Scientists see compelling evidence that the entire earth system now operates well outside safe boundaries and at rates that accelerate. According to a recent scientific assessment organized by the international Earth System Governance Project (ESGP), human societies must change course and steer away from critical tipping points that might lead to rapid and irreversible change, while ensuring sustainable livelihoods for all. The urgent challenge from a social science perspective is how to organize the co-evolution of societies and their surrounding environment, in other words, how to develop effective and equitable governance solutions for today’s global problems.

Against this background, the Routledge Research in Global Environmental Governance series delivers cutting-edge research on the most vibrant and relevant themes within the academic field of global environmental governance. In more detail, the areas of interest of global environmental governance research constitute:

The overall institutional and organizational structure of Global Environmental Governance

• The core actors, their interests and motives
• New governance instruments and approaches, including public-private partnerships; market-based governance
• Questions of governance effectiveness, democratic legitimacy, accountability and transparency in/of Global Environmental Governance
• Normative underpinnings and implications of Global Environmental Governance, including considerations of equity, access, fairness and justice
• Adapting the overall global governance landscape to new challenges, including ecological and social tipping points
• Methodological questions on how to better integrate governance research and the more quantitative modelling and scenario communities