Seminar Global Environmental Politics

Between great transformation and defending the status quo: Climate change as a central challenge of international politics Climate change has emerged as one of the central challenges of international politics, linking economic, social and ecological dimensions. While governments aim at maintaining prosperity and wealth in developed countries and stimulating growth and poverty reduction in developing countries, greenhouse gas emissions and resource use will have to decline dramatically on a global scale in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. This requires major changes to the current production methods, consumption patterns and energy use, all of which will involve complex socio-economic conflicts. Achieving these shifts has created a new urgency for governments to work multilaterally in new forms and forums of international cooperation. Using this as a starting point, this seminar will analyse different perspectives on, and forms of, regulating climate change, through a survey of a range of theoretical frameworks: • With Governance and Regime theories, we will compare the relative importance of the international climate negotiations and political processes beyond these negotiations. • Using Discourse Theory, we will analyse the massively increased relevance of climate politics and the formation and significance of dominant problem framings within climate discourses. • From a Political Economy perspective, we will critically analyse the use of flexible market mechanisms and the expanding role of carbon market(s). • Neo-Gramscian theory will help us to question the influence of economic interests and actors in the field of climate politics. • Finally, the growing need for adaptation to the consequences of climate change will be discussed to underscore the strong link between climate politics and the politics of development. FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel WiSe 2010/11 Global Political Economy Wolf Simon