Climate Governance across the Globe

This book takes an innovative approach to studying international climate governance by providing a critical analysis of climate leadership, pioneership and followership across the globe.
The volume assesses the interactions between climate leaders, pioneers and followers, across multilevel and/or polycentric climate governance contexts. Examining the state and sub-state levels in both the Global South and Global North, as well as regional, supranational EU and international climate governance levels, the authors explore 16 countries across Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Central and North America, plus the European Union. Each chapter employs a comprehensive and consistent framework for analyzing leadership and pioneership, as well as followership. The findings provide new insights into the strategies and actions of sub-state, state-level, and supranational leaders and pioneers.
This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in environmental politics and climate change governance, as well as those interested in political elites, EU studies and, more broadly, comparative politics and international relations.

Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel is Professor of Comparative European Politics and Jean Monnet Chair in EU Studies at the University of Hull where he is Director of the Centre for European Union Studies (CEUS), UK. Mikael Skou Andersen is Professor of Environmental Policy Analysis at Aarhus University, Denmark. Paul Tobin is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, UK.

Part 1: Introduction 1. Introduction: Climate governance across the globe: pioneers, leaders and followers Part 2: Global South 2. China: Emerging low-carbon pioneers at city level 3. India: From climate laggard to global solar energy leader 4. Costa Rica and Vietnam: Pioneers in green transformations 5. Rhetoric and reality in New Zealand's climate leadership: 'My generation's nuclear-free moment' 6. Multilevel climate governance in Brazil and Indonesia: Domestic pioneership and leadership in the Global South Part 3: United States and Europe 7. Climate change politics and policy in the United States: Forward, reverse and through the looking glass 8. European Union leadership before, during and after the Paris Conference of the Parties 9. Climate policy in Germany: Pioneering a complex transformation process 10. Lessons from climate action in the UK: The limitations of state leadership 11. Governance, green finance and global climate advocacy of the Nordic countries: Small state syndrome or novel middle power? 12. Ireland's Citizens' Assembly on climate change: Institutional pioneership by a climate laggard? 13. Switzerland: International commitments and domestic drawbacks Part 4: Conclusion 14. Conclusion: Pioneers, leaders and followers in multilevel and polycentric climate governance reassessed