The Politics of Climate Change

by Anthony Giddens (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2011

  $23.93

  A landmark study in the struggle to contain climate change, thegreatest challenge of our era. I urge everyone to read it.
  Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States ofAmerica
  
  

  Since it first appeared, this book has achieved a classicstatus. Reprinted many times since its publication, it remains theonly work that looks in detail at the political issues posed byglobal warming. This new edition has been thoroughly updated andprovides a state-of-the-art discussion of the most formidablechallenge humanity faces this century.

  If climate change goes unchecked, the consequences are likely tobe catastrophic for human life on earth. Yet for most people andfor many policy-makers too, it tends to be a back-of-the-mindissue. We recognize its importance and even its urgency, but forthe most part it is swamped by more immediate concerns.

  Political action and intervention on local, national andinternational levels are going to have a decisive effect on whetheror not we can limit global warming as well as how we adapt to thatalready occurring. However, at the moment, argues Giddens, we donot have a systematic politics of climate change. Politics-as-usualwon't allow us to deal with the problems we face, while the recipesof the main challenger to orthodox politics, the green movement, are flawed at source. Giddens introduces a range of new conceptsand proposals to fill in the gap, and examines in depth theconnections between climate change and energy security.