Adapting to Climate Change: Governance Challenges

Never before has humanity been faced with such a clear and stark choice: either we continue our current greenhouse gas generating (GHG) intensive model of development and quickly make the world a grim and dangerous place for humans to live, or we radically change our lifestyles, forms of production and consumption, mobility, use of fossil fuels and cultural values, to pull us back from the brink at the 11th hour.

A principal reason why actions taken so far have proved completely inadequate to address the gravity of the situation is that our institutions of governance are not up to the task. Yet there has been little academic investigation of this issue and there has been a failure to identify the changes needed in our governance structures, institutions and culture that might make them more fit for purpose.
In this book, Irish academics, officials and activists examine the issues at global, national and local level, highlighting the major challenges that climate change poses to our forms of governance and the transformations required if we are to move decisively in the direction of a low-carbon society.