Climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. This realisation is prompting an unprecedented questioning of the fundamental bases upon which society is founded. Businesses claim that technology can save the environment, while governments champion the role of international environmental agreements to secure global action. Economists suggest that we should pay developing countries not to destroy their forests, while environmentalists question whether we can solve environmental problems with the same thinking that created them and exhort individuals to take direct action. Governance is central to achieving collective action to steer society towards a more sustainable future.

Environmental Governanceis the only text to discuss the first principals of governance while also providing a critical overview of the wide ranging theories and approaches that underpin contemporary practice today. This book places governance " within its wider political context to explore how the environment is controlled, manipulated, regulated, and contested by a range of actors and institutions. It shows how governance has shaped established approaches to environmental issues such as networks and markets, focusing on Kyoto and the post-Kyoto mechanisms to deal with climate change. It highlights how the different approaches currently in play frame environmental problems in distinctive ways, privileging different solutions and types of change.

This text provides a groundbreaking overview of dominant and emerging approaches of environmental governance, drawing on cutting edge debates and forging critical links between them. It is complimented by case studies, key debate boxes and end of the chapter questions and further reading. It is essential reading for students of the Environment, Politics and Sociology, and anyone concerned changing society in order to prevent global environmental crisis.