Governing the End: The Making of Climate Change Loss and Damage

Lisa Vanhala

ISBN 10: 0226842975 / ISBN 13: 9780226842974

Editore: University of Chicago Press, 2025

Riguardo questo articolo

THERE ARE NO TARIFFS OR CUSTOMS DUTIES ON BOOKS. A searing account of how the international community is trying-and failing-to address the worst effects of climate change and the differential burdens borne by rich and poor countries. Climate change is increasingly accepted as a global emergency creating irrevocable losses for the planet. Yet, each country experiences these losses differently, and reaching even inadequate political agreements is fraught with contestation. Governing the End untangles the complex relationship between deteriorating environmental conditions, high politics, and everyday diplomatic practices, focusing on the United Nations' agreement to address loss and damage and subsequent battles over implementation. Lisa Vanhala looks at the differing assumptions and strategic framings that poor and rich countries bring to bear and asks why some norms emerge and diffuse while others fail to do so. Governing the End is based on ethnographic observation of eight years of UN meetings and negotiations and more than one hundred and fifty interviews with diplomats, policymakers, UN secretariat staff, experts, and activists. It explores explicit political contestation, as well as the more clandestine politics that have stymied implementation and substantially reduced the scope of compensation to poor countries. In doing so, Governing the End elucidates the successes and failures of international climate governance, revealing the importance of how ideas are constructed and then institutionally embodied.

Codice articolo 445651

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Governing the End: The Making of Climate Change Loss and Damage
• Editore: University of Chicago Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2025
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0226842975
• ISBN 13: 9780226842974
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

A searing account of how the international community is trying—and failing—to address the worst effects of climate change and the differential burdens borne by rich and poor countries.

Climate change is increasingly accepted as a global emergency creating irrevocable losses for the planet. Yet, each country experiences these losses differently, and reaching even inadequate political agreements is fraught with contestation. Governing the End untangles the complex relationship between deteriorating environmental conditions, high politics, and everyday diplomatic practices, focusing on the United Nations’ agreement to address “loss and damage” and subsequent battles over implementation.

Lisa Vanhala looks at the differing assumptions and strategic framings that poor and rich countries bring to bear and asks why some norms emerge and diffuse while others fail to do so. Governing the End is based on ethnographic observation of eight years of UN meetings and negotiations and more than one hundred and fifty interviews with diplomats, policymakers, UN secretariat staff, experts, and activists. It explores explicit political contestation, as well as the more clandestine politics that have stymied implementation and substantially reduced the scope of compensation to poor countries. In doing so, Governing the End elucidates the successes and failures of international climate governance, revealing the importance of how ideas are constructed and then institutionally embodied.

Informazioni sull?autore

Lisa Vanhala is professor of political science at University College London. She is the author of Making Disability Rights a Reality?: Disability Rights Activists and Legal Mobilization and coeditor of Governing Climate Change Loss and Damage: The National Turn.