Governing Climate Change: Polycentricity in Action?

Climate change governance is in a state of enormous flux. New and more dynamic forms of governing are appearing around the international climate regime centred on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They appear to be emerging spontaneously from the bottom up, producing a more dispersed pattern of governing, which Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom famously described as 'polycentric'. This book brings together contributions from some of the world's foremost experts to provide the first systematic test of the ability of polycentric thinking to explain and enhance societal attempts to govern climate change. It is ideal for researchers in public policy, international relations, environmental science, environmental management, politics, law and public administration. It will also be useful on advanced courses in climate policy and governance, and for practitioners seeking incisive summaries of developments in particular sub-areas and sectors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Andrew Jordan is Professor of Environmental Policy at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia. He has published extensively on European Union (EU) and United Kingdom environmental policy and politics, and advised a number of international, EU and UK institutions. He is a co-chair of the Brexit & Environment network, funded by the ESRC's UK in a Changing Europe initiative. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Dave Huitema is Professor of Environmental Policy at The Open University of the Netherlands, and at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He specialises in public policy and environmental governance, focusing on water and climate change specifically. He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Global Environmental Change and Ecology and Society and has authored several books on environmental governance, including Climate Change Policy in the European Union (Cambridge, 2011).

Harro van Asselt is Professor of Climate Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Law School, and a Senior Research Fellow with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). He is an Editor of Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law. He has published widely in journals such as Nature Climate Change, Global Policy, Global Governance, Law & Policy, Regulation & Governance, Climatic Change and Climate Policy. He is the author of The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance (2014).

Johanna Forster is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and the Manager of the INOGOV network. She has published on a wide range of topics including climate change impacts and adaptation, environmental economics, and marine management and governance. Her publications include articles in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change, Global Environmental Change, and Marine Policy.