Multilevel Governance, Carbon Management and Climate Change: Insights from Transport Policy - Hardcover

Ian Bache; Matthew Flinders; Greg Marsden; Ian Bartle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783480610 ISBN 13: 9781783480616

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015

Synopsis

Based on a major three-year study across the UK, this book explores the various actors and policies that deal with the governance of reducing transport-related carbon emissions. Using this clear and globally crucial example of climate change governance, the authors are able to tease apart a range of debates and dilemmas and fully explore the nature, pace and significance of core policies designed to tackle climate change. Much research in the field has over-emphasized the international realm and global policy, whereas this text uncovers the huge importance of domestic policy development and emission reduction. It highlights normative positions that lie at the heart of institutional structures, enabling broader debates into the capacity and future of democratic governance

About this title

About the Author

Ian Bache is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. His previous books include Cohesion Policy and Multilevel Governance in South East Europe (with George Andreou), Politics in the European Union 3e (with Simon Bulmer and Stephen George) and Europeanization and Multilevel Governance. Matthew Flinders is Professor of Parliamentary Government and Governance at the University of Sheffield and Adjunct Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Murdoch University. He is co-editor of the journal Policy and Politics. His previous books include Defending Politics (shortlisted for Political Book of the Year 2012 and nominated for the Orwell Prize), Multilevel Governance (co-ed with Ian Bache), Delegated Governance, Democratic Drift and Oxford Handbook of British Politics. Greg Marsden is Professor of Transport Governance and Director of the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. He is a member of the Independent Transport Commission and has acted as specialist adviser to the UK Parliamentary Transport scrutiny committee. Ian Bartle is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield and has held research positions at the Universities of Sheffield, Bath and Exeter. He is author of Globalization and EU Policy-Making as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.

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Multi-Level Governance and Climate Change

Insights from Transport Policy

By Ian Bache, Ian Bartle, Matthew Flinders, Greg Marsden

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2015 Ian Bache, Ian Bartle, Matthew Flinders and Greg Marsden
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-061-6

Contents

Contents, 
Acknowledgements, 
Abbreviations, 
Introduction, 
PART I: MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE, 
Chapter 1: The Climate Change Challenge, 
Chapter 2: Theorizing Meta-Policy Implementation in Multi-Level Polities, 
PART II: THE POLITICS OF CARBON MANAGEMENT AND TRANSPORT GOVERNANCE, 
Chapter 3: Why Transport Matters, 
Chapter 4: Climate Change and Transport Governance, 
Chapter 5: England: Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, 
Chapter 6: Scotland: Strathclyde and South East Scotland, 
PART III: ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATIONS, 
Chapter 7: The Politics of Implementing Climate Change Targets: A Symbolic Meta-Policy?, 
Chapter 8: Where and How Does Accountability Exist?, 
Conclusion, 
References, 

CHAPTER 1

THE CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE

At one level the climate change challenge is very simple: Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere have increased significantly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and this is causing Earth's temperature to rise rapidly. The challenge is therefore to reduce CO2 emissions in order to stabilise or reverse this warming process. While simple in theory, the climate change challenge represents arguably the defining socio-political challenge of the twenty-first century. This is reflected in the unnerving titles of a number of leading texts on the topic, such as Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe (2007), Alastair McIntosh's Hell and High Water (2008) and Clive Hamilton's Requiem for a Species (2010). The UK attracted worldwide interest and acclaim with the passing of ambitious and statutory targets for carbon reductions under the Climate Change Act 2008, but whether this political rhetoric and legislative activity has been matched by meaningful action on the ground is a question this book seeks to explore. Recent political history would suggest we should not be optimistic. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has illustrated in great detail, two decades of climate change mitigation policies have generally failed to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. And yet evidence of political failure makes the UK's decision to adopt such ambitious and visible targets even more significant. Success could offer useful lessons for other countries to follow; failure and the climate change challenge becomes couched in ever more cataclysmic language.

One of the paradoxes of the climate change challenge, however, is that although there is a huge amount of technical and scientific data available (and an equally sizable body of research on the debate between the 'believers' and 'deniers'), there is less scholarship on the governance of climate mitigation strategies. 'Governance' in this sense is used in the broadest terms to embrace not only institutional structures but also the social dimensions (in terms of lifestyles, customs, rituals, modes of living, etc.) and the political dimensions (in terms of the impact of the electoral cycle, the dysfunctions of democracy, etc.) and how these shape the capacity of local, regional, national and supra-national governments or associations to respond to the climate change challenge. It is for exactly this reason that this book focuses on the gover

Edition details

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1783480610
• ISBN 13: 9781783480616
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208