1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of the Environment

Edited By Éloi Laurent, Klara Zwickl Copyright 2022
    396 Pages 37 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    396 Pages 37 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Featuring a stellar international cast list of leading and cutting-edge scholars, The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of the Environment presents the state of the art of the discipline that considers ecological issues and crises from a political economy perspective. This collective volume sheds new light on the effect of economic and power inequality on environmental dynamics and, conversely, on the economic and social impact of environmental dynamics.

    The chapters gathered in this handbook make four original contributions to the field of political economy of the environment. First, they revisit essential concepts and methods of environmental economics in the light of their political economy. Second, they introduce readers to recent theoretical and empirical advances in key issues of political economy of the environment with a special focus on the relationship between inequality and environmental degradation, a nexus that has dramatically come into focus with the COVID crisis. Third, the authors of this handbook open the field to its critical global and regional dimensions: global issues, such as the environmental justice movement and inequality and climate change as well as regional issues such as agriculture systems, air pollution, natural resources appropriation and urban sustainability. Fourth and finally, the work shows how novel analysis can translate into new forms of public policy that require institutional reform and new policy tools. Ecosystems preservation, international climate negotiations and climate mitigation policies all have a strong distributional dimension that chapters point to. Pressing environmental policy such as carbon pricing and low-carbon and energy transitions entail numerous social issues that also need to be accounted for with new analytical and technological tools.

    This handbook will be an invaluable reference, research and teaching tool for anyone interested in political economy approaches to environmental issues and ecological crises.

    1. Introduction: Political Economy of the Environment in the Century of Ecological Crises
    Éloi Laurent and Klara Zwickl

    2. Political Economy of the Environment: a look back and ahead
    James K. Boyce

     

    Part 1. Inequality and the Environment

    A theoretical, empirical and historical framework

    3. The Sustainability-Justice Nexus
    Éloi Laurent

    4. A socio-metabolic perspective on (material) growth and inequality
    Anke Schaffartzik and Fridolin Krausmann

    5. The history of environmental and energy economics through the lens of political economy
    Antoine Missemer

     

    Global and Regional Political Economy of the Environment

    6. Global Environmental and Climate Justice Movements
    David N. Pellow

    7. Global inequalities and climate change
    Céline Guivarch and Nicolas Taconet

    8. Natural disasters, poverty and inequality: new metrics for fairer policies
    Stéphane Hallegatte and Brian Walsh

    9. Contracts and Dispossession: Agribusiness Venture Agreements in the Philippines
    Alfredo R.M. Rosete

    10. Natural Resources, Climate Change and Inequality in Africa
    James Murombedzi

    11. From Western Pennsylvania to the World: Environmental Injustice and the Ethane-to>Plastics Global Production Network
    Diane Sicotte

    12. Latin America Caught Between Inequality and Natural Capital Degradation: a view from macro and micro data
    Juan-Camilo Cardenas

    13. Air quality co-benefits of climate mitigation in the European Union
    Klara Zwickl and Simon Sturn

    14. Designing Urban Sustainability: Environmental Justice in EU-Funded Projects
    Ian Cook and Tamara Steger

     

    Part 2. From analysis to modelling and policy

    From analysis to policy

    15. From the Welfare State to the Social-ecological State
    Éloi Laurent

    16. Promoting Justice in Global Climate Policies
    Michel Bourban

    17. Carbon Pricing and Climate Justice
    James K. Boyce

    18. Political economy of border carbon adjustment
    Paul Malliet and Ruben Haalebos

    19. Political Economy of Forest Protection
    Alain Karsenty

     

    Modelling and policy

    20. Informing the political economy of energy and climate transitions: modelling tools, pathways design frameworks and analytical challenges
    Patrick Criqui and Henri Waisman

    21. Diagnostics and Policy tools to measure and mitigate environmental health inequalities
    Julien Caudeville

    22. Building on the Right-to-Know: Data Interlinkage and Information Intermediation for Environmental and Corporate Regulation
    Richard Puchalsky, Michael Ash and James K. Boyce

    23. Conclusion: New frontiers in the political economy of the environment
    Éloi Laurent and Klara Zwickl

    Biography

    Éloi Laurent is Senior Economist at OFCE/Sciences Po, France, Professor at the School of Management and Innovation at Sciences Po and Ponts ParisTech and a visiting professor at Stanford University, USA.

    Klara Zwickl is Assistant Professor at the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

    "Tackling the unprecedented challenges of the 21st century will depend to a great extent on the social sciences we use to understand them and to suggest appropriate interventions. Yet the pre-eminent social science, economics, remains largely blind and uninterested regarding two of the most pressing challenges: the environment and inequality. This landmark volume tackles both of these gaps together and head on, introducing readers to a growing body of exciting work that aims to revolutionize economics, and thereby to tackle the grievous and daunting injustices of our age. A must-read for anyone interested in a deeper reconstruction of the economic ideas that have shaped our current crisis and how they can be transformed."

    - David Tyfield, Professor of Sustainable Transitions and Political Economy, Lancaster University, UK