International Political Ecology and Political Economy of Climate Change

Ulrich Brand
Professor of International Politics
at the Institute of Political Science, Vienna University

Discussant: Bedřich Moldan
Director of the Environment Center, Charles University

Chair: Ondřej Horký, Institute of International Relations

Working language:

English

The invitation leaflet with further information you can download here.

Abstract

Since the Conference of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhaguen in 2009, much of the political and scientific debate focuses on the implementation problems of international climate change policies. The main assumption of the talk is that we need to understand better why global environmental governance is not successful. This brings us to questions of governance failure but also to those of political economy and the fact that the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are deeply embedded in political, economic and cultural practices; a fact which I call the "imperial mode of living". Theoretically, the talk is informed by international political ecology, i.e. a critical approach to understand the ecological crisis and the societal relationships with nature better.