Time to Re-Think Solutions

For people working to address climate change, there is certainly no viable alternative to reading this book. Beyond Politics presses readers to think beyond their current conception of climate change solutions and, while laying out a reasoned private governance response accompanied by a realistic assessment of its limitations, provides the groundwork for future research and initiatives to reduce emissions.

Climate change—arguably one of the most pressing and politically charged issues of our time—is a problem so huge and complex only governments can solve it. Such is the view that Beyond Politics: The Private Governance Response to Climate Change attempts to deconstruct in our minds. By severing the seemingly inexorable tie between climate change and government solutions, we can expand our conception of climate change to include private governance solutions. Drawing from multiple disciplines, Michael Vandenbergh and Jonathan Gilligan, both from Vanderbilt University, USA, provide a timely and comprehensive analysis of the challenges of both preventing catastrophic warming and depending on governmental solutions, in a time of political gridlock. In doing so, they lay the foundation for their proposal that private governance currently provides the most viable solution for addressing climate change. Vandenbergh, a lawyer and director of both Vanderbilt University’s Energy, Environment, and Land Use Program and Climate Change Research Network, and Gilligan, a professor of earth and environmental sciences and civil and environmental engineering, and associate director for research in the Climate Change Research Network, are both exceptionally qualified to provide an extensively researched book with a carefully reasoned argument that offers a new realm of possible climate solutions through private governance.

Read the whole review at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0106-0