Drawing upon a variety of empirical and theoretical perspectives, The Urban Climate Challenge provides a hands-on perspective about the political and technical challenges now facing cities and transnational urban networks in the global climate regime. Bringing together experts working in the fields of global environmental governance, urban sustainability and climate change, this volume explores the ways in which cities, transnational urban networks and global policy institutions are repositioning themselves in relation to this changing global policy environment. Focusing on both Northern and Southern experience across the globe, three questions that have strong bearing on the ways in which we understand and assess the changing relationship between cities and global climate system are examined. The Urban Climate Challenge will be of interest to scholars of urban climate policy, global environmental governance and climate change. It will be of interest to readers more generally interested in the ways in which cities are now addressing the inter-related challenges of sustainable urban growth and global climate change. Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138776883_oachapter11.pdf Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138776883_oachapter9.pdf

This book is about cities as engines of consumption of the world's environment, and the spread of policies to reduce their impact. It looks at these issues by examining the impact of the Rio Declaration and assesses the extent to which it has made a difference. Consuming Cities examines this impact using case studies from around the world including: the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, China, India, Sweden, Poland, Australia and Indonesia The contributors all have direct experience of the urban environment and urban policies in the countries on which they write and offer an authoritative commentary which brings the urban 'consumption' dimension of sustainable development into focus.

On one day in 2009, in thirty-eight countries around the world, 4,000 ordinary citizens gathered to discuss the future of climate policy. This project, 'WWViews', was the first-ever global democratic deliberation – an attempt to enable ordinary people to reach informed decisions on and impact the global policy process. This book – which analyzes the experiences and lessons from this ground-breaking event – marks the beginning of a new kind of democratic politics, providing practical lessons on how to increase the impact of global deliberation projects within the media and on official policy processes. The authors explore important themes for participatory approaches from the local to the global: the role of deliberation within global governance methodology and practice participant selection; policy impacts engaging the media how policy culture affects deliberation uptake capacity building and knowledge transfer process evaluation content and argumentation analysis gender, race and class aspects. The global aims of the 'WWViews project', along with the opportunity to evaluate the same process in different national and cultural contexts, makes this a hugely valuable and informative study for all those interested in democratic deliberation and environmental governance from the small to the international scale.

Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability. Cities and Climate Change is the first in-depth analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change. The book argues that key challenges concerning the resources and powers of local government, as well as conflicts between local goals for economic development and climate change mitigation, have restricted the level of local action on climate change. These findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary analysis of these issues, and will appeal to students and researchers interested in sustainability at local and global scales.

First James Lovelock, and recently Prince William and David Attenborough believe that we have reached a tipping point in the process of climate change. Whether they are right or not, it is certainly true that the impact of humankind upon the ecology of the earth has reached a point where real changes in human behaviour are required. If managers are to be enablers of planetary survival then we need to develop a new approach to risk, which explicitly includes ecological limits upon economic behaviour. This implies a fundamental reorientation of their role in allocating resources to minimise risk and maximise reward. This book brings together some of the brightest contemporary thinkers on leadership, complexity and sustainability to consider the big ideas that we will need to make the changes required, and to outline the major themes that can inform a new approach to constructing a green world. It looks at how to ensure that local models of sustainability are able to flourish in the context of global networks and presents specific case studies of markets and organisations that offer insights into the development integrated solutions and the leadership lessons we can learn. Combining both theory and practice, this book serves to guide business managers and provides deeper insight and critical perspectives on some of the key issues facing leaders moving towards the green economy. It also provides useful supplementary reading for students in business and environmental studies.

Taking a critical perspective and providing a comprehensive framework on globalization and governance, this book examines what institutional mechanisms and arrangements will enable people to achieve sustainable environmental governance.