My guest for this episode is Robert Falkner. Robert is a TRIUM Academic Director, an Associate Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Before his time at the LSE, Robert held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford, Kent and Essex, as well as a visiting scholar position at Harvard. In this episode we discuss how moral reasoning and more narrowly defined state self-interest have both impacted the design and implementation of international agreements on climate. We also speculate on what a re-engaged USA, and a newly engaged China may mean for the future of such agreements. Using the same normative/self-interest framework, we explore the likely future role of private enterprise in implementing and driving sustainability. We eventually agree that normative and self-interested rationales will likely have to be – and hopeful will be – aligned for consequential change to occur. Whether this occurs in time to avoid disaster, is the critical question.

Related Material:

-- Robert's latest book: Falkner, Robert (2019), ‘The Unavoidability of Justice - and Order - in International Climate Politics: From Kyoto to Paris and Beyond’, in: British Journal of Politics and International Relations, (21) 2: 270-78. https://www.robertfalkner.org/s/Falkner-2019-Unavoidability-of-Justice-and-Order-in-International-Climate-Politics.pdf

-- Robert's forthcoming book: Falkner, Robert (2021) Environmentalism and Global International Society (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, vol. 156). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/environmentalism-and-global-international-society/8185AA689F106BAEEAD7E2EE0A4A233E

-- Robert's recommended book: Oreskes, N. & Conway, E. M. (2012), Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury.

-- Work mentioned: Shue, H. (1992). The unavoidability of justice. In: The international politics of the environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions. Edited by A. Hurrell and B. Kingsbury. Oxford, Clarendon Press: 373-397.

Host: Matt Mulford | Guest: Robert Falkner | Editor: Théophile Letort

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