The Politics of Energy and Climate Change

Abstract

Social science has a crucial role to play in informing policy makers about political and institutional strategies conducive to implementing more ambitious energy-related climate change policies. This chapter reviews major avenues of research in political science and related disciplines that examine energy policy and climate change. It focuses on how individuals, civil society, business, and governments affect climate-related energy policies. The second section suggests three issues with the potential to promote more rapid decarbonization of energy systems, but which have not been a sustained focus of research to date: (1) the politics of low-carbon economic development, (2) innovation and the deployment of new technologies, and (3) the politics of negative emissions and geoengineering technologies.