Human Induced Climate Change from a Political Economy Perspective

Human induced climate change (CC) is one of the major and most encompassing threats in the world today (Dryzek et al., 2011). While the facts and highly consensual predictions amongst natural scientists are increasingly well-known, the understanding of CC as a social science subject is more unclear and controversial. This chapter briefly summarises the current state of climate science and then discusses the evolution of CC as a social ecological economic issue with emphasis on its parallel development with capitalism and highlighting past research and recent advances. The chapter concludes by outlining future directions both for research and policymaking.