MCF Seminar Series: Climate Governance as System Transformation

About the event:

On the “Emissions Paradigm” of climate governance, climate change is understood as a problem of agents’ greenhouse gas emissions, and powerful agents are expected to disclose and reduce ‘their’ emissions. Fergus Green argues that this paradigm produces perverse responses in circumstances where entrenched systems (material, legal-political, economic, social-cultural) encourage emissions-producing behaviour. Better to focus on understanding and transforming these “emissions-conducive systems”, i.e., adopt a “Systems Paradigm” of climate governance. Drawing on case studies ranging from media conglomerates to law firms to petrostates, he argues that the Systems Paradigm would promote more effective responses to the climate crisis. 

About the speaker:

Dr Fergus Green is a Lecturer in Political Theory & Public Policy in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy, University College London. He works on the politics, governance and ethics of low-carbon transitions. His work has been published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Political Philosophy and Nature Climate Change. Fergus also worked as a lawyer specialising in climate change, energy, environmental and water law, and as a Policy Analyst & Research Advisor to Professor Nicholas Stern at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.