About this Event

Social-movement activism on climate change has expanded dramatically in recent years. Yet, much recent political science work on climate change has downplayed the climate movement's influence, arguing that industrial actors are the prime-movers of climate politics. So (how) does the climate movement shape climate politics? Drawing on a mixed-methods study of campaigns to end new licences for oil and gas exploration and production in the UK and Norway, this presentation will argue that a consequential way in which climate-movement actors can influence politics is by “climatizing” issues not previously framed through a climate lens, turning those issues into salient items on the political agenda. Prima facie evidence of the impact of this agenda-shift on the positions of other political actors in each country, including mainstream political parties, will also be presented.

About the Presenter

Dr Fergus Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy, University College London. He works on questions at the intersection of political economy, political theory, public policy and law concerning the drivers of and responses to climate change, with a particular focus on fossil fuels. He has published in a wide range of academic journals—including Science, the American Political Science Review and Global Environmental Politics—and is a three-time chapter co-author of UNEP’s fossil fuel Production Gap Report. He has also consulted for the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, and on fossil fuel-related litigation in multiple countries. Before entering academia, Fergus worked as a lawyer in Australia specialising in climate, energy, environmental and water law. Fergus moved to London in 2012 after receiving a Sir John Monash Scholarship to support his graduate studies at the LSE, where he also worked as a Policy Analyst & Research Advisor to Professor Nicholas Stern.