Contemporary Climate Change Debates

Mike Hulme is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Cambridge, UK, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Reseach and Editor-in-Chief of the review journal WIREs Climate Change. He is the author of eight books on climate change, including Why We Disagree About Climate Change and Can Science Fix Climate Change?

Introduction: Why and how to debate climate change; 1. Is climate change the most important challenge of our times?; PART I: What do we need to know?; 2. Is the concept of ‘tipping point’ helpful for describing and communicating possible climate futures?; 3. Should individual extreme weather events be attributed to human agency?; 4. Does climate change drive violence, conflict and human migration?; 5. Can the social cost of carbon be calculated?; PART II: What should we do?; 6. Are carbon markets the best way to address climate change?; 7. Should future investments in energy technology be limited exclusively to renewables?; 8. Is it necessary to research solar climate engineering as a possible backstop technology?; PART III: On what grounds should we base our actions?; 9. Is emphasising consensus in climate science helpful for policymaking?; 10. Do rich people rather than rich countries bear the greatest responsibility for climate change?; 11. Is climate change a human rights violation?; PART IV: Who should be the agents of change?; 12. Does successful emissions reduction lie in the hands of non-state rather than state actors?; 13. Is legal adjudication essential for enforcing ambitious climate change policies?; 14. Does the ‘Chinese model’ of environmental governance demonstrate to the world how to govern the climate?; 15. Are social media making constructive climate policymaking harder?