Global Environmental Politics

Abstract

Introduction This chapter will introduce three of the most prominent global environmental discourses: sustainable development, environmental security and environmental justice. It begins by tracking the emergence of environmental problems as a ‘global’ political problem and traces the discursive shift from ‘limits to growth’ in the early 1970s to sustainable development in the 1980s. It then highlights the environmental challenges of the post-Cold War period and introduces the discourses of environmental justice and ecological security. This is followed by a brief introduction to the different ways in which the basic questions of global environmental politics have been addressed (or ignored)..