ABSTRACT
The role that politics plays in these challenges, whether they play out within or among countries, cannot be understated. The continuing decline of the global environment can largely be put down to the failure of governments and other actors to respond in time – or at all. When we do see successes in preventing or responding to adverse environmental changes and pollution, for example in cleaner local environments in many developed countries and a handful of international successes, such as agreements among countries to curb emissions of pollutants that destroy Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer, they can often be put down to the willingness of governments and other political actors, including nongovernmental organizations and occasionally businesses, to negotiate and implement policies that prioritize environmental protection over short-term economic gain. Understanding and promoting these kinds of successes is crucially important, and in many cases vital, to the future of all societies and to natural ecosystems. This handbook is intended to be part of the process of promoting those successes: first to bolster basic
understanding of environmental changes and the underlying politics that shape them, and second to provide readers with a foundation of knowledge that can help them to promote new, more environmentally sustainable relationships between humankind and the natural world.
