International Law in the Era of Climate Change. By ROSEMARY RAYFUSE and SHIRLEY V. SCOTT

Abstract

Numerous commentators view climate change in the positive sense of providing a change in narrative (detecting increasing signs of human kind seeking a more sustainable presence in the Earth system): see for instance, Mark Lynas’ The God Species – How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans (Fourth Estate 2011). Lynas attributed this in part to the transforming potential of international climate negotiations. An antidote to such optimism is offered by Rayfuse and Scott at the very start of this edited volume. Their opening chapter points in blunt terms to continuing disappointments both over and post-Kyoto, and the overwhelming hurdles posed by ‘the broad range of political and economic interests at stake’ (p 4). Yet the editors would agree with Lynas at least to the extent that the narrative has changed: with, in their own context, significant implications for the future development of discrete environmental law regimes that offer a wide range of international cooperation and coordination.