Ecological Modernisation around the World: Perspectives and Critical Debates
Author(s)
Gibbs, David
Abstract
Environmental issues are a key area of debate in both academic and policy circles. As far back as 2001, the failure of climate change talks in The Hague, the advent of the “Rio plus ten” conference, and the potentially negative environmental stance of the then-new Bush administration mean that they will continue to be a subject of debate on both policy and research agendas for years to come. Despite the predominantly economic source of many environmental problems (for example, enhanced global warming or water scarcity and pollution), not enough economic geographers have engaged with the environment in either their empirical or theoretical work. Conversely, within environmental sociology since the new millennium, we have seen a major research effort to explore the notion of ecological modernization, both as a theoretical stance and through empirical work.
