Geography and the Politics of Climate Policy

Despite widespread recognition that many of the severest obstacles to climate policy are political (in the form of resistance from political parties, business groups and electorates) rather than scientific, technological or economic and a growing literature on the spatial dimensions of climate governance, geographical research has yet systematically to address how geographical thinking can inform the development of political strategies to assist governments to overcome political opposition to climate policy. In this article we argue for, and explore the outlines of, such a geographical contribution to understanding and reinvigorating the politics of climate change. We particularly draw attention to the importance of context and of how geographical theorisations on the politics of scale and networks can assist in evaluating future political strategies for climate policy